What HS/F to use for OC a Geforce2 MX 400?

[dreamtfk]

Im thinking of overclocking my Geforce2 what Fan should i get to cool this baby, and do i need to put it over the GPU or memory?

[Ice Breaker 489]

i reccomend putting a blue orb on your gpu...a crystal orb will do you well too. check them out at thermaltake.com. as for your memory you can add those seperate tin coated copper ramsinks at heatsinkfactory.com.

you'll need to remove your stock hsf and add the blue or or crystal orb. you can do that by freezing your card in an antistatic bag for about 10-15min in a freezer put a card underneath the hsf and pop it off with a screw driver. as for your memory use arctic silver alumina to attach them on.

If u dont get what im saying its cool...more people will reply with better ways of explaining this stuff.:D

[dreamtfk]

No I kinda get what your saying even though im new to overclocking. Im using Coolbits right now, but how do I know when my Vid Card is getting too hot? Is there a program to measure the temperature of my Vid card? I wanna get a little bit of performance boost out of it, but I dont want to push it )

[Ice Breaker 489]

actually i wouldnt know how to see the vid card temps...

but u could always use powerstrip to OC it. Push it slightly everytime until it becomes unstable (shows fragments when playing games - probably thats how u know uve pushed it too far) then just bring it down.

[dreamtfk]

Ok well I started getting fragments during Medal of Honor (Quake3 engine), so I figured it was overheating. I did notice a little bit of gain in FPS though so I guess it was working. I set everything back to defaults for now until I get new HS/F and some Ram Sinks. So once I get those put on to my Vid card It will be a bit more safe to up the Core Clock and Mem Clock? Got any idea what I can push them both up to? Default is 200/160 its a MX400 64mb

Oh yeh btw Ice, you sure that putting card in freezer trick wont damage it?

[Ice Breaker 489]

it wont get damaged if u put it in an antistatic bag and dont leave it in there for like a day or something like that.

some people here in the vid/sound card forum has OC'd their mx400s you should look at some of their posts because i dont have any experience with them.

actually i didnt even need to freeze my radeon 7500. but i would reccomend doing so because i probably just got lucky.

[dreamtfk]

Hey Ice one more question for ya. Do I really need Ramsinks? And If so can I just buy some generic aluminum sinks from Radio Shack instead of the expensive TweakMonster copper ones? (im not too concerned about looks)

[Twinkle]

I've got an MX 400 with an old socket 7 Pentium cooler on it and I'd say it over clocks sort of well. Stock 175/130 O/C 230/145 Core/Mem

[Ice Breaker 489]

you can get the aluminum ones from radioshack if u cant bare tweakmonsters pricey ramsinks. But they are high quality and not just looks (all copper and tin coated). Copper is more conductive than aluminum therefore it transfers heat better. And i do reccomend putting ramsinks if u want to keep your memory on your card OC'd.

They do cost alot in my opinion ($30.99 for 8 ramsinks - thats almost $4 dollars a peice!). so instead I'm cutting up the blue thermaltake HS (passive memory cooling kit is only $8.99) to fit on the memory on my card, it will match the color of my blue orb too!:D

[SickBoy]

Originally posted by Twinkle
I've got an MX 400 with an old socket 7 Pentium cooler on it and I'd say it over clocks sort of well. Stock 175/130 O/C 230/145 Core/Mem

Your memory bus is 130 MHz stock? Dang thats slow. My plain jane GF2MX has 175/160 core/mem default speeds...

[Twinkle]

Yeah its that slow, and it has 7 ns ram, I guess thats what i get for buying one of the "cheap" ones.

[dreamtfk]

Shouldn't I only need 4 Ramsinks since only 4 memory chips are present on the card?

[quatto]

Some vid cards have 4 chips on one side and 4 on the other.

[dreadlord79]

If you are set on OC'ing the card, put ramsinks on it dude. Remember that when you OC the card, its not just the GPU that you are OC'ing, its the ram to. Go with copper cored ramsinks since the heat is absorbed much better by copper. The idea that ICE was talking about is a good one (and cheaper which can some times be good). Here is the link for the Thermaltake DDR Heatsink package:
http://www.svcompucycle.com/therddrheats.html
$7.99 is not bad for a good quaility product which can do you just as good as other more expensive things. The Tt product is not copper though. :( Some food for thought. :)

[Ice Breaker 489]

Preach on Dreadlord!:D

I'm cutting up the Tt heatsinks tomorrow. Nope they are not copper but anodized aluminum is still really good for cooling memory. If the memory is lined up next to each other in a row you should just buy the Tt heatsinks, you won't have to cut them up if theyre close together and there isn't anything in between them. By the way, what company makes your card?

[dreamtfk]

So I just cut up that big heatink into 8 parts? what would be best to cut it evenly?

Btw one more question, is there any way to OC motherboard memory(DDR), I heard something about voltage?

-me still learning sorry )

[Ice Breaker 489]

dont worry we are all pretty much still learning...

you can OC the FSB (front side bus) through the bios read your manual the a7v266-e is very good for OCing. and it usually tells u how to.

as for cutting up HS use a hack saw. thats what i learned a few days ago. but like i said if the memory is lined up together u dont need to cut up the Tt HS.

sorry i can't go into great detail about OC'ing cause I'm kinda busy during this weekend. I'm sure other members can help u out in a great deal though

[dreamtfk]

Hey its cool from just these few posts Ive learned a bunch. My memory is spread out so its hacksaw time. That heatsink will cut up into right sized pieces?

Also when it comes to the Thermal compound (i got some ArcticSilver2) Will it actually hold the Heatsinks on or do i need to mix a tiny bit of regular glue with it? (Never done it before) :D I know that you are supposed to use a very thin layer of the compund and it will expand with heat over time.

[Ice Breaker 489]

you could mix the ASII with super glue...but ive never tried that...u could also put a dot of super glue on one of the corners of the memory and ASII in the center

Be warned if the ASII gets on the metal pins on the memory your basically screwed because of the silver...

I would buy Arctic alumina adhesive...it will hold the ramsinks and wont damage it if it touches the pins.

ASII isnt an adhesive so don't expect it to hold onto anything...its just a heat transfer compound. Save the ASII for your cpu or gpu.

Also when u cut up the HS give about 3 fins for each individual HS.

[dreamtfk]

Awesome its all seeming more clear now. I cannot find where to adjust FSB in system Bios I am reading the manual. Anyone out there got same Mobo who might know?

[dreadlord79]

Here is a site to get that AS Alumina Adhesive that ICE was talking about:
http://www.svcompucycle.com/araltherad.html
$6.45 plus free shipping by U.S. Postal is pretty good also. :)