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cooling power of a zalman cnps3100cu+

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bixit_62

Member
Joined
May 9, 2004
hey
i've got me a zalman cnps3100cu flower cooler not doing anything, and i figured i would try to mount it onto my graphics card.
i've managed to mark out a bracket onto some steel sheet although i did make a card mock-up and it would definetly fit and hold it in place, although i am a little wary with hanging a huge lump of copper off the ti4800
what i would like to know is, would it be possible to run the graphics card passively after mounting the flower cooler?i'm actually not gna bend any of the fins, as i can still keep the sound card where it is and just have to move my intel nic down to the last slot which is ok.
i will also mount an 80mm fan blowing THROUGH the heatsink, not on top of as it would be mounted on a cpu, but blowing through the sides of the fins, as there are slots within each fin which i hope will be enough to actually allow some level of cooling, although this fan will be on a switch, so will only really be turned on when the temp of the heatsink gets too high, will be monitoring it using a probe off my aerogate, am gna cut the bracket when i get in from work today, and will see if it'd actually work.
just need to know whether it'd be safe to run it passively.i dont really game much and am even considering UNDERclocking the gpu, i only really use the machine to browse the net and word/excel/publisher work.
thanx all!
 
ah
how would/could i prevent warping?
the idea was to cut out 2 brackets which would be used to mount the heatsink, and then design and make another plate which would sit across the back of the card, and am still trying to figure out how to attach this to the side of the case or something or other to give it support.if worse comes to worse, will use some sort of U or L channel of aluminium on the side of the card facing toward the bottom of the case to provide support.
would this work?also, what would be a considerably easier alternative to stop the warping?
i've got at my disposal, a 30cm square piece of 3mm thick aluminium, which i dont really wanna have to use as is working quite well as a mouse mat, a fair bit of 1.8mm steel sheet and somewhere some 2mm copper plate also.
thanx.
 
bixit_62 said:
considering UNDERclocking the gpu, i only really use the machine to browse the net and word/excel/publisher work.
thanx all!

Is the current fan too loud or something? Why would you take such a risk if you didn't want to reap any benefit???
 
yup, it is pretty loud, and its whiny. much rather have it running passively/semi-passively so that its reasonably quiet, the fan on it now is the loudest thing in my pc aside from the harddrive,so really would wana eliminate that fan, so figured if i used a heatsink with a big enough surface area, i may be able to completely dispense with the need to use a fan on the graphics card all the time.
 
hey all
update on this....
well i cut out a bracket from some wood that i had,it was a LOT easier to cut and i wouldnt need such a thick piece as i would metal to get it strong enough so it woudlnt flex
put the bracket in, spread out the fins as they were originally and mounted it on using 3mm bolts, a large PCB spacer and a spring between the bracket and the bit of the heatsink where it makes contact with the bracket to allow it a little room to move as it were. and its on there, first the card did warp, a LOT! but loosened the fixings a little and not so much flexing now, but still fantastic contact.
gna make a better bracket soon, when i get the chance, the one im using right now is 12 mm thick! and it kinda hinders the ability to open all of the fins properly.
 
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