Zalman Cooler

Whew. I'll tell you what, it is no easy task putting the fanless Zalman heatsink on a Radeon 9700 Pro. Once you unscrew the fan, the heatsink it quite difficult to get off. I had to slowly use a blade from a hacksaw to cut one of the two plastic bolts. In the process I twisted one of the tiny little resistors almost off. I got lucky it didn't come all the way off, so I just twisted it back into place. I think it is ok, it's been working for about twenty minutes now. I would have thought it would have died if it was horribly critical. I could not then reach the second one to cut. I twisted it around for a while and finally got my mom to hold the card while i pulled the bolt out with needle nose pliers. I would have tried a Dremel but it was too much of a gamble. I would have only about a millimeter and a half for error. Which is almost as wide as a cutoff disk. Anyhow I finally got it off, and the installation wasn't impossible, but it wasn't totally without trouble. I think I may add fans to it for even better cooling/overclocking, but im just gonna let the thermal grease fuse for several days. Would I do it again? Probobly, but there were times during the mod that I wished I would just be satisfied with stock hardware. Peace.

-John-

run futuremark03 in loop for a couple hours to let the thermal grease fuse

Killer,
I did not remove the fan. I just used fine-nosed pliers, carefully squeezing and pushing the heatsink pins out from the back. There was a slight pop and they both pushed through easily after that.
This was on a Powercoloer 9700 Pro with stock ATI fan/cooler.

I'm now very happy with my Zalman too!

the zalman was the best investment i ever made. can you say silent?

One thing, on the top of the base assemblies did you guys cover the whole area with the thermal compound? I have seen in some articles that people do, but I did what the illustrations in the manual showed and that was just a strip in the grove and over the top. I figured if I tried to cover the whole thing I would run out. Also, are your sides of the heatsink about the same temperature? Both sides of mine get quite warm, but the side with the core is hotter. I know this only makes sense, but the guide said they should be simmilar temperatures.

i put some on the entire base, but i thinned and spread the coating out, just like on a hsf installation. Some still ran out though, but it's not really noticeable. i haven't actually tested the temperatures on both sides ... all i cared about it was that it was silent. Didn't feel like dealing with those dinky little fans that die on you in like 3 months. First thing i did when i got my ti 4200 was slap the zalman on.

to take the ati stock heatsink off there are two black pins on the top of the heatsink. you pull out both of the pins, then turn the card around and the plastic things pop out real easy

Since im going to be putting my zalman on is a few days, im wondering..

1)Is the stock heatsink glued on or is it just on with the two little
clips.

2) Can i use my AS3 safely on this? Is AS3 much better than the stuff it comes with?

To my knowledge the Stock HS is just clipped on but because the messed up with the shim height they had to use a thick thermal pad to actually make contact with the vpu.

If you want to use the Zalman HP you are going to have to remove the shims.

I've used AS3 before on a previous 9700pro w/o problems and I would use it over the regular white paste any day.

One Caveat don't over-tighten the cooler onto your core! I damaged my previous 9700pro doing that.

as3 will work fine, and way better than the white stuff. i don't know about your card, but my stock hs was clipped on with those clips.

I did NOT remove the shim. I read the threads, so I was on the lookout for poor contact. I put the Zalman heatsink on, after putting AS3 on the core. It left a perfect imprint.
Perfect imprint = good contact.

I left the shim on.

Wraith said:

Since im going to be putting my zalman on is a few days, im wondering..

1)Is the stock heatsink glued on or is it just on with the two little
clips.

2) Can i use my AS3 safely on this? Is AS3 much better than the stuff it comes with?

Click to expand...

1)Just take out the two pin's and the Stock HSF should come right off with just a little force.

2) I used AS3, just make sure none drips on the card itself

Also use a small razor to take the shim off, just slide the razer under the shim and start moving it all the way around the shim untill its free from the GPU. Its a little hard so take your time.

Have Fun

Yeah leave the shim on by all means. Read the instructions that come with it, lol. You just need to add plenty to the core on the 9700pro to make good contact.

From what I understand, the 'high shim' problem was more prevalent in earlier 9700 pro's. The later ones don't seem to suffer from it as much. I put the regular amount of AS3 on the core, put the zalman front heatsink on gently and removed it.

It had a clean and even imprint from the core on it.

Your mileage may vary. Indeed, I was entirely prepared to take the shim off myself, only to find that I didn't need to...