OK to disconnect fan from Radeon AIW if I don’t play games?

I’m looking to buy a second hand AGP card with built in TV tuner but I don’t want a fan on the graphics core as my machine is very very quiet so it would be noticeable. It’s a passively cooled Celeron coppermine.

I just missed out on an ATI All In Wonder (AIW) 128 which only has a heatsink on the core but I notice there are quiet a few AIW Radeons for sale cheaply but they do have a fan.
I figure that since I wont be stressing the core much it should be safe to passively cool it! I will be playing DVDs but the Rage 128 handles the same functionality with passive cooling.

The differences as I see it are that the Rage 128 AIW is probably clocked lower than the Radeon AIW, which itself is only clocked at 166 MHz. Shouldn’t be too demanding to cool especially at 0.18 micron. More importantly the Rage heatsink will be almost surely be larger as it’s designed to be passively cooled.

Any thoughts on this? Is there a simple way to monitor the Radeon core temperature via software only? My Abit board has a sensor that I could attach but I’m not sure how that would work or how accurate it would be!

I know I could remove the stock heatsink/fan and replace it with a bigger one but I don’t want the cost to escalate as it’s meant to be a cheap project. Any thoughts on a cheap solution to replacing the cooler?

Cheers

Smiling Crow

my rage fury pro with vivo came without a fan, you should be fine.

You my be better using the Zalman heat pipe (if it fits) just to be safe. VIVO operations can stress when doing the MPEG compression and better safe than sorry

Thanks for the replies,

<<my rage fury pro with vivo came without a fan, you should be fine.>>

Yes, all the Rage cards might have been passively cooled as far as I’m aware but this is a Radeon so I guess it’s a different ball game!

<<You my be better using the Zalman heat pipe (if it fits) just to be safe.>>

The Zalman sounds great but it would cost too much, this is after all a budget machine. I would buy one if I wanted to build a quiet gaming machine.

<< VIVO operations can stress when doing the MPEG compression and better safe than sorry>>

The Rage 128 handles MPEG Decoding passively cooled no problemo, so hopefully same for Radeon. But I’m not sure exactly which chip on the card, if any, handles MPEG Encoding? Since you need a Pentium 3 to get high resolution MPEG TV recordings I’m not sure if the All In Wonders pass all the MPEG encoding to the CPU or not? My impression is that the cooling is only be needed for the 3D work.

Silence is golden for me so if I buy the card cheap enough I wont be too upset if it burns out after a year but lets me live in peace. I’m thinking of running a P3 800 passively and hope it lasts a year. At $30 a pop it’s worth it. I already have a good cooler and thermal paste and I’ll drop the voltage below spec.

Regards

Crow

If you're not going to play any games, remember it's always safe to underclock it.

put an slk7 with an 80mm panaflo L1A on it. that should improve cooling and keep it quiet.

Heck, just put any cpu hs on it. I have used a hsf rated to 500mhz on a gf2, and its fine passive.

I agree with yuriman... Go grab a STOCK AMD heatsink that shoudl work If it gets too warm still, you can always underclock.. never helped my TnT2 from dieing tho :'(

I am pretty sure all of the new Radeon 9200's are passively cooled and I think they have .15 micron process and a 250Mhz core so I am betting as long as the hs is large enough you will be fine without the fan.

Thanks,

Underclock it, but of course, I completely spaced that one out
I don’t want to impact the 2D speed or MPEG performance though so I think I’ll just stick a CPU heatsink on it. Any suggestions on how to attach it to the die? Also what software could I use to underclock?

Crow

Underclock it, but of course, I completely spaced that one out
I don’t want to impact the 2D speed or MPEG performance though so I think I’ll just stick a CPU heatsink on it. Any suggestions on how to attach it to the die? Also what software could I use to underclock?

Click to expand...

I guess most people around here use either some thermal adhesive or epoxy, and some simply use zip-knots..

Basically.. use your imagination.. as long as it sticks it's all good.. but the best way to go about it would probably be some thermal adhesive.