What a little time, no money, and spare parts will do...

OK heres the story:
I recently got a 6600gt AGP to replace my pos 5200. I got into overclocking her the second day i got her... (shame on me) and i realized that she would hit ohh 68*C in 3dmark05 and 06 during testing. and it would idle warm... around 38-39*C. Now the second day i had it BEFORE i started to overclock i lapped the hs and applied as5. wich dropped temps, i also added a 92mm fan blowing right on it. But overall this didnt help at all with the stock cooler, it just prolonged the time it took to get to 67-68*c. So i was thinking. i have an old stock p4 hs that i never use (it was actually sitting on top of the hd in my HTPC ... it really never did any thing) so i got to looking and low and behold it was just the right size for the 6600gt AGP. So 2 hrs later i have a finish product... ill keep you guys in suspense about the temps *flipoff*

Heres the hs lapped...the P4 hs (the pic dont do it justice.... its pretty damn mirror like) also note the 2 holes in the bottom left, upper being for mounting the other is so that air can hit the ram... also not the 6 holes on the middle right... same purpose so air can get to the ram.


Sory for the bad pic... here the mounting system. I used 2 3x30mm skrews with the stock springs a rubber washer directly on the back of the board being smushed by a plastic spacer finally with a nut on top.


AND HERE SHE IS IN ALL HER GLORY! damn does she look good


And here it is mounted... luckly the hs wasnt all that heavy so i really didnt need a support, but latter i just added a little ziptie up to a wire to take some load off.)


OK now for temps... can you say...
My max oc on stock cooling was 588/1272 stock being 500/900. i used 3dmark06 as a refrence and gpu ambient stayed the same between stock cooling and p4 cooling. During the graphics card tests in 06 with stock cooling the card would hit 68*C then after it would go down and idle at 37-38*C. This was a little HOT in my opinion but it is "within spec" still was too hot.

Get ready to be amazed
So i get everything put back together (so i thought) and start up my comp ... wouldnt boot... **** forgot to plug in gfx card power and hd power CRAP... (look in the last pic and you can see them unplugged ) so i plugged them back in and went to town. She started up fine with no probs i overclocked the gfx card to the settings like before. so i let the comp sit for like 10 min. Gpu ambient being the same as the stock cooling test. HOLLY CRAP 30*C idle... that blew my mind. 8*c improve ment.... i was thinking damn if i could get a 10*c improvement on load that would be fawkin awsome... so i start up 3dmark06 and rivatuner hardware montior... i let the program run its test with out peaking at the temps between tests... SOOO TEMPTING.... i literally fell out of my chair when i saw the temps... not 10*c not 15*C not 20*C but 23*C LOWER than stock cooling... bringing me to 45*C MAX load temp.... DAMN! talk about an improvement... it was great cus my work actually paid off....

Total cost
2 hrs (well not really because i had nothing else to do)
and 1 drill bit (damn fin caught it and snapped it.)

I would recommend to ANYONE that is looking for an aftermarket cooler for their graphics card... grab an old hs that you think will work better than the stock one and cut it up!

Nice job man, but you might expect that much of a difference with the size of that thing

Very nice.

Sweet! I wanna do something like this with one of my heatsinks but i dunno how to lap it lol. Modivation ftw!

ya i guess with that big of an hs it would take temps down quite a bit... mabey better than a VF700-CU?? lapping is easy just get a flat stone or sanding block and start out at 220 then 500,1000,1500,2000.... and it comes out quite well.

Nice. I may just try to mod the AMD dual core stock cooler to fit on my 7800GT. I'd need to find some RAM sinks, but at least the GPU would be cooler and I wouldn't have a huge NV Silencer sitting in the way of my chipset fan.

DANG the x2 stock cooler... the one with the heatpipes and copper would be awsome... ya you would need ramsinks on a 7800... but my 6600gt doesnt need them... even when they are ocd from 900 to 1272 the ram only runs 2*F hotter. MAN do i love this cooler.... may go for some more extreme... volt mod... (probably not) but defiently more ocing.

Soichiro said:

Nice. I may just try to mod the AMD dual core stock cooler to fit on my 7800GT. I'd need to find some RAM sinks, but at least the GPU would be cooler and I wouldn't have a huge NV Silencer sitting in the way of my chipset fan.

Click to expand...

http://www.afrotechmods.com/ram.htm you could always try that for ramsinks

NOW DOES IS SOME GHETTO *** HEAT SINKS!

OK seems as how the first pic of the base of the hs didnt do it justice. I decided to take a picture of my equally lapped stock hs. the base of the p4 hs has EXACTLY the same mirrorlike shine.





And a little movie ... (watch it it really shows in almost full ability how shiny i got the bases.)
http://teamlosi.andrevas.net/pics/comp/gfx card/P3120034.mpg

Here's my P4 cooler, and I'm keepin' it 2 slot sized!



navig

damn nice.... i was thinking about ducting a 92 mm fan so it pulls air straight from the front intakes at the bottom of the case accross the hs. and out the back for 2 slot sized... but why do that when i have absolutly no other ad in cards.... i smell a project brewing.

nice work guys!

ty.... it actually came out better than i thought.... i can oc to 600mhz on the core now.... and temps were barly pushing 48*C and no artifacts... thats the farthest i could go with the time i had.... im sure i could probably get up to 610.... but bf2 played just fine at 600/1272 bf2 is more important than ocing...

i would get MASSIVE artifacts on the stock cooler at 590 but 588 on stock cooling was fine... but it would get 68*c

Thanks for the tutorial man. I'm a little concerned for us PCI-e users, though. I think that the heatsink with the fan attached looks as if it might actually touch the bottom of the case. I couldn't imagine this being good, but I'll see if I can find a P4hs and check for myself. Though, I'm almost sure it will touch.

Navig said:

Here's my P4 cooler, and I'm keepin' it 2 slot sized!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v363/navig/P4 Rig/Heatsinks/x850xtshroud1.jpg

navig

Click to expand...

Very nice navig! Where did you get those little blowers from?

welco said:

Thanks for the tutorial man. I'm a little concerned for us PCI-e users, though. I think that the heatsink with the fan attached looks as if it might actually touch the bottom of the case. I couldn't imagine this being good, but I'll see if I can find a P4hs and check for myself. Though, I'm almost sure it will touch.

Click to expand...

You could always do what Navig did... get blowers. OR duct the fan so you can stand it perpendicular to the card and have it blow air accross the hs rather than directly on it.

Thread here.

My cooler was really an exercise in slimmer cooling. I actually plan on using the northwood with 80mm fans ducted, I think.

navig

i wonder how good the same size hs in copper would do..... why dont the companies that make the cards put good cooling on their cards... i have never seen any cooling solutions even close to mine or Navig's cooler. and ours can take up only 2 slots i we want. just like some of the cooling solutions on bigger cards but only better.

I don't know. I'm guessing few degrees, but I believe copper doesn't get rid of the heat as quickly so it would heat up in the long run. Could be wrong, but I swear that's what I've read.

As for companies not putting decent coolers on. Well, that's pretty simple. It's the price. They would rather sell a few more video cards with crappy cooling solutions at a cheaper price than sell a few less with a good cooling solution with a higher price. I understand it would hardly cost them a thing, but I guess I can deal with a lower quality heatsink better than I could a lower quality card with a good heatsink.

By the way, thank you Navig and nd4spdbh2. I will most likely use navig's idea and get working on it as soon as I find some fans like that and some more free time.