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Some cooling help Please!

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johnboy1998

Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2009
Hi all

Can someone help I have just purchased a Sapphire hd4870 512mb card, and I was planning to buy this cooler to get rid of the stock cooler:

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=105&language=en

I know ATI chips run quite hot, so will the cooler be adequate to keep the card cool, I need a rest from vga coolers as my 9800gt sounds like its going to take off from the pci slot!

Waiting to hear from you helpful peeps before I buy thanks!
 
Have you tried putting the fans on manual and just backing em off a bit in CCC yet ? Not sure I'd go a passive one but have never tried one myself I guess.

Yeah, from what chevro1et said and the fact you can mount one ot two 120 fans on it might be pretty nice way to go. I couldn't wedge something like that in mine I guess.
 
@ chevrolet I can buy the fan add on for this, any experience with it, is it quiet?
 
Ah, ok my bad thought you were allready using it and was loud, sometimes whenn you first install em can be annoying but Ive mine just cranked down a bit manually and it's not too annoying.

I shoulda read more clearly before posting :)

;)
 
Make sure you sink the PWM chips on that card if you're using an aftermarket cooler. They're tiny (next to the large black chip near the additional PCI-E power inputs) black squares that get incredibly hot. I actually went with a second 80mm fan for active cooling with copper sinks on them with my HR-03GT.
 
@grumperfish why would I have to sink these chips if using an aftermarket cooler, when they are not sinked with the stock cooler? I presume the chips you mean are the small square ones either side of power connectors (look a bit like mini cpus), and can I buy sinks to fit these?

thanks for the help!
 
sorry my bad I understand now, was looking at wrong chips, you mean the ones under the stock cooler, theres about 6 of them!

I think I will buy the fans for the cooler as its already ordered, also I have ordered another 120mm silverstone fan, which will go to the front bottom of my case blowing air towards g/c, then I am going to mount my 120mm coolermaster on the case side above the g/c as an exhaust fan (thats if it fits).

Do you think this will be decent for airflow etc?
 
sorry my bad I understand now, was looking at wrong chips, you mean the ones under the stock cooler, theres about 6 of them!

See the line of tiny black rectangles directly below the large Vitec chip and the 2 small ferrite blocks? The 3 on the left and then the 2 to the right of them?:




These are usually sinked (sortof) by the stock cooler. With an aftermarket cooler you need to find some way to sink them as they get incredibly hot and basically control the power going to your card.
 
ok thanks for the pic! I got the accelero S1 rev.2 today, and its supplied with vrm sinks and memory sinks, however they have sticky backs to them!

So should I soak them in some hot water and remove the sticky pads and use some paste to stick them on or just leave the pads? If my Artic silver ceramique will definetly keep the sinks stuck to the chips then I would do that, no experience doing this myself so will wait for some advice! thanks!
 
Use the pads, they are thermal sticky paste. Clean the ram and mosfet chips very well. They will have an oily residue on them. They need to be spotless and the tape will stick well. Once you put the small HS on a ram chip, let 'em sit a bit, you should be able to pick up the card with it. If not, it wasn't good enuff and you should go with the Tpaste instead of the Ttape.

I use Artic Silver to clean my chips first. My Thermalright Ttape worked like a charm on my 8800GT. There is also Asaka Ttape sticky tape you can buy, really good stuff. But chips gotta be spotless, thats the big mistake usually made.
 
@Conundrum
Hi, thanks you said you use artic silver cleaner, I was looking at that online, it comes with a cleaner and a purifier, so if I used that I wouldnt need to use a eraser to clean the vrms etc as noted in the cooler manual?
 
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