- Joined
- Jan 7, 2002
- Location
- Knoxville, TN
Well, it's been a long time in the making but I've finally got my video card cooling project completed and ready for your approval. Our test subject this evening is a Gainward CardExpert Geforce3 Ti200 64MB Golden Sample card. The project? Simple. To remove all stock cooling apparatus and replace it with something that does a better job. Why? Two reasons. One, so I can overclock the card to match the speeds of a Geforce3 Ti500 or perhaps even higher. And two, because I needed a project to keep me busy . With the help of a friend's digital camera, I was able to document this tale of bewilderment, head scratching, salvation, and completion. So let's get started...
The first thing to do was track down some heatsinks that were at least 60mm X 60mm and about 10mm in height. After looking high and low on the 'net I found some at CofanUSA. After two weeks (don't you love UPS Ground from the West Coast?), I finally got them delivered to my doorstep. That same day had me driving down to a local electronics store to pick up a small 40mmX40mmX10mm fan. Here we are with the major components
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/01.jpg
And here's the card before anything was done to it. While the orb style cooler looks kind of neat, it's in components rather than a solid piece. Being in parts only hinders a heatsink's ability to transfer heat. The red color of the card looks really slick in person though.
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/02.jpg
Okay, the first step is to take off the orb cooler and the stock ramsinks. The orb came off without incident. I was actually surprised to find a generous amount of generic thermal paste underneath. It was tough to tell how the ramsinks were attached though. Glue? Adhesive thermal pad? Either way the removal method is the same. I put the card in an anti-static bag and taped it up. Then I placed that in a large zip lock bag and tossed it in the freezer. After 45 minutes I pulled it out and, using a business card underneath the tip of a small flathead screwdriver, twisted the ramsinks upward until they popped off. Unlike I had anticipated the whole process was painless. It turned out that the they were held on with adhesive thermal pads that left little to no residue on the memory chips. To be safe though, I used a Q-Tip soaked in carburetor cleaner to wipe them off. I also did the same with the Geforce chip. Here she is stripped down...
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/03.jpg
Next came the hard part...cutting the heatsinks to fit on the chips. I tried this with my dremel tool first. What a wasted effort that was. The aluminum was a bit tougher than I thought which forced me to bring out the big guns. I grabbed my gear and headed to a friend's pad. Along the way I stopped off at a Sears and picked up a metal cutting blade to fit in his bandsaw...hehehe. All I can say is it cut like warm butter using that thing.
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/04.jpg
I had two heatsinks and two things to do. One, mod one of them to fit over the Geforce chip. This included drilling holes for the mounting bolts and making sure said holes lined up perfectly with the holes in the card. And two, chop the other up into four parts at 22mm X 27mm each to fit on the memory chips (two chips per heatsink). Using the blessed bandsaw from heaven, the dremel, my pistol drill, and an electric grinder, things went pretty smooth. After all of that the bottom of the heatsinks were in need of some serious lapping. A trip to Walmart to snag some 400 and 1000 grit sandpaper fixed all that. I lapped all five heatsinks until their bottoms looked like mirrors and ended up with these...
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/05.jpg
I took some Arctic Alumina epoxy and applied it to the memory chips, mounted my new homemade ramsinks on them, and let it dry overnight. Next I used some Arctic Silver II thermal paste on the Geforce chip and mounted my other heatsink. There I decided to toss the little plastic mounting pins aside and instead go with two #4 3/4in. metal bolts. On the topside of them I used a couple of nylon washers to hold them off the heatsink.
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/06.jpg
And on the bottom I had to used two nylon spacers to keep the metal nuts from making contact with the board. If it wasn't for some small electrical thingies there I probably wouldn't have done that but I was taking as much precaution as I could.
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/07.jpg
Next up is the fan. There I used four #4 metal screws to hold it on.
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/08.jpg
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/09.jpg
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/10.jpg
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/11.jpg
I have to say that I was very nervous when I put the card back in and pressed the power button. The way my luck runs I probably zapped the card with static electricity with all this toting around. Imagine my shock when the monitor failed to come on when I hit the power! Then I decided that it was probably a good idea to plug the actual monitor cable into the actual video card so it could actually work properly. I watched in glee as I made it past POST and the desktop loaded up. Now I can proceed with "Operation: Overclock The Video Card" and see if all this time and trouble were worth it.
In the final analysis though, I'm glad I did it regardless of the results. At the very least it looks even cooler (pardon the pun) than it did before I started. And with all the red spiral wrap already inside...
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/12.jpg
it fits right in. Believe it or not I forgot to try overclocking it before I began the project so I don't have anything to compare to...DOH. Since finishing this up, I've been able to play with the core/memory speeds using 3DMark2001 as my benchmark and to test stability. Default settings were 200/450 with a 3DMark score of 5852. Now I'm able to get it to 240/545 without locking up or getting corrupted graphics. And my 3DMark score is now 6227. Not bad at all.
I'd like to see this article posted here in the "Video Card Cooling and Performance" section on the main page. Anyone know how I would go about that? Thx guys!
The first thing to do was track down some heatsinks that were at least 60mm X 60mm and about 10mm in height. After looking high and low on the 'net I found some at CofanUSA. After two weeks (don't you love UPS Ground from the West Coast?), I finally got them delivered to my doorstep. That same day had me driving down to a local electronics store to pick up a small 40mmX40mmX10mm fan. Here we are with the major components
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/01.jpg
And here's the card before anything was done to it. While the orb style cooler looks kind of neat, it's in components rather than a solid piece. Being in parts only hinders a heatsink's ability to transfer heat. The red color of the card looks really slick in person though.
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/02.jpg
Okay, the first step is to take off the orb cooler and the stock ramsinks. The orb came off without incident. I was actually surprised to find a generous amount of generic thermal paste underneath. It was tough to tell how the ramsinks were attached though. Glue? Adhesive thermal pad? Either way the removal method is the same. I put the card in an anti-static bag and taped it up. Then I placed that in a large zip lock bag and tossed it in the freezer. After 45 minutes I pulled it out and, using a business card underneath the tip of a small flathead screwdriver, twisted the ramsinks upward until they popped off. Unlike I had anticipated the whole process was painless. It turned out that the they were held on with adhesive thermal pads that left little to no residue on the memory chips. To be safe though, I used a Q-Tip soaked in carburetor cleaner to wipe them off. I also did the same with the Geforce chip. Here she is stripped down...
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/03.jpg
Next came the hard part...cutting the heatsinks to fit on the chips. I tried this with my dremel tool first. What a wasted effort that was. The aluminum was a bit tougher than I thought which forced me to bring out the big guns. I grabbed my gear and headed to a friend's pad. Along the way I stopped off at a Sears and picked up a metal cutting blade to fit in his bandsaw...hehehe. All I can say is it cut like warm butter using that thing.
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/04.jpg
I had two heatsinks and two things to do. One, mod one of them to fit over the Geforce chip. This included drilling holes for the mounting bolts and making sure said holes lined up perfectly with the holes in the card. And two, chop the other up into four parts at 22mm X 27mm each to fit on the memory chips (two chips per heatsink). Using the blessed bandsaw from heaven, the dremel, my pistol drill, and an electric grinder, things went pretty smooth. After all of that the bottom of the heatsinks were in need of some serious lapping. A trip to Walmart to snag some 400 and 1000 grit sandpaper fixed all that. I lapped all five heatsinks until their bottoms looked like mirrors and ended up with these...
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/05.jpg
I took some Arctic Alumina epoxy and applied it to the memory chips, mounted my new homemade ramsinks on them, and let it dry overnight. Next I used some Arctic Silver II thermal paste on the Geforce chip and mounted my other heatsink. There I decided to toss the little plastic mounting pins aside and instead go with two #4 3/4in. metal bolts. On the topside of them I used a couple of nylon washers to hold them off the heatsink.
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/06.jpg
And on the bottom I had to used two nylon spacers to keep the metal nuts from making contact with the board. If it wasn't for some small electrical thingies there I probably wouldn't have done that but I was taking as much precaution as I could.
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/07.jpg
Next up is the fan. There I used four #4 metal screws to hold it on.
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/08.jpg
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/09.jpg
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/10.jpg
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/11.jpg
I have to say that I was very nervous when I put the card back in and pressed the power button. The way my luck runs I probably zapped the card with static electricity with all this toting around. Imagine my shock when the monitor failed to come on when I hit the power! Then I decided that it was probably a good idea to plug the actual monitor cable into the actual video card so it could actually work properly. I watched in glee as I made it past POST and the desktop loaded up. Now I can proceed with "Operation: Overclock The Video Card" and see if all this time and trouble were worth it.
In the final analysis though, I'm glad I did it regardless of the results. At the very least it looks even cooler (pardon the pun) than it did before I started. And with all the red spiral wrap already inside...
http://user.icx.net/~tarrant/vproject/12.jpg
it fits right in. Believe it or not I forgot to try overclocking it before I began the project so I don't have anything to compare to...DOH. Since finishing this up, I've been able to play with the core/memory speeds using 3DMark2001 as my benchmark and to test stability. Default settings were 200/450 with a 3DMark score of 5852. Now I'm able to get it to 240/545 without locking up or getting corrupted graphics. And my 3DMark score is now 6227. Not bad at all.
I'd like to see this article posted here in the "Video Card Cooling and Performance" section on the main page. Anyone know how I would go about that? Thx guys!
