PROJECT LOG GPU Cooling Upgrade

[pqwoerituytruei]

Disassembly/teardown:

https://imgur.com/a/DvthwXb

The upgrade:

https://imgur.com/a/AOHDtRb

Parts:

• Arctic Cooling Mono Plus
• Noctua NF-A4 PWM fan
• Aluminum (16 and 18 AWG)
• Copper (24 AWG)
• Cable Sleeving
• Heat shrink
• Fan header (female) + pins
• A ADWITS [ 6-Pack ] Thermal Pads
• 3M stainless steel screw kit
• 2x 20x20x10mm black anodized aluminum heat syncs (not in use yet, waiting on international shipping)

Got some aluminum and copper at the local sheet metal shop
The screws i had did not fit through the VRM mount holes and the head did not fit in the backplate
Used a grinder on the screw heads and drilled out the backplate so the screw would go through it (screw fit through the PCB no problem)

Edited the vBIOS to make the fan curve ramp up sooner if I left it stock it would never ramp up at all as the card tops out well below the stock target temperature
now here is some odd fan stuff I figured out:

• PWM % is changed by the card selecting a desired RPM, there is no way i can see to change the min rpm in the vbios editor (the max is changeable)
• Arctic fan at 0% PWM = 100% speed, unless card is receiving sense from this fan this does not apply and the fan will from at the min rpm the card allows (not the fan's min)
• The NF-A4 PWM has support for 0 RPM mode
• If the arctic fans sense is plugged into the card the rpm range you end with with a very small window of speed control as the min is 1100 rpm

So what I did was use the card's stock splitter for my fans and use the sense from the noctua fan along with a LNA since the card is gonna pick a RPM and use what ever PWM % gives it i can make it use a higher % by using a LNA so the arctic fan spins a little faster than without the LNA being on the noctua fan
oddly when using a LNA with my NF-A4 PWM i have a couple different LNA SKUs, using one resulted in a max of 4700 and the other make it drop to 4500 with 100% PWM, not the expected 3800 max

 

[pqwoerituytruei]

I now have revised the fan mount/shroud for the noctua fan, the new shroud is made of stainless steel and is designed to direct the hot air to the exhaust fan so it does not recirculate in the case
The 20x20x10mm black anodized aluminum heat syncs have arrived and I mounted 5 onto the backplate

https://imgur.com/a/noNmQJG

As for the LNA giving the wrong speed, i had the wrong LNA, the correct was in the box the fan came in and not my assorted cables

 

[godevskii]

Not sure if the heatsinks on the backplate do anything relevant, but i do like this type of getto mods.

Also not sure if the pokemon (or whatever it is) card on the cpu cooler looks good, to my eyes its just weird... But hey if you like it, keep on...

 

[pqwoerituytruei]

Not sure if the heatsinks on the backplate do anything relevant, but i do like this type of getto mods.

I think it helps a few C, the main thing is the SSD is not hitting 80C (that thing runs silly hot ~60C just idle and ~65C under a heavy read load, this is with a fin stack attached, if you add GPU radiant heat to that it gets really hot)

Also not sure if the pokemon (or whatever it is) card on the cpu cooler looks good, to my eyes its just weird... But hey if you like it, keep on...

The Pokemon on the card is a Noctowl, seemed appropriate for a Noctua cooler whit there logo being a owl's face