Budget Video Card Cooling
If you’re like me you may be a little picky when it comes to spending money. So, when it came to finding a cooling solution for my overclocked and voltage modded video card I decided to take matters into my own hands. All it took was a random cooling fan, some dental floss, and a $5 dollar set of mini screwdrivers.
Before you attempt to do anything similar in this article take caution in what you’re doing. If you don’t feel comfortable working with computer hardware, then don’t attempt to do it. I’m not responsible for anything that happens to your video card or computer. That being said, this is a fairly simple procedure. I will be demonstrating using my EVGA NVIDIA 7800GT video card. I know the card is a bit old, but it has held up to all the newest games in the last year.
First off, you will want to ensure you don’t cause damage to you video card by static electricity. Before working with my computer hardware I touch a metal object (usually my computer case) and place the hardware I’m working with on the anti-static bag that was shipped with my motherboard. As previously stated, you will need a cooling fan (I used the stock heatsink fan for my processor that I no longer use), a small screwdriver to remove the video card shroud, and some string (in my case some dental floss).
The NVIDIA 7800GT has a plastic shroud covering the fan and the heatsink. Simply remove the shroud with the screwdriver; keep the screws and shroud in case you decide that this cooling mod didn’t work out so well for you. After removing the shroud you should have something looking like this (note that I initially removed the small fan, but later reattached it):
Next, you will want to attach your spare cooling fan onto the heatsink. As with other heatsinks, I found that placing the fan so the airflow is towards the heatsink works best at reducing temperatures, but you can experiment. The way I attached the fan was by threading the string through the heatsink cooling fins and tying the fan to the heatsink.
Try to leave slack when tying the fan down, particularly because you will notice that the top of the heatsink is flat so the airflow will not be as effective if right against the heatsink. Leaving some slack in the strings will leave a cushion of air and allow the air to escape out the sides.
With the spare fan attached as well as the stock fan you will now have both providing airflow to the heatsink. The stock fan will blow air through the heatsink fins while the spare fan draws cool air from the bottom of your computer case. With everything attached your new cooling solution will look like this:
Make sure your stock fan is still plugged in, and don’t try to reattach the shroud because it won’t fit! The last thing to do is to pop your video card back onto your motherboard and make sure your spare fan is plugged into a connection on the motherboard.
So, what kind of results did I see? Well, initially I saw a reduction in idle temperature of around 3-4°C, and reduced my max temperature as much as 8°C. Now over a year later since doing this mod I am back at the same temperatures as before the mod. I suspect this has to do with a collection of dust on the heatsink that I have neglected to clean. And, of course the results will vary depending on the ambient temperatures. If you think you would like to try this cooling mod out with one of your video cards, try experimenting a little and share your results.
May 24, 2007 at 5:12 pm | Hardware |
