Graphics card and Motherboard cooling...

[phill9800]

Hi guys,

I have found the problems with my noise and they are, yep, the graphics card and motherboard fans...

How can I make them quieter or are there replacement models out there that will offer better cooling but with less noise or no better cooling, just less noise!!

Pics of temps and so on to follow, will put in the general hardware tho... :)

Many thanks for the help guys :)

[bluegreenshxt]

Which motherboard and graphics are you talking about?

Zalman's are the quietest "stock" hsfs for graphics and their passive chipset sinks are also good. (Depending on mobo you "may" need some airflow over it)

Rightnow, the loudest thing in my puter are the harddrives :(...going to get a Smartdrive soon, so that will be going away too :D :D

[phill9800]

I still have the NF7-S Rev 2 a the moment..

I have a 120mm at the front and a 120mm at the rear as well as a 92mm fan over the CPU and a 80mm (I think) at the top of the case...

Just wondering as it'll be just for holding files, whether or not I'd need a 9700 Pro for the graphics!! Maybe some gaming might be in order tho ;) I think its the graphics card fan thats the worst... I think the motherboard one would just have to be done for piece of mind...

I dont mind the hard drive noise, its just the damn fans!!

[grahamf]

i put the passive zalman northbridge heatsink on my sisters nf7-s rev 2 and its been running flawlessly for over a year now. as for the graphics card you could try the zalman, i think its called the vf700 or something like that, or also get an arctic cooling silencer. both will work great on your 9700 and will be much quieter.

[phill9800]

Are they something that I can get over in the UK? Been looking around at a few places for hardware and I cant really find anything at all for north bridge cooling etc... :(

[bluegreenshxt]

The nforce 2 NB doesn't run "that" hot especially when compared to the nforce4. I think any decent passive heatsink would do fine.

[-=CrAnSwIcK=-]

the fan on my 9600pro was heinously loud...but after some tinkering i got it to settle down...turns out the fan blades were rubbing ever so slightly against the fins of the heat sink...also, sometimes loose fan mount screws can cause vibration...

[phill9800]

I shall have a look at the loose fan bit, thanks cranswick... :)

Hoping I can get a heatsink and fan from Zalman then as I would love to quieten down my gaming PC!!

[yahooadam]

you and me both ;)

just GFX to go on my front ;)

www.overclock.co.uk is a good place for stuff in the UK

[phill9800]

I'm having a look there yahooadam, but what does anyone suggest?

I think the Zalman's a keeper for the chipset cooler, but what about the graphics card? I was looking at the Vantec model? what do you think?

[yahooadam]

you could allways get This (http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=149&code=013) zalman GFX cooler (aslong as you have space and dont want to use SLI)

[phill9800]

I was looking at the Zalman ZM-NB47J Northbridge Cooler and the Vantec ICEBERQ4 Premium VGA cooling kit (chipset and GPU) and I was just wondering if there was anything else you might recommend?

No need for SLI has I have an XP CPU still!! Its only a 9700 Pro mate....

[yahooadam]

i have the iceberq 4 on my NB

its orite, at 5k rpm u can hear it though (then again i took the top off)

u might wanna look into the iceberq 5 though, its a bit bigger so will cool better and only costs like another £2 or somthing

if u do get the iceberq 4, get the pro version

[phill9800]

I'm just wondering if the Iceburg 5 would fit thats all... Are there any other models that might be worth looking into? I have emailed them and asked them about it just to see what they might suggest... I hope to get an answer...

[bluegreenshxt]

For quiet I wouldn't go with Vantecs. The Zalman NB is the best if you don't require really good cooling.

[-=CrAnSwIcK=-]

after i got fed up with overall crappiness of my stock fan, i got an ATI silencer...it worked like a charm....execpt i had to mount it twice...it wasn't as easy as they advertise...cause my 9600 pro had this little cap that was sorta in the way of the core/ram sink...si it didn't quit lay flat on the core, but i just notched out the plastic casing...

[phill9800]

I have finally choosen these two:

Arctic Cooling Rev.2 ATi 1 (9600/9700/9800pro/SE/X600/X700) VGA Silencer
Zalman ZM-NB47J Northbridge Cooler

All in (including postage in other words) its around £30... Nothing to bad... A new version of the Arctic Cooling thingy for the graphics card is out on the 22/3/06 so I'm gonna wait as its meant to be even easier to install than the current one. Hope my ATI 9700 Pro card wont be a pig to install it on.. Otherwise, I'll have been wishing I had the Vantec instead!

Many thanks for the help guys :)