Hi guys,

I'm going to suggest you what may very well be the most effective air cooling which you can currently buy :)
EDIT: this works for G9x cards, but doesn't fit the newer GTX 2xx ones. See next post for more (currently not very complete) information.

The initial condition:
- I had a 9800GTX+ with the stock cooler
- it ran at 50°C /30% fan at idle, very silent
- in 3D Mark it got distractingly loud
- with GPU-Grid it was at 70°C / 60% fan and was louder than my PC (Q6600@3GHz) and laptop together
- the sound was just rushing air, no high pitched whine like in the 3D Mark, but too loud for me

What I did:
- bought an Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev. 2 for 15€
- mounting took some time, had to be careful with my new baby
- very minor incompatibility: had to cut it once near the slot bracket, because some strange plastic thing connects the card with the bracket for the 2nd slot
- attached 2 120 mm fans with cable ties
- I chose Arctic Cooling fans, because they're cheap, silent enough at lower RPMs and I can control them via PWM

The result:
- pictures 1 and 2
- now the card folds GPU-Grid at 53°C (24°C room) and my PC is as silent as it was before :)

Random thoughts:
- generally the Arctic Cooling TIM is surprisingly good
- however, exchanging it (e.g. for AS5) may improve temperatures a little further
- some small chips of the voltage regulation circuitry were contacted by the stock fan, now they don't have coolers any more
- I'm not sure how much the 70°C stock cooler actually cooled them
- now one of the fans is just a few cm away from them.. I guess it will be fine
- if you want to play it safe you may attach RAM sinks to them, which you'd have to get seperately

All in all I'm very pleased with this modification!

MrS

Edit: spelling

---

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

For GTX 2xx cards there's a test of a powerful, silöent and high priced solution here, the Accelero Xtreme GTX 280. The PWMs did get quite hot during the test, but Furmark is much more demanding than GPU-Grid (and possibly any other real world CUDA app) and still more demanding than games.. so I don't think this is a show stopper.

The Scythe Musashi in its newer version and the Thermalright HR-03 GTX are also compatible. Might be nice to have a comparison of all three.

MrS

---

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

Like to know of a cooler for the 260's & 280's too as I have a 280 running Linux thats almost to hot to the touch running @ 75c ... 0_o

As of now, both companys that produce gtx260 and gtx280 coolers have stopped shipping and promise to soon release new ones.

look out for scythe musashi (currently the holes not compatible, and nvio cooling missing!) and the thermalright hr-03 gtx. Both should be shipping soon, personaly i´ll get the musashi.

Like to know of a cooler for the 260's & 280's too as I have a 280 running Linux thats almost to hot to the touch running @ 75c ... 0_o

look @ frozencpu.com..

gtx260/280

Like to know of a cooler for the 260's & 280's too as I have a 280 running Linux thats almost to hot to the touch running @ 75c ... 0_o

look @ frozencpu.com..

gtx260/280

Thanks Frank, but I'm looking for Air Cooling, running in Windows is no problem as I can adjust the Fan speed to where you hardly feel any heat in the card. But running in Linux it runs to hot as far as I'm concerned but the card cost enough without having to spend 3 or 4 Hundred Liquid cooling it ... :)

Thanks Frank, but I'm looking for Air Cooling, running in Windows is no problem as I can adjust the Fan speed to where you hardly feel any heat in the card.

yes - didn't find that one?

D-Tek_FuZion_GFX_2_Uni-Sink_NVIDIA_260_and_280_Series_Passive_Cooling_Block

don't know if this will help much.

too bad if there is nothing to control fans on bogomips...

On bogomips, you mean Linux?

I can control the fan of my 8800GTS 512 with nvclock -f -F 50 for example, that works. Unfortunately it did not work on my 9800GT...
That card isn't even recognized correctly.
I replaced the noisy stock cooling with an AC S1 rev 2 + Scythe SFLEX 1200 @ 9v. Right now its running at 42°C while crunching PS3GRID, amazing, hm?

I plan to replace the stock cooler of my overclocked 8800GTS with an AC Accelero Twin Turbo, to reduce the noise. Actually its not really load at 50% PWM duty, but it can be easily heard and its a little annoying in the night.
From the specs the Twin Turbo should be able to easily cool it, reviews report its very silent even at full rpm...

The card is working in a Lian Li v350b mini tower, where there is only ~13cm of free space between motherboard tray and the disk cage. As the cooler is only 10.3cm high I think it should fit in :)

I'll update you if it is a good alternative (eg. for small towers) to the bigger S1

D-Tek_FuZion_GFX_2_Uni-Sink_NVIDIA_260_and_280_Series_Passive_Cooling_Block

don't know if this will help much.

All that is for is to hold a liquid cooling waterblock ... :)

All that is for is to hold a liquid cooling waterblock ... :)

Yeah, almost. It's meant to cool the RAM and voltage reglation, once you remove the stock cooler and apply a water block onto the GPU.

Maybe I should have mentioned it in the frist post.. water cooling is kind of nice, but me and probably most others are looking for air cooling.

MrS

---

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

my nvidia 8500gt is going throught the roof hitting more than 114 celcius
am worreied that the chip will blow

my nvidia 8500gt is going throught the roof hitting more than 114 celcius
am worreied that the chip will blow

Geez. You wanna fry me up some food on that thing?? 114C is way out of spec. I couldn't find the temp Nvidia says is the max, but I would imagine it's no more than 100C or so -- though it's probably best to keep it under 90C if you want it to last more than a few weeks. Is the card functioning normally under these temps? Open up your case (both sides if possible) and see what the temp shows...

BTW, that card is very slow in terms of GPUGRID requirements. 16 stream processors will take days to finish any WU's. The current deadline is 4 days, which I think you will have trouble finishing even 1 under that constraint.

114°C is way too much! I think at 120 or 125°C the driver should perform an emergency shut down to avoid destroying the chip. I suppose you card is passively cooled? Otherwise the fan is either defect or already running at 100%.

And, as Klat already said, your card is too slow for GPU-Grid and you'll probably have troubles to meet the deadline. You may want to take a look at GPU-Seti, they can make better use of slower cards. You'd still need to improve cooling, though.

MrS

---

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

The Scythe Musashi in its newer version and the Thermalright HR-03 GTX are also compatible. Might be nice to have a comparison of all three.

The HR-03 is, from my experience, very effective. It also comes with a whole bundle of little aluminium heatsinks to put on all the memory chips it doesn't fully cover. It is however large, very large, it will interfere/cover more slots that the standard two-slot cooler, so you can't SLI it easily--with two such coolers you couldn't SLI at all.

Here is some info on a brand new kooling technology.

See www.xpressar.com

- Utilize micro compressor and refrigerant to cool PC, to maximize over-clocking limitation and performance.
- 20ºC cooler than liquid cooling System
- Equipped with intelligent IC controller to prevent condensation
- Thermal resistance can be <0.02 ºC/W under 100% loading.
- High performance micro compressor uses standard 12V power
- Small, low noise, high performance technology.

- 50W extra power use for the compressor
- currently only for CPU, no GPU mounting found on HP
- cooling a GPU or several would require a much larger compressor and heat exchanger anyway
- "rough" english, sounds chinese-style

-> not recommended

MrS

---

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

Air Compression!
Kool idea ;)
Pity all the manufakturers are going bust.

I was almost using a GTX 250 (yeah I’m lying Nvidia, its a 9800GTX+ but in a new shiny box) until I succumb to the evil charm of another sort of fake, the GTX 260 (196). Anyhow, the 250/9800GTX+ has a well designed fan and grill for air flow, but has a big metal plate stuck to the back of it! So the top/front is nice and cool but the back is roasting!

If I decide to keep it, I will either stick a heatsink to the back and put it in a case with a side fan, or superglue a slim line heatsink and fan to it (with some compound in the middle).

get some tubing and hook it up a air conditioner or fringe problem solved...

Except if you're concerned with electricity cost.

MrS

---

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

Unfortunately my MSI Mobo did not like the second card (only a 9800GT) and duely popped (Amps perhaps). New board on route, but with a corsair 550 PSU. You cant beat a 5 year warenty on a PSU. The PSU is also more energy efficient, about 86% normal load (240V). I dont like paying for electric. This will allow me to run an 8800GT + a 9800GT (or the GTX 250). I dont fancy paying for a Corsair 750 and the electric for two GTX250's.