Video card cooler - Part 2

I originally posted this thread when I had discovered that my video card fan was on its way out. It had become very stiff, and didn't start spinning right away when the PC was powered on, and when it did start spinning, it was much slower than it should have been. So I looked in to a 3rd party aftermarket cooler. I settled on the Arctic Cooling Accelero S2 (link http://www.arcticcooling.com/vga2.php?idx=125 ). The price was low (only $15.00 US) and from what I had read, it would work just fine with my Geforce 9600GT. Last night I ran FurMark for 30min using the stock cooler; the card heated up to a max of 63c. This surprised me because I've seen many other higher end cards go up to (and over) 95c running the same app (the Geforce 9800GTX for example). And the 63c was with the dying fan! I was amazed the temp was so low. About an hour ago, I decided to install my new cooler. Removing the stock cooler was probably hardest part of the install because the thermal grease was really bonded to the GPU and didn't want to let go of the heat sink. The mounting system for this new cooler isn't so great IMO, and it uses a different set of holes in the video card than the stock cooler used. It was real easy to screw the mounting hardware too tight, and I noticed the video card was bending because the screws had been tightened too far. So I loosened each one about a half turn at a time until the card straightened out. Now I was worried that the new cooler was too loose and wouldn't cool correctly. I gave it a full inspection, and it looked to be OK. Then I augmented the cooler with a 120mm fan (link http://www.arcticcooling.com/fans2.php?idx=103 ). I mounted it to the cooler using zip ties (also known as 'cable ties'), and plugged it into a 4pin molex connector from the power supply. I installed the card, booted up, and immediately checked the idle temp. The idle temp had dropped by about 8c from an average of 42c, to 34/35c. A nice drop, but not spectacular. I kept the temp monitor running (I used the 'Sensors' tab in GPU-Z for all temp monitoring) and continued to use the PC as usual for a bit. It continued to idle at 34/35c. Then I launched FurMark with a bit of trepidation. If I had mounted the new cooler incorrectly, this is where I'd find out. I made sure the master power switch was close at hand; if the GPU temp started rising much too fast, I'd kill the power. Long story short (maybe it's too late for "short") is that after 30min of FurMark, the GPU barely kissed only 43c!!! W O W ! ! ! A drop of 20 degrees!!! Amazing. Truly amazing. Any doubts I had are gone. And I can fully recommend this cooler to anyone looking for a new GPU cooler. It has a fairly limited selection of video cards it's compatible with (most of them are older cards), so do your research before purchasing. I never did try the cooler without the 120mm fan, but it's designed to run without a fan, so it should be OK. Arctic Cooling also sells a "Turbo Cooling Kit" that can be mounted on the cooler; it consists of 2 x 80mm fans and mounting hardware (link http://www.arcticcooling.com/vga2.php?idx=139&data=1&disc= ).

Thanks for reading!
If anyone is interested, I'll post some pics of the new cooler and how I used zip ties to mount the fan....

[dlb]

(I suppose I could have posted this in the 'Cooling' forum, so if it should be moved, I guess one of the mods or admins can take care of it )

 

I forgot to mention: the cooler ships with 8 small heatsinks with adhesive thermal tape; they're meant to be mounted on the video card's memory chips. I didn't use the RAMsinks. The video card did not have RAMsinks installed from the factory, I have the 120mm blowing directly on the surface of the card, and I'm not overclocking. In some of the reviews I read, some users had issues with the RAMsinks not sticking well with the stock thermal tape, and most users reported little to no change in VRAM temps before and after the use of the RAMsinks.

 

I have that same cooler (only rev2) on my 8800GT and it has worked spectacular so far.

the temp barely ever rises above 50C (my card is slightly overclocked) to cool it, i ghetto modded 2 80mm fans w/ skateboard hardware screws to rise them up a bit from the bottom of the case so the're taking air from the outside of the case (via side vents) and blowing it up at the card (apperantly skateboard hardware screws fit perfectly in computer fan holes)

i used the memory heatsinks, but i had to scrub at the chips pretty hard with an eraser to get all the goo off first so the heatsinks would stick :/

with the rev2 costing only $20, IMO it's one of the best coolers currently on the market

 

whoops, i meant to say that I have the S1 rev 2, not the S2

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186016

('tis out of stock )

 

Nice temps dlb! Glad it worked for you.

 

Yeah, nice temps. Now that the thermal grease has had a chance to 'cure', my idle temps are even lower, idle is never over 32c and usually at 29-31c (right now it's fluctuating from 30 to 31 and back). I couldn't be happier!