I Built My Own Video Card Cooler

[Conan]

My ATI 9800 Pro runs pretty hot, and I saw this nice looking Video Card Cooler made by Vantec:

With the speed at which computer components now run, there is a tremendous amount of heat generated inside a PC. *While case fans help cool the system, they generally only provide horizontal airflow. *With that in mind, Vantec introduces the Spectrum Fan Card. *Utilizing any available PCI slot, the Spectrum Fan Card serves a dual purpose of directly cooling any PCI/AGP cards surrounding it as well as providing better air circulation with two adjustable fans. *Made from UV sensitive material and featuring built-in UV LED lights, the Vantec Spectrum Fan Card lights up your case while cooling it down.

http://vantecusa.com/moreimage/images/fancard06.jpg http://vantecusa.com/moreimage/images/fancard02.jpg
http://vantecusa.com/moreimage/images/fancard03.jpg http://vantecusa.com/moreimage/images/fancard04.jpg

I looked around the stores here and they don't sell it yet, so I built my own using old stuff lying around. I put 2 neon fans together by using wire ties, used an old PCI slot adaptor from an old slot fan (sucks air instead of blowing) and used a steel corner brace with 3 small bolts to attach the slot to 1 fan. So how does it look?

The card's heat sink isn't too hot to the touch anymore.

http://www.info.com.ph/~mendez/sigs/2fans.jpg
http://www.info.com.ph/~mendez/sigs/2fansb.jpg
http://www.info.com.ph/~mendez/sigs/2fansc.jpg
http://www.info.com.ph/~mendez/sigs/2fansd.jpg
http://www.info.com.ph/~mendez/sigs/2fanse.jpg

[SupaStar]

Nice work Conan...you really are a bloody guru!!

Has it reduced you internal temps or is it just to increase the longetivity of your card?

[Conan]

Nice work Conan...you really are a bloody guru!!

Has it reduced you internal temps or is it just to increase the longetivity of your card?

Thanks Supa! :D My thermal sensor is on the CPU heatsink, the readings are the same or maybe .4 degrees Celcius cooler. Wish the card had a temp sensor like the 9800 XT's do.

[Big Booger]

Kickass Conan!

:D Nice work! You modding stud muffin
:D

[SupaStar]

Actually the whole rig is looking kinda sweet. It really puts mine to shame...

[cash_site]

Looking Good Conan, nice lights.

Which direction are the fans going? is it blowing air onto the card or sucking heat away from card? You should open one of the PCI slots to allow the hot air extraction.

So you are powering the Fans via the HD cables, do you have any ideas how to use the PCI slot for power, like the top model??

Cool ideas.

[biker666_05]

thats pretty good keep up the good work

[Conan]

Looking Good Conan, nice lights.

Which direction are the fans going? is it blowing air onto the card or sucking heat away from card? You should open one of the PCI slots to allow the hot air extraction.

So you are powering the Fans via the HD cables, do you have any ideas how to use the PCI slot for power, like the top model??

Cool ideas.

The newly installed fans blow air into the card. No problem with source of fresh air as the side of my case has 2 fans that blow into the case:
http://www.modthebox.com/reviews/koolcases/xaser3/xaser22_new.jpg

My case comes with 7 fans stock, so there are no problems with airflow. I've replaced all the fans by the way with Cooler Master LED fans and they are slighty more powerful than the orange stock fans.

The Vantec fan does not draw power from the PCI slot. It has a cable that you attach to the power supply. My Enermax power supply has lots of connectors for fans and periphals.

[rik]

It is very cool...Looks like we've all been put to shame...

[cash_site]

definitely an excellent mod and modder conan is. It would be good to see if it were possible to draw power from PCI, but I guess 3.3v just wont cut it with those big 80 or 120mm LED Fans :eek: Soon you will have to run 110/240 volts straight to the fans hehe

[Conan]

definitely an excellent mod and modder conan is. It would be good to see if it were possible to draw power from PCI, but I guess 3.3v just wont cut it with those big 80 or 120mm LED Fans :eek: Soon you will have to run 110/240 volts straight to the fans hehe

Thanks! :msnnerd:

[lynchknot]

Wow, just opened this tread. Very impressive Conan. Do they make small fans that run on 110v a.c.? My power supply is low watt. It would be nice to tap into the juice at ac input.

[zipp51]

Nice job Conan.That reminds me that I have to get a faster spinning fan for my Zalman Flower to try. :D

[rik]

@ LK. I have a 230v. industrial exhaust fan from a welding shop if you want to try it ;)

it's just a tad loud...

[cash_site]

@ LK. I have a 230v. industrial exhaust fan from a welding shop if you want to try it ;)

it's just a tad loud...

LOL, I could use that in my garage :D

[rik]

LOL, I could use that in my garage :D

For you Buddy...anything. What's mine is yours.

In fact I have a couple of teenagers that need a good home...

;)

[joshsiao]

Whoa! 7 fans from the case itself! Is it really hot there? I got only 1 miserable case fan and the climate is hot! Once I was playing Deus Ex: IW on a really hot afternoon with all the eye candy on. Suddenly the entire game slowed to a crawl and even on the desktop it was soooo slow. I had to use the "industrial" fan to blast everything cool. It ran fine after a while of cooling. And nice case, as everyone else says: It puts us all to shame...

[Conan]

Whoa! 7 fans from the case itself! Is it really hot there? I got only 1 miserable case fan and the climate is hot! Once I was playing Deus Ex: IW on a really hot afternoon with all the eye candy on. Suddenly the entire game slowed to a crawl and even on the desktop it was soooo slow. I had to use the "industrial" fan to blast everything cool. It ran fine after a while of cooling. And nice case, as everyone else says: It puts us all to shame...

I fell in love with my Thermaltake case just by seeing it on the net, then when I actually had it in front of me, I just had to bring it home! :D More pics of my case in this thread joshsiao:

http://www.techzonez.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8496

[MSNwar]

Awesome Conan. Looks good to. LOOK ITS BRITNEY SPEARS NAKED ...

... sneaks away with a sweet rig ;)

[cash_site]

For you Buddy...anything. What's mine is yours.

In fact I have a couple of teenagers that need a good home...

;)

Thanks Bro, you can send them over. I need more ppl to go Kangaroo huntin with and LAN games. I have pool table with Compulsory Corona Parrot Neon sign, so they wont get home sick ;)

Cheers.

[Conan]

In my quest for lower CPU temps I stumbled upon the fact that this mod of mine actually raised both motherboard and CPU temperatures. I removed all other fans (thermaltake's factory 7 fan locations really does the job without any need for additional ones) and tried to tidy up all my other wirings that were getting in the way:

http://www.info.com.ph/~mendez/sigs/case1.jpg

http://www.info.com.ph/~mendez/sigs/case2.jpg

http://www.info.com.ph/~mendez/sigs/case3.jpg

Compare that with an old pic where the wiring is in the way:

http://www.info.com.ph/~mendez/sigs/2fansd.jpg

http://www.info.com.ph/~mendez/sigs/Image(061).jpg

[SupaStar]

Lookin good! Keep it up :D

[cash_site]

Still looks good Conan, and prolly will save you $20 bucks in Electricy per year :p

[joshsiao]

Very very nice!

[Big Booger]

Conan are those rounded cables 80 pin? Or 40?

I am thinking of getting me a set.. but I wished you could boot your drives with SATA.. You are not supposed to put the OS on a SATA drive or I would get rid of all the IDE drives :D Sata cables are much smaller and they allow great airflow.

[phishhead]

why cant you boogs I have a buddy that boots to his sata drive using the a7n8x asus board. has a 36 gig 10000rpm monster. you just have to load the drivers in before installing xp.

[Big Booger]

It was suggested to me that to not use the Sata drive as the bootable drive by the shop where I bought my components. I can't remember the specifics but it had something to do with system stability or something like that.

[Conan]

Conan are those rounded cables 80 pin? Or 40?


Not sure but they are ATA 133 compatible. I got them from here:

http://www.xm-online.com/products/cables/rounded.htm

[SupaStar]

I think they'd be 80-pin then. Good stuff.

[FastGame]

Conan are those rounded cables 80 pin? Or 40?

I am thinking of getting me a set.. but I wished you could boot your drives with SATA.. You are not supposed to put the OS on a SATA drive or I would get rid of all the IDE drives :D Sata cables are much smaller and they allow great airflow.
I've never heard of that :confused: my WD Raptor is my boot drive. On my other PC's my regular IDE drives have the SATA adapters and they are set as boot drives. What good would SATA be if you can't put your OS on it ?

Hook are your drives up to SATA and enjoy the little cables, they're cute :)

[Big Booger]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=SATA+as+Boot+drive&btnG=Google+Search

I was told because Sata is relatively new, or something like that that there would be issues. I think they were just wanting me to be cautious so I didn't have any hitches....

That google search turned up problem after problem with SATA being the boot drive.

I may try my Sata drive as the boot drive next time I reformat. Since you guys give it the thumbs up.
:D

[FastGame]

I don't know about your Intel SATA other than Intel boards are suppose be great at SATA compared to AMD boards. @the AMD forums lots of people use SATA as boot.

All of mine work fine :)

[Mindless]

I have a hard time finding SATA motherboards (maybe I don't look hard enough). Are they really expensive? And does anyone know of a good one that will run my Athlon XP 2500 Barton?

[Conan]

I have a hard time finding SATA motherboards (maybe I don't look hard enough). Are they really expensive? And does anyone know of a good one that will run my Athlon XP 2500 Barton?

I'm not that experienced with AMD motherboards but I believe the NForce 2 motherboards have SATA connectors. They aren't too expensive.