Few Ideas of modding I'm throwing around

[ShadowNyfe]

Ya, so like the title says, I have a few modding ideas that I want to throw around so I just want to bounce ideas off you guys and see what the feedback is. Hopefully you guys will catch something that I don't and stop me from completely messing up.

1) Modding the GPU cooler.

- So with so many people looking into upgrading their graphics card cooler to passive or water cooling, I was looking at other alternatives that would hopefully work well and be unique. What I need you guys to give feedback on is if you think it's feasible and if you think there's going to be any type of drawbacks or incompatibilities that I didn't think of.

a) I recently just built my computer and I have a Zalman 9700 cooling off my CPU so that never rises above 40* C pretty much ever. (guess I wanna know if this is a good temperature too) I was cleaning my room and found the box with the stock intel cooler inside, and decided to take it out to just play with, cuz you know how our modding curiosity gets the best of us. I took the fan off of the cooler itself and discoverd that the heatsink is TINY compared to the Zalman. However, thinking juices got going and i realized [ Zalman 9700 > Intel Stock Cooler BUT > GPU Cooler ] So now I'm thinking, what if I mount this cooling block onto the GPU and use it to cool down my GFX card instead.
- potential issues I see that might kill this project: the heatsink is too fat horizontally and it sits very low so it will cover the nearby chipsets without giving it any kind of heatsink. I can see this being a problem but I'm not sure how much clearance and such I have. Next would be how I would reliably be able to mount it onto the GPU and have it stay without the use of ducttape and superglue.


b) I use my EVGA precision tuner to modify the fan speeds on my GPU and i notice that when I go over 70%, the sound of the stock 8800GT fan gets loud and it does cool better than lower settings, but when holding my hand up to the exit points on the card it doesnt seem like the centrifugal fan is putting much air out at all. My idea is to make a custom bracket out of aluminum or plexi, depending on which you guys think would be easier (maybe aluminum for the heat transfer characterstics) and mount a spare 80mm fan just above the hole where the stock fan is, and remove the stock fan. Plug the wires into the motherboard as usual, and this way I should get a much cooler card with a lot less noise.

2) Does anyone know of a program where I can easily just alter the speed of my fans that are connected to my mobo like how EVGA precision or RivaTuner can? I've tried using Speedfan but you have to link temps to fans, then set max and mins, and as far as I can figure out, you can't just be like "hey sit at 40% speed". Any pointers here would be great.

I'll have more for you next time :] Go go responses!

[Luke122]

Intel Stock Cooler BUT > GPU Cooler ] So now I'm thinking, what if I mount this cooling block onto the GPU and use it to cool down my GFX card instead.

- potential issues I see that might kill this project: the heatsink is too fat horizontally and it sits very low so it will cover the nearby chipsets without giving it any kind of heatsink. I can see this being a problem but I'm not sure how much clearance and such I have. Next would be how I would reliably be able to mount it onto the GPU and have it stay without the use of ducttape and superglue.

Weight is also a concern, as the Intel HSF will require you to add a brace to support the weight, or it'll snap the card!

2) Does anyone know of a program where I can easily just alter the speed of my fans that are connected to my mobo like how EVGA precision or RivaTuner can? I've tried using Speedfan but you have to link temps to fans, then set max and mins, and as far as I can figure out, you can't just be like "hey sit at 40% speed". Any pointers here would be great.

Why not wire a resistor inline to the fan to reduce it's speed? It's not a permanent solution, and doesnt exactly make for easy speed adjustments, but a fanbus would! Grab a fan speed controller, and slip it inline from the mobo plugs to the fans, and you can instantly adjust the speed of any fan in your machine using a dial.

[ShadowNyfe]

I took some pictures with a quarter and a 80mm Fan to give people who are awesome enough to read this thread an idea of the size. It's the stock cooler off my E7200 from Intel, and it's considerably smaller I think than some other stock coolers I've seen.

Just by hefting it, I don't think it's going to be heavier than the stock cooler on the EVGA 8800GT is or any heavier than a waterblock.


As for the fan adjuster, I was hoping to not spend money and just use internal programs. I'm also going for a cleaner front look since the CM690 is all mesh, having a solid square for fan controller just ruins the flow. Not only that, I haven't found any attractive and reasonably priced fan controllers. I mean there HAS to be some way to limit the fan speeds right? :[

[Luke122]

I have a couple of fan controllers that came with some older Zalman cpu coolers.. it's basically a little box that sits inline between the mobo and fan connector, and has a resistor connected to a dial to control the fan speed. You could likely build one for next to no $.

[.Maleficus.]

Couple things.

1. From my understanding, if you remove the stock heat sink off of your 8800GT and cause ANY damage to the card, your warranty is void. KEEP THAT IN MIND DOING ANY GPU MODS. My 8800GT just died on me after 7 months and I sent it out for RMA. Had I put my waterblock on it and either a) lost the old heat sink or b) caused any damage (water, PCB crack, overheating) I would be out the 8800GT.

2. That being said, I still wouldn't recommend fastening the CPU cooler to the graphics card. You'd need to make a custom mounting bracket, buy memory heatsinks and all the while make sure you don't break anything. I actually thought of doing the same thing after buying my Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro, since I now have a spare Intel cooler and Thermaltake Blue Orb II, but after I thought about it it just seemed like a recipe for disaster.


And sorry, but I know nothing about software/hardware fan controllers .