Lets see your home brewed gfx cooling

[BigBadger]

ok anybody can go buy the latest watercooled/heatpiped cooler so bolt onto there gfx card but other than finding the cash there is not much challenge in it.
I thought it may be interesting to see what home brewed cooling solutions folk have dreamed up. I guess most will come up with variations on the theme of a big ass cpu cooler bolted to their gfx card.... and I'm no exception. My latest creation is a Thermaltake Volcano 7+ with it's 80mm 6000rpm fan converted to a 'blower' and a home made duct.

Some photos:

[BigBadger]

And here are the component parts. the heatsink is a Volcano 7+ with drilled and tapped holes in the base to mount it with, also the base is recessed with a dremmel to clear the 'shim' on the 9800XT. The fan is the stock Volcano item with the shroud cut off and the duct is pure home brewed from plastic card.

[Jim]

Very nice.... :cool:

[RotorHead]

Nice work BigBadger! :yikes: :rock: :rock:

That thing must work really good ya. :thumb:

[BigBadger]

It drops about 10C over the stock cooler with the fan at 4900rpm. It drops another few degrees with the fan flat out but it's too noisey.

[death metal]

wow...that home made duct is fantastic...

i'll post up a pic sometime of my card. I stuck in a Thermalright Extreme Spirit on my GPU waheheheehehehehe......

[Snafu]

Very cool work. Looks like it took some time to pull this together. I'm sure the fan is loud when its cranked up. :hide:

Looking to do some duct work myself but have not found the right material (too thin, to thick, unmaleable, etc.). Did you find the plastic card from an arts & craft store? Did you use epoxyto hold it together?

[Hawk]

Awsome Blower. . . . . . :rock:

[BigBadger]

Very cool work. Looks like it took some time to pull this together. I'm sure the fan is loud when its cranked up. :hide:

Looking to do some duct work myself but have not found the right material (too thin, to thick, unmaleable, etc.). Did you find the plastic card from an arts & craft store? Did you use epoxyto hold it together?

Yes the plastic card is from an arts/crafts/hobby type store. I used Superglue (Cyanoacylate) to bond it, but epoxy would be stronger as long as you can hold the bits in place while it sets. Just make sure to roughen the surfaces where the glue goes to make a stronger bond.

[death metal]

what kind of plastic is that? acrylic sheet?

[BigBadger]

what kind of plastic is that? acrylic sheet?

Err... I don't know... White stuff :coocoo:
It's used a lot for model making and that sort of thing. It's quite 'soft' and easy to form. Its ideal for applications that dont need a great deal of strength, I've also used thin (1/32") plywood with good results and aluminium sheet for places that need more strength. The sides of the duct where the mounting screws go is aluminium.
I'll try to find out what the proper name for the plastic sheet is.

****EDIT**** The name of the plastic is Styrene... commonly called Plasticard. Here's a description: http://www.totalmodel.com/workshop/pages/workshop_293.shtml

[[OCNZ]evilangel]

this used to hold my old Ti4200 stable with a gpu speed of 320mhz. it is the heatsink of my old 1800 palamino im just waiting to get time to measure it up so i can mount it on my 9600xt. the corner was cut off with a hacksaw to accomodate the pci slots that were in the way

[BigBadger]

If the 96 XT is anything like the 9800XT there will be a 'shim' surrounding the GPU. To make proper contact with the GPU the heatsink needs recessing to provide a small clearance between the heatsink and shim.
It's quite tricky, I did it with a power drill with a small grinding wheel fitted. You can just about see it in the photo.

[NeoShowtime]

http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3231

Thats mine. I didnt have to remove the shim though. Just made sue the heatsink was down nice and snug and its working perfectly

[death metal]

ohhh, cool, tnx for posting the info bigb =)....

[wyersman]

Hey I don't know if this is a good idea but my card gpu temp started buggin out a few weeks ago like 80degrees as apposed to the regular 40 to 60 tops. so I found a old cpu heatsink and fan and gorilla tape and taped it side ways on top of the screwed on cover that is stock well it keeps temp at normal lvls for now but the weight of the cpu started to slip would it be safe to use super glue to help the tape?