On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:22:27 GMT, Grinder
wrote:

kony wrote:
I don't understand your question though, you're asking IF
you needed to replace it. Is there impending doom? Unless
it has a fan that fails and the card bakes itself to death,
the card might outlive the motherboard.

The card has a heatsink/fan that has once previously failed. It was
still in warranty, so I got it replaced. It's starting to act up again,
so I'm considering what I'll do if it fails this time, out of warranty.

Put a couple drops of very thick (almost greaselike
consistency) oil in the bearing. Repeat this every year or
so. If necessary, take the 'sink off and drill some holes
to mount a better fan with screws or nylon wire ties.
Solder the old fan connector onto the new fan if finding a
fan with the right mini-connector is a problem.




Given all the criteria I would think about a 8500GT, which
is sometimes discounted, with a rebate bringing it down to
around $30 to 40 after rebate. For example,
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...uctCode=333037
but I don't know anything about how noisey the fan is and
believe there are some passively cooled (at higher price of
course unless you happened upon a rebate for one of those).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...nd&Order=PRICE

Given that on my current card, the fan has failed in a most annoyingly
noisy manner, a quiet card is attractive. Thanks for your suggestions.

I usually just take some old heatsink from the socket 370
era and machine it down till it's a size I like, then put a
50-60mm x 15mm thick standard fan on it. The mounting
options are the trickier part, I've done it various ways
from putting solid strand 14 gauge wire through the sink
exiting in newly drilled holes adjacent to the original case
heatsink mounting holes (when their metal clad so the wire
can be soldered in place while pressure is on it), to
original mounting screws and new holes tapped into the
replacement 'sink, to new screws but reusing the original
springs still for tension, or sometimes getting more
elaborate depending on how inspired I am, and what the
original mount was like.

Here's a nice cheap Alpha 'sink that I put on a FX5700, nice
because it takes a standard 60mm fan (has tapped holes in
the corners, might be 4-40 thread IIRC)
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.co...?number=G13955
but of course having something this tall with a fan on it
will at least block the adjacent slot to the video card, and
possibly even a 2nd slot will be a tight fit... I can't
recall on my FX5700 if it needed two empty slots next to it
or not, but I think not because I vaguely recall the system
it's in also has a gigabit ethernet, and sound card while
the board in it is only mATX so it's slot-limited... would
be impossible for it to take up more than one empty slot's
worth of space.