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Aftermarket coolers and video adapter warranties - some questions
[comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video, alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati,
alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia] Apologies for cross-posting; there is no single newsgroup for discussing video adapters without reference to brand (ATI, nVidia, etc) or system (PC, Mac). Some questions for those of you who use aftermarket coolers to extend the lives of your expensive video adapters: There seems to be two types of coolers on the market: "drop-in" replacements for the OEM heat sink/fan combo that mounts on the GPU (and which MAY provide slightly better cooling and fan longevity than the OEM units they replace), and cooling kits designed to provide significantly more heat dissipation capacity than the OEM coolers they replace. If you use an extra capacity cooling kit, do you wait for the warranty on your video adapter to expire before you install it? If not, how long do you usually wait (if at all)? Do you run a burn-in test while your video adapter is still in warranty before you replace the OEM cooler? Do you find that replacing the OEM cooler early on with a higher capacity one offsets the risk of voiding your warranty by significantly extending the life of your video adapter? If you wait for the warranty to expire, or for the OEM GPU fan to wear out, do you wait for that to happen before you shop for an aftermarket cooler, or do you buy one around the same time you buy your new video adapter (and then put the cooler away for later)? If you put the cooler away for later, do you have some way to check it out to see if it will fit your video adapter as advertised? Is there a GPU monitoring utility (freeware preferred) that runs under Windows XP and in the background, which will provide an audible or visual alarm if the GPU fan stops, or if the GPU goes over a set temperature limit? Many thanks to anyone who can answer any or all of these questions! ------- Some background: Dell Precision 360 workstation, 2.8 GHz P4, 2 GB RAM, 8x AGP slot, WiFi PCI network adapter, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card, Windows XP SP3. There's just nothing like learning the hard way, is there? :S This configuration was entirely stable with a Radeon 9600PRO video adapter, until the GPU cooling fan failed, followed by the GPU. From my experience with P5 CPU cooling fans, I thought I would hear the squeal of worn sleeve bearings, but this fan died silently. I also did not know that GPU's have embedded temperature sensors that can be monitored by 3rd party utilities (since the ATI drivers obviously did not). Oh well... I replaced it with a PNY GeForce 6200 (which uses a passive heat sink with no fan to wear out), installed the latest drivers from the website, and immediately started experiencing random lockps and BSOD errors pointing at nv4_disp (the basic nVidia driver). There is an article on random lockups in the nVidia knowledgebase, which was written from the viewpoint that "your problem is somewhere else in your computer." I tried their suggestions; none of them helped. Following the suggestions in another article on GPU overheating, I checked temperatures with the utility they recommended, and found them to be about 49C at idle, and 62C while viewing a video file full screen. High, but within tolerance. I recalled that one of the features listed for the Radeon was that the drivers can automatically reset the GPU if it stops responding to instructions, without requiring a system reboot (IIRC, that feature is part of the SmartGART autoconfig utility). A Google search turned up dozens of posts in developer forums asking if there is a utility to reset nVidia GPU's "on the fly" without need of a system reboot; apparently, nVidia GPU's do not have that capability. So, I'm back to looking at ATI, but that means dealing with short-lived GPU fans. My research lead me to two online vendors that offer aftermarket VGA coolers http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCateg...g&Order=RATING http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewproductgrid.asp?CatID=44 ....and a company called Sunon, which manufactures long-life fans with "MagLev" frictionless magnetic suspension bearings. http://www.sunonusa.com/index2.asp?f...ogy&p=bearings http://www.sunonusa.com/index2.asp?f...ology&p=maglev I've also come to understand from various comments I've read that OEM installed video adapter coolers are barely adequate, and allow components to run at temperatures that will shorten their lifespans. This is why I want to know if people install high capacity coolers before their video adapter warranties run out, in order to minimize heat damage. Thanks for listening, and for helping out. Jeff |
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Aftermarket coolers and video adapter warranties - some questions
XFX and EVGA cover aftermarket cooling with their warranties.
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Aftermarket coolers and video adapter warranties - some questions
On 7/21/2011 11:07 AM, Jim wrote:
XFX and EVGA cover aftermarket cooling with their warranties. Cool! (No pun intended ) I'll look into that. Thanks. --- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to --- |
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