Author Topic: Vid card fan/sync broke! (Read 270 times)

Octavius · « **on:** November 16, 2002, 11:42:30 PM »

Yesterday the system began acting funny and froze/hard locked a few times. Turns out the video card (Geforce3 Ti200) fan stopped turning without my knowledge. I keep the insides fairly clean and clear of dust and I have no clue how this thing became so gummed up (its tough to turn it around with my finger!).

I went out and bought a replacement fan but it still overheats. The fan and sync itself was a *tad* too large, but I could still fasten it tightly and it *did* cover the whole area of the GPU. Is a fan replacement even possible? Did I do something wrong?

While at the store, I started to drool over the geforce 4's they had on the shelves. Gf4 Ti4200-4600s look very appealing. I know nvidia come out with the next best thing about every 6 months... isn't the Gf5 due out soon? I'm looking for the price of Gf4's to drop... if not, I may be forced to give in to my temptations and sacrifice my wallet for the Gf4 (if the fan thing doesnt work out).

Thanks,

oct out

mrsid2 · « **Reply #1 on:** November 17, 2002, 11:53:55 AM »

Sync = synchronise

Sink = heatsink

And no, you can't just slap a generic heatsink/fan combo on your geforce. It needs a specially designed one, those are readily available in hardware stores.

I wouldn't hold my breath for gf5. If you want speed and don't want to wait 6 months, get the radeon9700pro.

Octavius · « **Reply #2 on:** November 17, 2002, 06:06:00 PM »

Hehe, not sure where my head was when I made that post... on the sync/sink part.

As far as I'm concerned, radeon = blah. I'll do some research if things become desperate... maybe I'll give a radeon a whirl.

thanks

Animal · « **Reply #3 on:** November 17, 2002, 07:28:36 PM »

The Radeon 9700 is the fastest video card you can get at the moment.
Way faster than the Geforce 4 Ti4600 (wich I own)

Octavius · « **Reply #4 on:** November 17, 2002, 09:02:54 PM »

Speed isn't the main factor for me right now. I rigged the fan replacement to spin a tad faster... although the actual temperature of the card is warm-to-hot when playing a game such as Aces High at lower clock/memory settings, it will do for now.

The release of the Gf5 is only for price reasons. No doubt the Gf4 price will be reduced once the next big thing comes out and thats what I'm looking for.

Funny thing happened when I bought the replacement fan and sink. I knew the top sales-person at Comp USA and he informed me of a nifty deal. Basically, pay an extra 15 or 20 bucks for a replacement warranty good for 1 or 2 years. When you bring in the piece of hardware you purchased and ask for a replacement, they do NOT check out what the problem is. He said "You could really say its defective in that it's not as fast as I want it to be!" and they'd give you in store credit of the full amount originally paid. Sweet deal I say. When I do purchase the expensive stuff, I'll be sure to stop by there.

AtmkRstr · « **Reply #5 on:** November 19, 2002, 12:02:04 PM »

Maybe you used too much thermal paste.

You can easily find some instructions on the net to help.