FireGL V7200 cooling question

[adadk]

Bought a new V7200 off ebay for the wife's PC - she does interior design and needed the appropriate workstation-level graphics - but this thing is friggin loud. She already has 4 fans in her Antec 300 case, this leafblower doesnt help things.

Does anyone know if a 3rd party cooler for an 1800/1900XT would be compatible? I think the PCB layout is identical, but i'm not entirely sure. Thanks.

[kn00tcn]

http://images.doba.com/products/4/100505147.jpg
http://www.theinquirer.net/img/9895/r520xt.jpg

well they look the same so.. high chance that an x1800xt supporting cooler will work

[Melted Rabbit]

Yeah, shame on me for not mentioning this sooner (and not seeing it sooner). At any rate, the coolers used on both X1800, and X1900 coolers end up getting clogged with dust, it appears to accumulate on the densely packed copper fins on both the reference X1800XL and the dual slot coolers used on the X1800XT and X1900XT including Crossfire and FireGL variants.

Here is a good page describing the problem and the solution. Yes, Mac X1900XT card have the same issue.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/...t_buildup.html

I would not remove the fan from the heatsink assembly to clean it unless it was broken or at least more that just having slightly dirty fan blades. At its current age the white plastic that the screws for the fan screw into is extremely brittle on my X1900XTX and are easily prey to being over-tightened and then having the while plastic screw holes becoming cracked. Hopefully some superglue will help me.

Owners of an X1800XL will probably find dust on the copper fins near the fan. However in order to see the dust and remove it properly means obtaining a small Phillips screwdriver and unscrewing all of the screws on the metal shield on top of the heatsink, so there is no need to remove the entire heatsink from the card. Then, remove the metal shield and blow some compressed air through the opposite end of the copper heatsink. This should remove the dust. Reassemble, and at this point the card will probably fail on its own before it needs another cleaning.


Another note for owners of Crossfire cards with external dongles replacing their heatsinks. These cards have one additional component that needs cooling, the Xilinx FPGA present on these cards. The Silicon Image chips are fine the way they are and need no additional cooling. On the other hand, the FPGA just needs a decent quality smaller sized low-profile heatsink, which is harder to find than you might think. Also, since there are no mounting holes near the FPGA, some sort of adhesive or adhesive pad needs to be used. Since adhesive pads are easier to remove, I would go with one of those. Finding an adhesive pad or more properly "thermal tape" at a standard retail outlet is not very easy. Digikey is one place to look, but make sure you check to datasheet of whatever you are planning to get to make sure you get tape intended for adhering heatsinks to plastic IC packages. If you don't check the datasheet before you order on Digikey, you could end up with an unusable product, like one designed for an antenna of some type or another.
http://www.digikey.com/

Also this is another option, I feel guilty about posting this link though, so don't abuse it... At least too much.

http://www.chomerics.com/products/th...chT410_411.htm

Request a sample of the T411 thermal tape, it fills in any unevenness on the FPGA package better than the T410-R tape. After receiving the sample, follow the directions on the datasheet. From the datasheet I can tell the T411 should almost certainly work.

Great, I just wrote a HOWTO for X1800 and X1900 owners. I hope it does someone good at least.

[adadk]

Well thanks for all of that. I'd give you +rep for all that typing you did.

I'm more interested in replacing the stock cooler (which looks identical to 1800/1900 coolers) with something better. Like an AC Accelero X2. It's made for the X1800/1900 series; I was wondering if it would fit the FireGL.

[kn00tcn]

what about a vf900-cu? (zalman)

that AC looks possibly heavy/bloated (& ugly if that matters)

i've got the older vf700-cu on my x800xtpe, pretty much silent on full speed, easier to dust, it replaced the stock one which was loud (mainly during games) not to mention dusty & HOT

[biscuitownz]

Originally Posted by kn00tcn

what about a vf900-cu? (zalman)

that AC looks possibly heavy/bloated (& ugly if that matters)

i've got the older vf700-cu on my x800xtpe, pretty much silent on full speed, easier to dust, it replaced the stock one which was loud (mainly during games) not to mention dusty & HOT

I just love that molex external power connector

[kn00tcn]

i cant get that thing off! good thing it's a short splitter where i can take off the other end