Not sure if anyone had talk about it before. but more-likely i would like to share my though on this.

my brother had owned a Asus 8800GT for the pass 2@3 year.



and this item is well known for it's SUPER noisy fan and super inefficiency fan as they designed it into SLIM profile that only taken 1 single slot.
however, after sometime my brother using it, he started to complain that the fan is SUPER noisy, even in air-con room which the cool air directly blowing the casing. and the air temperature is set to 16C, it is so cool that even CPU cooler fan oso stop spining (C2D E6550). However, this small fan of graphic card on this particular asus graphic card still spinning at super annoying speed with very high pitch sound.

Eventually my brother had reach a limit of tolerance with the annoying noise and he decided to give me the card. upon i receive the card. i immediately install it to my system for a test drive.. On games like microsoft flight simulator FX, the graphic cards runs at very high speed fan, with temperature ranging around 65-70C.
and it's about 59C ideal. however, i test it with street fighter IV. the graphic card shoots up immediately to 85C within 5 minute and a warning msg pop out.

So we had the stock heatsink replaced with zalman VF-2000 , and now the ideal temperature is 45C, full load gaming of crysis for 3-4 hours will increase it to 52C. MAX 55C. so. a big thumb up for VF2000..

however, i had become curious with the stock cooler..
so i try to take it open to see what's their design in it..

here it comes :


i peel off the sticker of the picture (i though there's screw inside).. and this reveal a big nvidia logo..


lightly pry open the metal casing..

and then what's shocking me was..




Look how thick the dust was..








It's totally blocking the air funnel through the heatsink.. so i assume the fan were merely spinning itself without any effect of cooling the heat sink. all this while the 8800Gt were running at PASSIVE COOLING?



But i had already installed VF2000, and it's working fine. i don't want to install this back to test out either this heatsink is working all right or not.


as recently i had help my brother acquired a Asus GTX 285 Matrix



so one big question comes into my mind that, i had seen a lot of those higher end graphic cards were using centrifuge fan. will it develop problems like the 8800GT i had? dust blocked all the heatsink? and there's no way we can clean it?

how to prevent it? any methods? or just directly use vacuum cleaner suck the air inlet of the graphic card? and use a pcs of paper cards to poke the dust out???
pls enlighten me.. Thanks

This post has been edited by PcWork: Dec 4 2009, 04:36 PM

i have the same card.... mine is running smoothly luckily

8800 GT? but ur signature shows 8800GTS 3 SLI?
if it is 8800Gt. how much temperature u have now?

This post has been edited by PcWork: Dec 4 2009, 04:49 PM

what PcWork shows is my previous stupid-one-slot-stock heatsink 8800gt .

produce tons of annoying high pitch sound, feel so frust especially watching dvd with pc.

i think those with 2 slots heatsink shouldnt have any similar problem with mine.

i have a few comps at home ...anyway i dont really monitor the temperature...dont know how to

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Added on December 4, 2009, 5:00 pm2 slot design is way better..but sadly mine is only 1 slot

This post has been edited by Johan-N: Dec 4 2009, 05:00 PM

go to http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php
download the hardware monitor and u shall be able to see it.
by the way if u have the exact same card as mine. the Asus Smart doctor or somethings comes with the driver disc HAD the hardware temperature monitor there.
u shouldn't be able to miss it. it's a big number displayed.



my 8800GT with VF2000 now.

mine is Forsa 8800gt destroyer edition. ok i will download the CPUid thing....

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Added on December 4, 2009, 5:24 pmIs it easy to remove the GPU casing?

This post has been edited by Johan-N: Dec 4 2009, 05:24 PM

i will not recommend u to open the casing with the heatsink attached to the GPU..
i did apply some force. but not brutal to bend it. if it is on the card. i worry u might bend some other stuff by applying such force.
the black casing is actually GLUED with double sided mounting tape to the heatsink itself. see the black parts carefully in my picture, u shall able to see the mark.

tat one slot heatsink was so nice to help collect and keep the dust .. tat y my pc room is so clean from dust ...lol ..thanks to the engineer who came out with tat design!!

This post has been edited by ahwolfy: Dec 4 2009, 05:34 PM

i have 1 xfx 8800GT b4 this....
but sold already...
nice card lol...
i have the same problem when playing crysis,the temp reach till 65-70c...
but i just ignore it...
but never open the heatsink to see whats inside,scare lol...
thats the problem with single card solution i think,the cooling is not so efficient eh...
but now i love my gtx tri-fan...
cool enuf for me wit the noisy fan...

This post has been edited by selfdz87: Dec 4 2009, 06:01 PM

i just checked my temp on cpuid the temperature is 66 degrees Celsius...

is this normal???

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Added on December 4, 2009, 6:11 pmjust tested it with graphic card stability test and the temperature went to 86 degrees celsius

This post has been edited by Johan-N: Dec 4 2009, 06:11 PM

wat is ur room temp? my experience with this card is room temp 22c (with aircon), vga idle temp = 55c.
and 60c++ with room temp 27c (without aircon).

according to nvidia, the max temp for 8800gt is 105c
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_8800_gt_us.html

so, i think 80c with load should be no problem for your card.

my problem with this 8800gt before is the freaking annoying high pitch sound produced by the single slot heatsink fan ... it really drive my crazy.

my room aircond off temperature at idle is 70 when do graphic stress test it go up to 85c

....
i think should be no harm if not exceeding 100c. but of course the lower the better.
if u welling to spend some $, maybe u can think of swap the stock heatsink with zalman vf2000. it is a very effective silent vga cooler. , as me and pcwork have tested.

how much is it?

and also is it normal to run at 90c when playing games?

This post has been edited by Johan-N: Dec 4 2009, 09:07 PM

for me ... 90c i will consider hot .. lolz
the vf2000 is RM 215++ , bought from modernopc

so expensive vf2000.... my card now like can boil water.....

anyway any cheaper cooler?

thermaltake Duorb = rm160++ i think .
many reviews said it is a good cooler for 8800gt.

If i'm not mistaken 105c is the temperature your card can attain before the forceware forces the card to stop operating.

@TS yeah welcome to malaysian hardware i guess. Luckily my old 8800gt was the zalman fan ed., not top of the line but at least the fan is easier to maintain. But since we're on the topic, im guessing that the room your pc is kept is carpeted? And i would be guessing that your casing isn't closed compeletely?

I've cleaned a few with more dust buildup in their components but when the pc is not kept in an air conditioned room the dust tends to be more packed and "sticky". So i'm just presuming.

my case got alot of fans sucking air in so i guess there might be a lot of dust....and most of the time i use aircond.


is there any way that i can clean my 8800gt slim?