Underclock graphics card.

alantc

has anyone ever underclocked their graphics card?

I've a grforce4 ti4800 that makes a lot of noise. I'm thinking of just buying a fanless graphics cad but then it occured to me I might be able to underclock enough that I can turn off the fans.

Just want to know if everything still works ok after you do this.

How can I tell the temperatures on my card? Will there be any way I'll know I can tun the fans off?

Thanks

DonkeyStyle \o/

I'm not sure if the 4800 has a temperature sensor, I think they only came in with the 6600 series (but I'm open to correction on that).
I tried to do a similar thing with an old TnT2 I had sitting around... but eventually it overheated due to the tiny heatsink... so I'd only get about 45mins out of it before a lockup/reboot.
You can get passive heatsinks like the 'VGA pipe cooler' that have such a large surface area that you don't even need to underclock... I had one running on my Radeon 9600pro, but unfortunately I couldn't bring it over to my 6600GT because of the different fan mounting holes
These are great heatsinks, I think Zalman make them.... two things you want to check though, if you are going this route, are the fan mounting holes and what the heatsink is rated to work with... some cards run too hot and aren't officially supported.

unkel

alantc wrote:

I've a grforce4 ti4800 that makes a lot of noise. I'm thinking of just buying a fanless graphics cad but then it occured to me I might be able to underclock enough that I can turn off the fans.

Not a good idea to turn off the fans. Instead if you want your graphics card to be silent, install a Zalman heatpipe like this:

alantc

I've got a shuttle so that wouldn't fit in it. Although the heatsink on the card I have is very big.
The alternative is to buya fanless card. I'm thinking of the 9600 xt ultimate. It seems to be the best one out there that will fit in my case. How do the two cards compare?

I'm going to do some modding too. Just bought a dremel and some fans. It's going to be very quiet

Fobia

unkel wrote:

Not a good idea to turn off the fans. Instead if you want your graphics card to be silent, install a Zalman heatpipe like this:

Do you take off/turn off the fan after you install one of those, or is the idea that the heatpipe covers the fan drowning out the noise of it?

Newbie question but it's just confusing me

unkel

alantc wrote:

The alternative is to buya fanless card. I'm thinking of the 9600 xt ultimate. It seems to be the best one out there that will fit in my case. How do the two cards compare?

The 9600XT should be significantly better than your ti4800. Wanna post a linky? I don't recall coming across a fanless 9600XT, would like to see the looks of it

Fobia wrote:

Do you take off/turn off the fan after you install one of those, or is the idea that the heatpipe covers the fan drowning out the noise of it?

Neither. You'd take off the Heatsink and Fan (HSF) assembly altogether and replace it with another HSF (arctic coolers are great and cheap and quiet hence popular) or, in my example, a heatpipe

The new HSF / heatpipe would attach directly to the core of the graphics processor

secret_squirrel

I used to have an ATI AIW 9800se softmodded to a 9800 pro. Used to underclock it to get rid of sparklies in transparency effects. Worked like a charm