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Need a replacement cooler for my HD4870 - any recommendations?

Associate
Joined
26 May 2004
Posts
75
Location
Dublin
Hi folks,

After a few crashes I realised that the stock cooler on my HD4870 has given up the ghost. The fan makes a funny noise and won't start, then it bursts into action for a few seconds, screaming loudly, and stops again.

Temps reach 70C after a few seconds of running ATI Tool. I think the longest time I got on the artifact tester was 30 seconds without errors :(

I have plenty of room around the card and I'm happy to use any cooler, doesn't matter how many slots it covers.

Could anyone recommend a decent third-party solution to replace the stock fan/heatsink with?

Thanks!
 
Soldato
Joined
3 Dec 2004
Posts
2,570
I'd go (and have gone) the T-rad.2 route. It's a bit of an expensive set-up but it's the best cooler. I've never seen my VRM temps (these are the ones you want to watch- use GPU-Z) go above 65 on load with core on 45.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Oct 2002
Posts
7,424
Location
Bexhill on sea
I've always used the akasa neo cooler. Cheap, easy to instal and you can get some low profile ram sinks (I think akasa do them as well) and fit them on the VRMs. I've fitted abouyt 6-7 of these coolers in the past, never had a prob, took at least 20c-30c off the idle and loads temps and you can even use an akasa fan speed adapter to lower the fan speed so it almost inaudible, and it exhausts out of the back of the case.:)
 
Associate
OP
Joined
26 May 2004
Posts
75
Location
Dublin
Hm, ok I've taken the cooler apart, it looked fairly clean.. Sprayed some WD40 inside the fan, making sure to avoid the little circuit board.. put it back together, and it's perfectly stable now.

One thing I did notice is that the card heats up to 70C almost immediately and the fan only turns on when it reaches 70C. Also there's this weird noise just before the fan comes on. I thought it was the fan, but actually now I think it's the liquid inside the heatpipes, it must be made to evaporate at 70C and then the fan cools it back down.

After two hours of ATI Tool artifact testing the temperature was a pretty constant 70C, ranging from 69-72. So I'm guessing it's cured, just don't know for how long :p

But thanks for all the suggestions, if the fan goes again I'll have a replacement sorted :)
 
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