Is a Zalman VF900 easy to fit

Soldato
Joined
4 Sep 2005
Posts
12,785
Location
London
It's well easy, just make sure your prepared with a mini screw driver, and a cloth with some thermal grease remover (alcohol)
 
Man of Honour
Joined
11 Mar 2003
Posts
10,706
Location
Greenock, Scotland
Dead easy to do, put one on an X1800 at the weekend. Just remember to tighten the thumbscrews on the back a turn at a time on each screw to ensure that the heatsink is drawn down onto the core evenly.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Sep 2005
Posts
14,837
Location
Bradley Stoke, Bristol
Attaching mine on my X800XL was fairly easy, just a bit fiddly.
Its only the 2 pin attachment on this card, so I made the most of my brother to hold it still whilst I tightened the nuts.
I imagine it will be very easy if you have a 4 pin mount.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Jan 2006
Posts
4,551
Location
Edinburgh
rpstewart said:
Dead easy to do, put one on an X1800 at the weekend. Just remember to tighten the thumbscrews on the back a turn at a time on each screw to ensure that the heatsink is drawn down onto the core evenly.

out of interest how noisy was the x1800 with stock cooling - and how noisy is it now??

i guess it depends on how noisy other components are - but just thought I'd ask.....
 
Man of Honour
Joined
11 Mar 2003
Posts
10,706
Location
Greenock, Scotland
div0 said:
out of interest how noisy was the x1800 with stock cooling - and how noisy is it now??

i guess it depends on how noisy other components are - but just thought I'd ask.....

The stock cooling is fine at idle, a bit loud at boot time (slows quickly though) and under load. I didn't get it that noisy under load as I swapped out the stock cooler only after a couple of days.

At 12V the VF900 is audible if you stick your head round the back of the case, I think the vents in the X1800 backplate let the noise out. At 5v it's as quiet as you're going to get and the temps at idle and load are still lower than they were with the stock cooler.

The only issue possibly is that the VF900 keeps hot air in the case whereas the stock cooler vents it all out the back. I've got it in a V2100+ so I'm going to sort the fans out properly tonight and get the card blower in there to see if I can get the ambient case temperature down a bit.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Jan 2006
Posts
4,551
Location
Edinburgh
Sounds good :)

What's the best way to control the noise from your fans?

Have been thinking about this quite a bit for my next build......

Is it worth getting a fan controller??

Or do you just "hand-mod" your fans to use a lower voltage?

If you have a decent case (say an Akasa Eclipse) would you be able to run all your case, cpu and gpu fans at a lower voltage (say 7V), even under load (no overclocking)?

I'm quite keen to reduce the general noise in my next build - but I'm unsure of how best to go about it!!

Any info on voltages - fixed/variable, software controlled/hardware controlled and fan noise in general would be appreciated :)
 
Back
Top Bottom