Fitting a Thermalright Shaman to a 6950

Trusty · 4 Apr 2011 at 17:56

Is that a P182 you have there? Noticed some cable management holes at the top of the motherboard which i don't have.

Tealc · 4 Apr 2011 at 18:06

It's a P183 mate. I guess they added a couple of extra management holes here and there to the design. I suppose I should use them really.

Trusty · 4 Apr 2011 at 18:17

Ahh, mine doesn't have them unfortunately. Not sure how useful they would be anyway as i've always found there's not much room between the chassis and the side panel, it's very thin.

tersagun · 6 Apr 2011 at 15:04

BTW guys, do you have any suggestions for the fan, as my mobo only has 3-pin fan outputs?
Can those be modded somehow, so I can get smart-fan for the cooler?

Running at 100% all the time would be lame ;-)

Tealc · 6 Apr 2011 at 18:13

Tersagun -- you can buy a special cable off the auction site so your card will control the TY-140. I bought one but decided to make my own in the end ( it's the orange and blue cable thing). What it does is take 12v from the motherboard and the PWM from the graphics card and combines them in a connector which I feed to both fans.

The one off the auction site will just control the TY-140 but will as an advantage also give rpm feedback to the card itself for display in gpu-z or similar.

I will check the name if the auction site item so you can source it too. It was tricky to find.

Tealc · 6 Apr 2011 at 19:10

Here it is

And the name 'PCI-E Express Cooling Fan PWM 4 Pin / 3 Pin adaptor'

It has 4 positions each end.

skid34 · 6 Apr 2011 at 21:28

looking good there Tealc! , glad i was of help

loving this cooler, very happy with it

tersagun · 7 Apr 2011 at 08:26

Thanks for the awesome reply Tealc!

Though I'm not sure how it works, as I haven't even seen a naked gfx card before ;-)

Is the other end of the cable fitting on the Shaman's fan socket or there is a place on the card for that thing? If that is so, how will the fan get the energy?

If the fan is wired directly to the mobo 3-pin, there won't be any RWM-action going on.

I just couldn't figure out

Tealc · 8 Apr 2011 at 21:05

Sorry Tersagun I didn't notice your reply until now. I suppose I should subscribe to my own threads really.

Anyway the little cable thing receives all the power it needs from the graphics card. The TY-140 is only a 0.2A fan and I would have thought the blower fan would be a lot more than this.

You plug the smaller end of the little cable assembly into your graphics card, it'll only go on one way so there's no problem working out which way. You then connect the TY-140 fan to the larger end of the little cable assembly.

The Graphics card will now control the fan speed according to the graph set in the BIOS of the card itself and will also report fan speed in CCC, GPU-Z. Of course the speed will be massively less than the stock screamer fan.

Just got to say I am absolutely loving this cooler and so glad I went for the Shaman rather than the Arctic with it's 92mm 3 off 2,000rpm fans. Just got to get some orange light behind that heatsink

tersagun · 9 Apr 2011 at 08:51

Hey thanks!
Better late than never

I have to wait like half a day for my posts to be approved by moderation anyway, so it's all cool.

I've just couldn't realized that there is a fan pin on the card. Though what I was thinking.. how else would the stock fan spin?! ;-)

Thanks again for the helps mate.
I think I'm gonna buy this piece from the local shop. It won't grant GPU only PWM but my CPU fan is already spinning at low ratios (Contac 29), even under OC.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-031-AK

So I think both fans spinning at same % would be allright. Because I'm also thinking of getting a case fan to plug into that adapter.

Tealc · 9 Apr 2011 at 10:36

Yes that'll be fine too. However do be aware that the ty-140 at max revs is reasonably noisy so if your CPU PWM reaches 100% you may be producing unwanted noise. In addition if you have an application with low CPU usage but high GPU usage you will find the graphics cooling won't be as effective as the TY-140 idles at around 650rpm at less than 30% duty cycle.

The little black cable was only a few quid by the way, probably cheaper than the Akasa PWM. I didn't use mine but will keep it for future use.

tommybhoy · 9 Apr 2011 at 11:58

Tealc said:
so glad I went for the Shaman rather than the Arctic with it's 92mm 3 off 2,000rpm fans.

I was wondering if this is in reference to the noise levels of the extremes fans.

I already had an AC extreme 5870 that I kept from my 5870 when I sold it, which now sits on the 6950.
The extreme plugs straight into the cards fan controller so it's on automatic.
When the gpu is on desktop the 3 fans sit at about 580rpm - 750 rpm, the AC is quieter than any fans in my rig which includes 3 apache's and the TY-140(which is also housed in my case) even when they are all set to their slowest speeds on my fan controller.

When gaming on automatic fan, the extreme only hits about 1,250 rpms which still cannot be heard over the other case fans while keeping the core and vrms under 65c.

Take into account that I'm using xfire(bottom card awaiting another extreme) and the pc sits in a small cupboard under the stairs with very poor air circulation.

Please note I am in no way knocking the shaman, it was in case you thought the ac extreme was a noisy cooler which it is far from.

Tealc · 9 Apr 2011 at 16:01

I wasn't knocking the Arctic solution just merely pointing out that I prefer the noise signature of one fan running slow than three smaller fans running comparitively faster. As I said I did almost go for the Arctic solution but was held back by the lack of RAM and VRM heatsink coming with the actual cooler itself and the fact I'd have to pay postage twice. I hate paying postage costs.

Besides I don't think the Arctic wouldn't fit in my case without removing my mid drive bay which would be unfortunate as it hides my messy wiring.

Over on SPCR they have determined that the Thermalright Shaman is quieter than the Arctic and that's another thing I based my decision on.

If I were going crossfire I wouldn't have got the Thermalright although I suppose I could do if I were to use a long slot riser and have the card positioned outside my case or in a separate box somehow.

Cythx · 9 Apr 2011 at 19:44

I'm planning on fitting one of these onto my GTX 570, pretty sure it fits but what should I use to remove the paste on the GTX 570 and what thermal paste should I renew it with?

Does anyone have a link to an uninstallation guide for the GTX 570?

Thanks

tommybhoy · 19 Apr 2011 at 23:07

Hope your watching this thread tealc, I have a question you(or some other helpful dude or dudette) may be able to answer for me:

I have a p182 case like yours (I think), do you think the case would be okay and stay rigid if I cut out most of the bottom tray panel (the yellow box with the X in it) in order to fit another extreme to my 2nd 6950?

The second 6950 would be sitting in the slot above what looks like your sound card(red line). Most of the extreme would be above the bottom tray and just part of the fans would be sticking through the hole.

The 2nd pcie slot is lower down the mb so the extreme being three slots doesn't fit due to the pcie slot spacings.

I knew I was going to have this problem but, I have been thinking about a new setup i7 or bulldozer when it comes out and would get a mb with the pcie's in the right place, but my current q6600 @ 3.6 + xfire eats everything I play so what is the point really?

Tealc · 20 Apr 2011 at 00:15

I think you'd be fine to remove the material from the divider. The rest of the case is pretty sturdy. You'd need to cut a fair chunk of it though as the extremes are pretty long and would go beyond the drive bays, so would necessitate some material removal from lower drive bay too.

Sounds like an interesting mod though. Post pics.

Mine is a P183 by the way so is slightly different.

If your C2Q still copes then there's not much point in upgrading, although if the new enthusiast i7 is as good a step up as 1156 to 1155 then you never know it might just be worth it. I doubt if we need quad channel ram but we still would want it.

tommybhoy · 20 Apr 2011 at 16:17

Thanks for the reply mate. I thought it would be fine, just looking for a second opinion.

As you say, not needed but very much wanted, but I don't know if I can justify it though. I'll just have to wait and see.

hamletiano · 24 Apr 2011 at 19:21

Hi TealC i also installed that shaman, could you tell me in gpuz sensor which value are u getting?thanks
mine it says 254.4 gradesssss
thanks

Tealc · 25 Apr 2011 at 20:45

254.4 degrees doesn't sound correct to me.

I get 5 readings of temperature as seen here..

I think GPU Temperature is the same as GPU Temp #1

Tealc · 29 Apr 2011 at 12:39

Just did some further tests with Kombustor.

I waited for the temps to level off and waited at least 10 minutes before recording them. Values are GPU reading #1, #2, #3 and VReg Temps from GPU-z.

At auto fan setting, up to 33% at 728rpm - 75/76/80 and VRM 89

At 100% fan setting, 1288 rpm - 62/62/67 and VRM 72

At 50% fan setting, 990 rpm - 67/66/73 and VRM 80

It's probably 5-6 degrees warmer today than when I first ran the tests.

The VRM are a tad high I suppose but are supposedly fine up to 120+ degrees so I have 30 degrees headroom. I might not bother to get those Enzotech MOS-C1 after all.