Soldato
Right, as I've been muddying another thread on here with my exploits with this cooler I figured it was about time I started my own thread.
To cut a long story short, I have 2 R270x cards, one that sits in my main rig in a mP180 case, stock cooler, mines 24/7 unless I'm gaming which is about twice a week, works fine.
The second card is literally sat in a motherboard, on a box, with wires and stuff everywhere, just mining 24/7.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zk80i64oaqpufse/Miner01.jpg
The idea was to stick my old GTX670 into the mining rig, build it into a case and give it to the youth so he can play games on it and use it for homework and so on, leaving me with both 270x's in my main rig.
Second part of that idea was to get a pair of these Hybrid II coolers and run both in my main rig, because, why not right?...
However the backing heatsink makes the card huge, so thats a no go, or is it, see new plan a bit lower down
Started off with my mining rig 270x, figured if I was going to break one I'd break the one thats not the important one, stripped the card down, put the Hybrid on, added a few heatsinks that I had in my spares box, fired it up and all was well, GPU temps were a lot lower than the stock cooler, as were the VRM's, despite a few people's doubts, this backing plate with thermal pads on the back seemed to be working damned well...
However, since the temp has picked up of late (warm weather shocker) the machine would hang, I put the card in my main rig, temps went up a smidge as the miner is open air, but the case has a fan that fires air straight at where the card sits, plus the main rig has a pokier PSU.
Machine would still hang, mining or playing BF4, hmmmm, so I put the stock cooler back on and fired it up, bingo, works again, at least the bloody thing isnt dead. Looks like theres something that the stock fan/heatsink setup is firing air over thats not got a sensor on it (all sensor readings are lower with the Hybrid II than stock) thats upsetting the card when the ambient temp goes up ~10oC...
Plan now is to look at a shallower backing plate, something thats not got the huge fins on it that the Hybrid II's backing plate has on it, fit that and a full length thermal pad (the Hybrid's pad is fine but too small to cover the entire card, covered the RAM and VRM sections but given the issues I'd rather go full length (so to speak) than certain points.
Then on the front of the card stick a few more heatsinks on bits, given the Hybrid's block just covers the GPU there is plenty of room for heatsinks to be directly stuck to stuff rather than cooling just the back of the PCB section that relates.
This should reduce the actual size of the unit enough to get both R270'x in my main rig, which was kinda the point in the first place..
I might have to swap cases though or "mod" them a bit, maybe fit both GPU's to a larger rad thats in the top of the mP180 and using the stock 120mm fan in the top to cool them both, we'll have to see how it goes modding the single card before I start butchering stuff. Dont want to go down the complete watercooling route as it can be damned expensive but a pair of Hybrid II's a few T-peices, a rad isnt out of the question, hell maybe even add the CPU H50 thing to the same loop if the rad/fan combo has enough cooling capability, would tidy the case up no end having all three going through the same loop...
Has anyone else played with anything similar, looking for a backing plate that's R270x compatible (Asus Direct II CU Top thing) and heatsinks for the front.
I've pretty much always had Accelero kit for third party coolers so have a load of spare heatsinks but not enough to do what I want, looking for something similar to this but its EOL from Artic themselves..
http://www.arctic.ac/eu_en/heatsink-accelero-xtreme-7970.html
Few pic's of the R270x naked and with the Hybrid fitted showing how tight it is with the backing heatsink on..
Naked
https://www.dropbox.com/s/svyc41r7cvb2za1/R9-270x-PCB.jpg
Tight
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m9yjtg2lw3t0wdf/Miner05.jpg
Done, pre heatsink's on the RAM, and yes the rad needs to be higher, it was sat on its own box after I fitted the RAM sinks..
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bg21ns16d32padu/Miner02.jpg
To cut a long story short, I have 2 R270x cards, one that sits in my main rig in a mP180 case, stock cooler, mines 24/7 unless I'm gaming which is about twice a week, works fine.
The second card is literally sat in a motherboard, on a box, with wires and stuff everywhere, just mining 24/7.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zk80i64oaqpufse/Miner01.jpg
The idea was to stick my old GTX670 into the mining rig, build it into a case and give it to the youth so he can play games on it and use it for homework and so on, leaving me with both 270x's in my main rig.
Second part of that idea was to get a pair of these Hybrid II coolers and run both in my main rig, because, why not right?...
However the backing heatsink makes the card huge, so thats a no go, or is it, see new plan a bit lower down
Started off with my mining rig 270x, figured if I was going to break one I'd break the one thats not the important one, stripped the card down, put the Hybrid on, added a few heatsinks that I had in my spares box, fired it up and all was well, GPU temps were a lot lower than the stock cooler, as were the VRM's, despite a few people's doubts, this backing plate with thermal pads on the back seemed to be working damned well...
However, since the temp has picked up of late (warm weather shocker) the machine would hang, I put the card in my main rig, temps went up a smidge as the miner is open air, but the case has a fan that fires air straight at where the card sits, plus the main rig has a pokier PSU.
Machine would still hang, mining or playing BF4, hmmmm, so I put the stock cooler back on and fired it up, bingo, works again, at least the bloody thing isnt dead. Looks like theres something that the stock fan/heatsink setup is firing air over thats not got a sensor on it (all sensor readings are lower with the Hybrid II than stock) thats upsetting the card when the ambient temp goes up ~10oC...
Plan now is to look at a shallower backing plate, something thats not got the huge fins on it that the Hybrid II's backing plate has on it, fit that and a full length thermal pad (the Hybrid's pad is fine but too small to cover the entire card, covered the RAM and VRM sections but given the issues I'd rather go full length (so to speak) than certain points.
Then on the front of the card stick a few more heatsinks on bits, given the Hybrid's block just covers the GPU there is plenty of room for heatsinks to be directly stuck to stuff rather than cooling just the back of the PCB section that relates.
This should reduce the actual size of the unit enough to get both R270'x in my main rig, which was kinda the point in the first place..
I might have to swap cases though or "mod" them a bit, maybe fit both GPU's to a larger rad thats in the top of the mP180 and using the stock 120mm fan in the top to cool them both, we'll have to see how it goes modding the single card before I start butchering stuff. Dont want to go down the complete watercooling route as it can be damned expensive but a pair of Hybrid II's a few T-peices, a rad isnt out of the question, hell maybe even add the CPU H50 thing to the same loop if the rad/fan combo has enough cooling capability, would tidy the case up no end having all three going through the same loop...
Has anyone else played with anything similar, looking for a backing plate that's R270x compatible (Asus Direct II CU Top thing) and heatsinks for the front.
I've pretty much always had Accelero kit for third party coolers so have a load of spare heatsinks but not enough to do what I want, looking for something similar to this but its EOL from Artic themselves..
http://www.arctic.ac/eu_en/heatsink-accelero-xtreme-7970.html
Few pic's of the R270x naked and with the Hybrid fitted showing how tight it is with the backing heatsink on..
Naked
https://www.dropbox.com/s/svyc41r7cvb2za1/R9-270x-PCB.jpg
Tight
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m9yjtg2lw3t0wdf/Miner05.jpg
Done, pre heatsink's on the RAM, and yes the rad needs to be higher, it was sat on its own box after I fitted the RAM sinks..
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bg21ns16d32padu/Miner02.jpg
