Is a Zalman VF900 easy to fit

MeatLoaf · 10 May 2006 at 21:32

Thinking of getting one for my 7900GT but scared im gona break it.

daven1986 · 10 May 2006 at 21:47

i put a vf700 on my 6800 and it was very easy to fit.

Socaddict · 10 May 2006 at 22:03

assuming it mounts like their other VGA coolers, then yes, very.

ken1307 · 10 May 2006 at 22:30

MeatLoaf said:
Thinking of getting one for my 7900GT but scared im gona break it.

5 mins job

benjo · 10 May 2006 at 22:34

It's well easy, just make sure your prepared with a mini screw driver, and a cloth with some thermal grease remover (alcohol)

Gangster · 10 May 2006 at 22:39

Yup, very easy.

look on the zalman website, theres a vid tutorial there.

G

Messiah Khan · 10 May 2006 at 23:53

Yup its not hard at all really. The only thing I found a little tricky was getting the pins alligned, but that was fixed by loosening them a tiny bit first.

MeatLoaf · 11 May 2006 at 07:51

Cheers, will olet you know how i get on when i get it

rpstewart · 11 May 2006 at 10:54

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.

PinkFloyd · 11 May 2006 at 11:48

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.

div0 · 11 May 2006 at 13:46

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.....

rpstewart · 11 May 2006 at 14:10

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.

div0 · 11 May 2006 at 14:28

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