Installing Arctic Cooler to 9600 Pro?

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J

John

Is it a simple job? And does it require removing the original heatsink from
the chip? I would like to fit an arctic cooler, but I'm worried about
damanging the card in the process... Anyone with experience fitting these
???

Thanks
 
John said:
Is it a simple job?
Click to expand...

Yes, though the instructions are not always the most complete...
And does it require removing the original heatsink from
the chip?
Yes.

I would like to fit an arctic cooler, but I'm worried about
damanging the card in the process... Anyone with experience fitting these
???
Click to expand...

Just be careful when removing the original heat sink. Plastic, spring loaded
clips are used to hold it in place. Before the clips can be backed out,
there's a small pin that must be removed from each clip, from the front side
of the card,

Oh, and don't forget to plug in the Arctic Cooler's fan before mounting it.
The fan header on the card becomes inaccessible once the new cooler is fully
bolted in.
 
First of One said:
Yes, though the instructions are not always the most complete...


Just be careful when removing the original heat sink. Plastic, spring
loaded
clips are used to hold it in place. Before the clips can be backed out,
there's a small pin that must be removed from each clip, from the front
side
of the card,

Oh, and don't forget to plug in the Arctic Cooler's fan before mounting
it.
The fan header on the card becomes inaccessible once the new cooler is
fully
bolted in.

--
Click to expand...

Right, thanks for that....

The last card that I tried to part heatsink and chip ended in the chip
coming away from the board with the heatsink : - (

I hope my 9600 H/S is just held in place with the spring clips. I shall
have to have a good look at it...

Thanks again...
 
Very few 3D cards nowadays use adhesives of such strength. Even then, you
can still embrittle the adhesive by putting the card in the freezer
overnight.
 
Is it a simple job? And does it require removing the original heatsink from
the chip? I would like to fit an arctic cooler, but I'm worried about
damanging the card in the process... Anyone with experience fitting these
???

Thanks
Click to expand...

yes, you must remove the original cooler which is garbage but is very
easy to get off.

Actually I did the opposite with my 9700 pro and used a hair dryer to
heat it up after I got rid of the retaining pins...carefully! (believe
me the 9700 Pro is used to heat!). While I was at it, I also removed
the infamous 9700 pro shim, since its adhesive also became easier to
remove. Artic Cooler works great and it is quiet!! You can feel the
heat it exausts out the back grill of the cooler!
Jeff
 
yes, you must remove the original cooler which is garbage but is very
easy to get off.

Actually I did the opposite with my 9700 pro and used a hair dryer to
heat it up after I got rid of the retaining pins...carefully! (believe
me the 9700 Pro is used to heat!). While I was at it, I also removed
the infamous 9700 pro shim, since its adhesive also became easier to
remove. Artic Cooler works great and it is quiet!! You can feel the
heat it exausts out the back grill of the cooler!
Jeff
Click to expand...

Just a word of caution. A number of people have crushed the GPU core
because they removed the shim and installed a 3rd party cooler.
 
I AGREE about removing the shim...it is not for the faint of heart and
I do not recommend it...EXTREME DANGER. The artic cooler will still
work with the shim in place.

BTW: I understand that the shim clearances were corrected considerably
AFTER the 9700 Pro so there should be no need to remove it from a
9600!

I guess I was looking for an excuse to upgrade...although I do not
need to....for what I di, the 9700 Pro is plenty! I just like to
tinker.
 
I AGREE about removing the shim...it is not for the faint of heart and
I do not recommend it...EXTREME DANGER. The artic cooler will still
work with the shim in place.

BTW: I understand that the shim clearances were corrected considerably
AFTER the 9700 Pro so there should be no need to remove it from a
9600!

I guess I was looking for an excuse to upgrade...although I do not
need to....for what I di, the 9700 Pro is plenty! I just like to
tinker.
Click to expand...

Now for the thickies like me, whats a shim ?

John
 
John said:
Now for the thickies like me, whats a shim ?

John
Click to expand...

Just for everyone's info, I actually purchased a Rev3 Artic Cooler last
night from my local PC World store. I got the last one they had in stock
just now... Me being me, I drove straight back home and got stuck in with
fitting the new purchase! (Not least so I could do away with the constant
groan from the original cooler. The original fan lasted all of 6 weeks! (by
the way, I paid £9.99 for the new arctic cooler), was that quite reasonable?

Well I've now found out what a shim is... Acording to the dictionary, its a
small piece of material used to fill a space or to even something up. Well
my 9600 Pro card had a vey thin piece of foam which was glued directly onto
the heatsink, and when I removed the heaksink from the GPU the shim came
away with the heatsink. I tried to remove the shim from the heaksink using a
very sharp blade (slicing it off), but it was not gonna let go that easily
and what did come away would have been no use to man nor beast!. I checked
the Arctic Cooler up against the GPU and there was good clearance all around
the central core so I decided to fit the new arctic cooler without a shim
(was I being daring?)... Once I had mounted the heatsink and screwed up the
screws as tight as I thought it necessary, I double checked the clearance
again and things still looked just fine.. So I fitted the card back into the
PC and all is doing really great.

I must say it was quite a simple job really, and my only worry was that I
wouldn't be able to get the original heatsink and GPU apart. Luckily for
me, once I removed the clips holding the heatsink down, I was pleased to see
there was nothing major holding the two together and very slight pressure
brought them apart easily.

All it needed was a bit of careful work and common sense.
Thanks to all who commented... I would appreciate anything further you would
like to add....

John
 
John said:
my 9600 Pro card had a vey thin piece of foam which was glued directly onto
the heatsink, and when I removed the heaksink from the GPU the shim came
away with the heatsink.
Click to expand...

What you found was NOT the shim; it was the thermal-interface pad. The shim,
in this application, is a white plastic shroud surrounding the processor
die. See:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20020819/images/r300chip.jpg

On the 9700 (but not the newer 9600), the shim rises above the top surface
of the die. Consequently, a bare heat sink installed on the 9700 actually
will not contact the die. ATi used a thick thermal pad to fill the gap. The
was a safe/cheap method in a mass-production environment.
I tried to remove the shim from the heaksink using a
very sharp blade (slicing it off), but it was not gonna let go that easily
and what did come away would have been no use to man nor beast!.
Click to expand...

The thermal pad was never meant to be reused.

Now, ideally, before installing the Arctic Cooler, you should clean the
processor surface with some alcohol, then apply a razor-thin layer of the
supplied thermal paste. Did you do all that?
 
Now, ideally, before installing the Arctic Cooler, you should clean the
processor surface with some alcohol, then apply a razor-thin layer of the
supplied thermal paste. Did you do all that?
Click to expand...

That should be 99% Isopropyl alcohol too - available at any drugstore.
 
First of One said:
What you found was NOT the shim; it was the thermal-interface pad. The
shim,
in this application, is a white plastic shroud surrounding the processor
die. See:
Click to expand...

This one had a very thin foam pad glued onto the heatsink, I think it was
nothing more than to help the heatsink fit square into the die (or egaully
to make sure that the heatsink didn't touch the surface mount components
around the edge of the die), similar to the idea used by AMD 32bit Athlons,
where they used four small pads on each corner of the processor housing to
help make sure the heatsink sat evenly on top. I have left this foam pad on
the original heatsink as removing it would have been no use, as I couldn't
have re-used it after removal due to damaging it in the removal process. It
was at this point, that I made sure there was adequate clearance between the
die and the components around it, before fitting the arctic cooler. There
was no shim as in the phoo below on this card. I might add at this point
that the card was purchased as a Peak ATi 9600 Pro.

One thing I did notice before I fitted the new cooler was that the GPU said
9550 on it (If I remember correctly) which read me to believe that I had
been sold a 9550 as a 9600 Pro, but maybe someone else could comment on that
one. The card is found as a 9600 Pro in windows XP and the box says its a
9600, its also got a label on the card that says 9600 on it too.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20020819/images/r300chip.jpg

On the 9700 (but not the newer 9600), the shim rises above the top surface
of the die. Consequently, a bare heat sink installed on the 9700 actually
will not contact the die. ATi used a thick thermal pad to fill the gap.
The
was a safe/cheap method in a mass-production environment.


The thermal pad was never meant to be reused.

Now, ideally, before installing the Arctic Cooler, you should clean the
processor surface with some alcohol, then apply a razor-thin layer of the
supplied thermal paste. Did you do all that?
Click to expand...

Yes the die originally had a small amount of heat transfer paste, I removed
all trace of the old stuff and re-applied a thin layer of new paste to the
top of the die before installing the artic cooler.

John
 
John said:
This one had a very thin foam pad glued onto the heatsink, I think it was
nothing more than to help the heatsink fit square into the die (or egaully
to make sure that the heatsink didn't touch the surface mount components
around the edge of the die), similar to the idea used by AMD 32bit
Athlons, where they used four small pads on each corner of the processor
housing to help make sure the heatsink sat evenly on top. I have left
this foam pad on the original heatsink as removing it would have been no
use, as I couldn't have re-used it after removal due to damaging it in the
removal process. It was at this point, that I made sure there was adequate
clearance between the die and the components around it, before fitting the
arctic cooler. There was no shim as in the phoo below on this card. I
might add at this point that the card was purchased as a Peak ATi 9600
Pro.

One thing I did notice before I fitted the new cooler was that the GPU
said 9550 on it (If I remember correctly) which read me to believe that I
had been sold a 9550 as a 9600 Pro, but maybe someone else could comment
on that one. The card is found as a 9600 Pro in windows XP and the box
says its a 9600, its also got a label on the card that says 9600 on it
too.


Yes the die originally had a small amount of heat transfer paste, I
removed all trace of the old stuff and re-applied a thin layer of new
paste to the top of the die before installing the artic cooler.

John
Click to expand...

Incidently, does anyone have any idea of overclocking utilities I could now
try, now I have a bit more cooling onboard? Does anyone have any idea how
much I could push this card now? Its a Peak 9600 Pro (256mb). I remember
having a NV card a while back and there was a utility that added clock
adjustments for the memory and GPU into the cards normal settings, is there
something similar I could download to try and clock this one up a little
bit... JUST FOR FUN I might add! I'm not really a gamer, except when my
nephew takes over the computer, but I woulbn't mind having a go at pumping
it up a bit, just to see how far I could take it.
 
Incidently, does anyone have any idea of overclocking utilities I could now
try, now I have a bit more cooling onboard? Does anyone have any idea how
much I could push this card now? Its a Peak 9600 Pro (256mb). I remember
having a NV card a while back and there was a utility that added clock
adjustments for the memory and GPU into the cards normal settings, is there
something similar I could download to try and clock this one up a little
bit... JUST FOR FUN I might add! I'm not really a gamer, except when my
nephew takes over the computer, but I woulbn't mind having a go at pumping
it up a bit, just to see how far I could take it.
Click to expand...
Either get the Omega drivers or get Radlinker. Omega drivers have
Radlinker built in which is what adds overclocking abilities to the
control panel. But you can just get Radlinker by itself too. Look for
it here. www.guru3d.com
 
Either get the Omega drivers or get Radlinker. Omega drivers have
Radlinker built in which is what adds overclocking abilities to the
control panel. But you can just get Radlinker by itself too. Look for
it here. www.guru3d.com
Click to expand...

I have an Arctic Cooler on my X800 PRO and its so quiet.. well worth
the upgrade.

I also HIGHLY recommend Omega's drivers (5.1 is out now) but if you
want to "safely" find the highest overclock you can achive now, I'd
download ATI Tool which will go through a series of tests and slowly
bump up your clocks and retest it. Once you find the best clock.. use
Radlinker and Omega instead of ATI TOOL for day to day overclocking.

Pluvious
 
Pluvious said:
I have an Arctic Cooler on my X800 PRO and its so quiet.. well worth
the upgrade.

I also HIGHLY recommend Omega's drivers (5.1 is out now) but if you
want to "safely" find the highest overclock you can achive now, I'd
download ATI Tool which will go through a series of tests and slowly
bump up your clocks and retest it. Once you find the best clock.. use
Radlinker and Omega instead of ATI TOOL for day to day overclocking.

Pluvious
Click to expand...

Just been using ATi Tool, but I got very concerned when the memory on the
card got extremely hot.... : - (
Is this normally what happens? I didn't like it running that hot (I
couldn't touch it) so stopped all tests straight away. I have seen little
stick on heatsinks for memory, I guess I need some of them if I want to play
with overclocking?

John
 
How hot? As in you can't put your fingertip on it for too long or it'll burn
you? If that's the case, memory sinks are recommended. Just be sure to use a
quality thermal adhesive like Arctic Alumina Thermal Epoxy.

Newer Arctic Cooler revisions (for newer-gen cards) have a heatspreader for
the memory.
 
First said:
How hot? As in you can't put your fingertip on it for too long or
it'll burn you? If that's the case, memory sinks are recommended.
Just be sure to use a quality thermal adhesive like Arctic Alumina
Thermal Epoxy.

Newer Arctic Cooler revisions (for newer-gen cards) have a
heatspreader for the memory.
Click to expand...

And be sure there's some airflow in that part of your case. If there's no
air flowing around to cool yr memory, the sinks will only serve to isolate
the chips even more...
 
Just been using ATi Tool, but I got very concerned when the memory on the
card got extremely hot.... : - (
Is this normally what happens? I didn't like it running that hot (I
couldn't touch it) so stopped all tests straight away. I have seen little
stick on heatsinks for memory, I guess I need some of them if I want to play
with overclocking?

John
Click to expand...


Hmm.. My cooler for the X800 also cools my ram sticks as well, so i
didn't run into that problem. Make sure you have proper air flow in
the case and you should be fine. :)

Pluvious
 
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