nVidia GeForce 2 MX Heatsink Cooling "mod"
Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:47 am
The "mod" is in quotes because it's barely a mod, if at all. 
Long story short, a friend's hard drive died possibly due to heat, or maybe just plain old wear and tear. Upon opening the case and looking around, I noticed the video card had no heatsink. Upon touching the GPU with the side of my thumb I damn near burned myself.
Anyways, I slapped in a new (old) HD, yanked the card, and gave her my old Riva TNT2 Ultra (passive heatsink) and all was well (except for the pictures she lost on the dead HD).
Later, I was contemplating what to do with the GeForce2 MX when it dawned on me that I still had a new unopened Zalman chipset heatsink in the closet (don't ask).
It took some adjustment, but it fit pretty nicely.
Mmm... thermal grease...
These ceramic based thermal greases require a special touch.
Ahh... perfect.
Now that's more like it.
Cleaning the work area with some isopropyl.
(The dead HD and my eVGA 6200 in the background.)
The spread looks good!
Very epic ain't it?
nVidia and ATi got nothin' on my 3 slot cooler.
Ahh... old faithful. Still has the free sticker I got from NewEgg when I bought my 5600 Ultra.
Whoo! It still works! And of course, no modding project would be complete without a little overclocking.
From 175/166... to 260/200! No artifacts (in Windows, no games installed to test).
Of course, this being a rarely used net/e-mail station, I changed it back to defaults.
What was that? You want me to take what?
Temperatures?!!? In Soviet Russia, temperature takes you!
I have no temperatures, the card doesn't have a thermal probe, and I don't have a thermometer. However, it does feel a lot cooler than before, like a warm bowl of soup as opposed to a scalding hot frying pan. All in all, a success!
Long story short, a friend's hard drive died possibly due to heat, or maybe just plain old wear and tear. Upon opening the case and looking around, I noticed the video card had no heatsink. Upon touching the GPU with the side of my thumb I damn near burned myself.
Anyways, I slapped in a new (old) HD, yanked the card, and gave her my old Riva TNT2 Ultra (passive heatsink) and all was well (except for the pictures she lost on the dead HD).
Later, I was contemplating what to do with the GeForce2 MX when it dawned on me that I still had a new unopened Zalman chipset heatsink in the closet (don't ask).
It took some adjustment, but it fit pretty nicely.
Mmm... thermal grease...
These ceramic based thermal greases require a special touch.
Ahh... perfect.
Now that's more like it.
Cleaning the work area with some isopropyl.
(The dead HD and my eVGA 6200 in the background.)
The spread looks good!
Very epic ain't it?
nVidia and ATi got nothin' on my 3 slot cooler.
Ahh... old faithful. Still has the free sticker I got from NewEgg when I bought my 5600 Ultra.
Whoo! It still works! And of course, no modding project would be complete without a little overclocking.
From 175/166... to 260/200! No artifacts (in Windows, no games installed to test).
Of course, this being a rarely used net/e-mail station, I changed it back to defaults.
What was that? You want me to take what?
Temperatures?!!? In Soviet Russia, temperature takes you!
I have no temperatures, the card doesn't have a thermal probe, and I don't have a thermometer. However, it does feel a lot cooler than before, like a warm bowl of soup as opposed to a scalding hot frying pan. All in all, a success!
