First off, Im sorry if these pics are too large. I resized them down from 1920x1200, but maybe not enough for everyone.
Ok, this is my first AC Silencer ever. I bought one before for a 6800GT, but sold the card just after I got it, and never installed it. It has been 2 hours of very frustrating installation for this rev.3 model. There are two huge errors with this heatsink. The first I found was, there is no way to secure the backside memory heatsink. On the stock version, it screws to the main heatsink itself, thru the PCB. With the AC version, there are no screws, and no way to screw it to the heatsink even if there were. So I did a little reseach, I remember Asus having an AC heatsink on theirs.
Here are two pics from the Firingsquad review of the Asus GTX with the AC heatsink:
Asus AC
Asus AC shot 2
As you can see, there are plastic barbs that secure the backside heatsink. I got no such parts with mine. I looked on AC's website, and saw no such parts either. How does it attach to a 6800? Did they simply leave out the parts, or are they not supposed to be there? I asked this because in the instructions it has no mention on how to secure the heatsink.
In step 6, the last line after telling you how to apply the thermal pads is this blurb, "Finally press the cooling plate again firmly onto each memory." Again, there is no mention of any kind on how to secure the back heatsink. I pressed it as it said, but of course it fell off when installed in my PC.. so annoying. So it looks like I need some barbs like the Asus model uses, if anyone knows where to buy some, let me know please.
On to the second problem. This one cost me about an hour or so by itself. After installing the heatsink, I booted up to windows. Checked my temps, they looks pretty good. Put it under load, and the temps soared to almost 100c. I shut down the PC, was about to pull out the card to see if I messed up the plug some how. Then I thought I better check to see if the fan is even working at all. Suprise, it wasnt! So I took out the card, checked the plug, it seemed ok. Since there is only one way to plug them in, as anyone who has done it would know. I double and triple checked, I did it correctly.
My next step was hooking up a spare PSU, and rigging up a connection for the fan, to check and see if it was ok. Hooked up a 4 pin molex to a 3 pin fan connector, then plugged it into the AC fan. Worked just fine. So then I was a little confused. As my stock fan was just working fine an hour or so before. So I got online again, and check Firingsquads review once again. I wanted to check and see how the wires were in the plug.
Asus AC wire
Bingo! From this pic you can clearly see that the red wire, is on the inside. Mine was on the outside. I took a few mins, carefully changed how the wires were. Put the red on the inside, like the pic was showing. Booted up the PC, and the fan was now working..
Ok, so after the problems I had, I was curious to see if it was worth it, or not. Before the heatsink came in today, I ran some tests with the stock cooler, at idle and load. Both tests were under the exact same conditions, just with the different cooler. rthdribl was a little bigger for stock, I didnt notice it until I was resizing the pics. I ran the test again real fast, results were the same at the same res.
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So we can see, the stock heatsink was at 76c, while the Silencer was at 63c. Thats a pretty large difference to me.
[b
[b
Again the Silencer is much better. Strange its a 13c difference again.. 54c to 41c.
I hope this helps anyone who was thinking about getting one for their GTX. And maybe gives a heads up to the two problems I had. I have been waiting every since the first week they came out, and I got mine, for AC to get one ready. I didnt want the Zalman before someone tells me about that. I was the very hot air, outside of my case, not swirling around the inside, making the overall case temp hotter.
As I said, this is my first time using any AC product. I am thrilled with the performance, but not with the setup. I have a hard time believing that my wiring problem is limited to just mine. I hope its not an issue that will effect a lot of people. I also have to get something to secure the back heatsink. I will be emailing AC with my problems, hopefully they will help me out.
Ok, this is my first AC Silencer ever. I bought one before for a 6800GT, but sold the card just after I got it, and never installed it. It has been 2 hours of very frustrating installation for this rev.3 model. There are two huge errors with this heatsink. The first I found was, there is no way to secure the backside memory heatsink. On the stock version, it screws to the main heatsink itself, thru the PCB. With the AC version, there are no screws, and no way to screw it to the heatsink even if there were. So I did a little reseach, I remember Asus having an AC heatsink on theirs.
Here are two pics from the Firingsquad review of the Asus GTX with the AC heatsink:
Asus AC
Asus AC shot 2
As you can see, there are plastic barbs that secure the backside heatsink. I got no such parts with mine. I looked on AC's website, and saw no such parts either. How does it attach to a 6800? Did they simply leave out the parts, or are they not supposed to be there? I asked this because in the instructions it has no mention on how to secure the heatsink.
In step 6, the last line after telling you how to apply the thermal pads is this blurb, "Finally press the cooling plate again firmly onto each memory." Again, there is no mention of any kind on how to secure the back heatsink. I pressed it as it said, but of course it fell off when installed in my PC.. so annoying. So it looks like I need some barbs like the Asus model uses, if anyone knows where to buy some, let me know please.
On to the second problem. This one cost me about an hour or so by itself. After installing the heatsink, I booted up to windows. Checked my temps, they looks pretty good. Put it under load, and the temps soared to almost 100c. I shut down the PC, was about to pull out the card to see if I messed up the plug some how. Then I thought I better check to see if the fan is even working at all. Suprise, it wasnt! So I took out the card, checked the plug, it seemed ok. Since there is only one way to plug them in, as anyone who has done it would know. I double and triple checked, I did it correctly.
My next step was hooking up a spare PSU, and rigging up a connection for the fan, to check and see if it was ok. Hooked up a 4 pin molex to a 3 pin fan connector, then plugged it into the AC fan. Worked just fine. So then I was a little confused. As my stock fan was just working fine an hour or so before. So I got online again, and check Firingsquads review once again. I wanted to check and see how the wires were in the plug.
Asus AC wire
Bingo! From this pic you can clearly see that the red wire, is on the inside. Mine was on the outside. I took a few mins, carefully changed how the wires were. Put the red on the inside, like the pic was showing. Booted up the PC, and the fan was now working..
Ok, so after the problems I had, I was curious to see if it was worth it, or not. Before the heatsink came in today, I ran some tests with the stock cooler, at idle and load. Both tests were under the exact same conditions, just with the different cooler. rthdribl was a little bigger for stock, I didnt notice it until I was resizing the pics. I ran the test again real fast, results were the same at the same res.
[b
[b
So we can see, the stock heatsink was at 76c, while the Silencer was at 63c. Thats a pretty large difference to me.
[b
[b
Again the Silencer is much better. Strange its a 13c difference again.. 54c to 41c.
I hope this helps anyone who was thinking about getting one for their GTX. And maybe gives a heads up to the two problems I had. I have been waiting every since the first week they came out, and I got mine, for AC to get one ready. I didnt want the Zalman before someone tells me about that. I was the very hot air, outside of my case, not swirling around the inside, making the overall case temp hotter.
As I said, this is my first time using any AC product. I am thrilled with the performance, but not with the setup. I have a hard time believing that my wiring problem is limited to just mine. I hope its not an issue that will effect a lot of people. I also have to get something to secure the back heatsink. I will be emailing AC with my problems, hopefully they will help me out.
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