Arctic Cooling Silencer reliability?

[deagz]

I want to get an ATi Siliencer 5 rev.2 for my sapphire gto2. However I've heard a few stories of the fan failing. Is this very common? Is it worth the risk?

No, i don't want a V1 or v-700.

 

[mwmorph]

the failing ones were older revisions i think. Artic had some bearing problems back in the day. i have a old artic cooling vga silencer revision3 and it still works flawlessly to this day.

 

[Boobers]

I've had a NV Silencer on a GF4200 for over a year now and no problems. The fan is as quiet as when I first installed it.

However, I would mention that when I pulled the card out of my system recently, the edge of the heatsink closest to the fan was almost completely blocked with dust. To clean out this dust I had to completely remove the Silencer from the card, remove the screws holding the duct work and use a vacuum cleaner to suck up the dust. Other than that, I've had no problems with the unit.

EDIT: I also have an ATI Silencer on a 9700Pro that's been used occasionally for over a year. It works so well in my HTPC that I forget that it's in there!

Just remember, these coolers are LARGE and are a tight fit even in large cases.

 

[TLW]

to echo boobers:

the Silencer is BIG, in my old motherboard's environment i had to bend one of the RAM holders to fit it in (A8N-E btw)

it also sits right over the chipset cooler on my current motherboard, althoug it doesn't touch it and my chipset temps are fine

as for the temperatures of the GPU it's phenominal, i get 28/46 with the fan never going above 54% (it only does that at 50)