GF3 Ti 200 - is passive cooling enough?

[Megatomic]

I just acquired an old eVGA GF3 Ti 200 with a bad fan on the cooler. Can I run this card with passive cooling or will I need to go get a new forced air cooler for it? I was at Best Buy and they wanted $19.99 for a BFG branded VGA cooler. I mumbled "F" this and walked away of course.

What do you guys think? I went right from a GF2 Ultra to a GF4 so I have no experience with cards like this.

TIA for the opinions/facts.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

There were some designed as passive, but just cutting the fan on an active-cooled one will probably cause death unless you severely underclock it.

- M4H

 

[Megatomic]

I wasn't going to do that, it's a pretty chumpy cooler to begin with. I'm surprised it's lasted all these years as it is.

I wonder if I should just go to Newegg and price a TT GF4 cooler, I think one of those might fit.

 

[Kogan]

I just opened up my other pc and felt the geforce3 heatsinks. It's very hot even with the fan working properly. The gpu heatsink is really tiny and I wouldn't recommend running it without a fan. Try to find a cheap fan replacement or rig a fan in the system somehow so it's blowing over the card. If you want to go passively-cooled, try to remove the heatsink and put a bigger one on there.

But even if it does die from heat, it's not a big loss since they're very cheap video cards now

 

[Denis54]

My son ran his GF3 Ti200 for about a year with a stuck fan without any problem

 

[OVERKILL]

My GF3 stock fan died so I replaced it with one I had one laying around.
The Video card wouldn't run without a working fan.

 

[jagerk]

I owned a Gainward Geforce3 Ti/450 Powerpack !!! golden sample or something. The amazing thing was I didn't realize the fan was broken until I popped it out to replace the stock heatsink with an arctic cooler.. it had been running fanless for quite some time..

On the other hand, it did die rather unremarkably, but after I had installed the arctic cooler for a year at least..

While waiting for a replacement card I borrowed a gf3 ti200, but apparently it was a Dell part- and it came with a tiny, Northbridge-sized passive heatsink. Didn't check temps, but if Dell thought a fan was not necessary (and proven through the part's longevity) then I'd suppose running your card with the fan attached but off should be OK if the temperatures are OK from sufficient ambient temperature..

 

[Zebo]

I had one of these on mine for over a year....

http://overklokking.no/cooling/diverse/zalman_vga/

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
There were some designed as passive, but just cutting the fan on an active-cooled one will probably cause death unless you severely underclock it.

- M4H

my friend has a INNO 3d Ti500 and the fan on thats been dead for ages...its so clogged with dust, and it actually will not rotate any more even if you force it

but its running fine and has been for god knows how long

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: jagerk
I owned a Gainward Geforce3 Ti/450 Powerpack !!! golden sample or something. The amazing thing was I didn't realize the fan was broken until I popped it out to replace the stock heatsink with an arctic cooler.. it had been running fanless for quite some time..

On the other hand, it did die rather unremarkably, but after I had installed the arctic cooler for a year at least..

While waiting for a replacement card I borrowed a gf3 ti200, but apparently it was a Dell part- and it came with a tiny, Northbridge-sized passive heatsink. Didn't check temps, but if Dell thought a fan was not necessary (and proven through the part's longevity) then I'd suppose running your card with the fan attached but off should be OK if the temperatures are OK from sufficient ambient temperature..

i have a dell Ti200 and its got a rubbish black hsf on it thats definately bigger than a northbridge cooler....though not by much

 

[Megatomic]

Thanks for the replies and stories guys. I probably could use this card as is, but it will be going into my wife's computer (replacing a GF4 MX400 64MB) and stability is the key. If it causes one lockup, well you know what is likely to happen.

The GF3 Ti200 is a big improvment over the GF4 MX400 isn't it? I'm thinking it is.