Good idea/bad idea? 7600GT HSF transplant to 8600GT board

[Stattlich]

Both are XFX units, both have similar-if-not-identical copper-based HSFs on similar-if-not-identical boards. The fan on my capacitor-blown-prompting-new-GPU-purchase 7600GT was nice on the ears, but the 8600GT's fan is a bit too much for my non-gaming arse. Was just looking for a cheap dual-DVI card for my dual Samsung 22"s.

Can I safely make the swap without burning up the new 8600GT? Your thoughts, please.

 

[SneakyStuff]

Is the fan wiring on your 8600GT 2 cords?

 

[toyota]

wow thats odd because the 8600gt reference cooler is whisper quiet while the 7600gt had the nosiest reference cooler I had ever heard. so I assume that neither card had the reference cooler. also the xfx 8600gt used the 7600gt cooler so it should work.

 

[Stattlich]

Yep, two-wire power- everything is surprisingly similar. So I decided to go ahead and take a crack at it by chance. Well, the HSF off the 7600GT isn't rounded off enough at the NE corner to get around a capacitor on the 8600GT... crap! But wait, the fans themselves look to be about the same size... screw holes... hrmm. So I disassemble each HSF and just swap the fans- reassemble the 8600GT HSF, remount, reinstall, power up...

SUCCESS! Well, at least for the past two hours it's been good- we'll see. At this rate, I'm sure it'll be fine. I've built PCs for over a decade and never gotten down to transplanting video card parts before- that was fun. Too bad the price of scrap copper for the 7600GT HSF (about $3.29/lb. today, of which this is probably 1/4 of that) isn't worth holding onto. All bad parts in the trash, and all quiet 8600GTness in the chassis! Here's to holding up- thanks, gang.

 

[Stattlich]

UPDATE: Ehm... so I restarted my workstation this evening after installing the latest version of Acrobat Reader, and it wouldn't boot back up. The power LED blinked red and beeped 4 times... Googled... HP basically says 'have fun finding the culprit' with that combo.

Surprise surprise, it's the video card I just touched yesterday. Pulled it out, no blown capacitors or burned areas, fan and HSF look good... all seems well. Reinstall, same deal. Leave out, power on system, system comes on- it's definitely the video card.

Luckily I ordered another 7600GT before my fan surgery last weekend- looks like I'll be needing it afterall. ETA tomorrow.