Has anyone here used a slot cooler to cool their video cards?

Mloot

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2002
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If so, did it work well and what brand would you recommend? Or are they all about the same in quality?
 

CurtCold

Golden Member
Aug 15, 2002
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I have a slot cooler right next to my 8500. IMO you'd be better off just modding the card itself. The fan is nice though, and helps cool the cpu as well. Not a bad idea if you have a slot open anyway.
 

DimZiE

Golden Member
Jun 26, 2001
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i only use the slot cover part from the cooler and use it as an exhaust for my VGA card HSF... a bit tricky but works very well ( better o/c results )
 

Egrimm

Golden Member
Jun 26, 2001
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Have used such a setup for years, ever since my GeForce2 Pro. Back then I got 10Mhz core/mem more out of it and have just used it since without checking how much it helps nowadays. It's just a pretty generic Titan slot-fan that isn't noisy at all, makes less noise than my other fans which runs ~30db each (at least I cannot identy any fan noise coming from it but I can from the others).
 

xSauronx

Lifer
Jul 14, 2000
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i have one just under my video card, not sure if it does the card any good, but it keeps my case a tad cooler by blowing some air out the back (case is in a closed cabinet, so it was a must have) did the fan on your card die or somethin?
 

SafeZone

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Oct 17, 2002
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I have had a slot cooler I got from best buy sitting under my geforce2 for a year now...and I finally realized that it wasn't really doing much, so I just modded the vid card, put a huge-ass heatsink from 3dcool.com for those old cellys and a pretty beefy 60mm fan, then stood a 120mm fan on the bottom of the case blowing directly at the ram chips. I got 10-20mhz more on the core and ram depending on fan speeds...

Also, i think if you just take one of those slot coolers and flip it over, (so the intake for the fan is on the bottom side) and put it ABOVE the video card or another PCI card, I think it would cool much better.

haven't tried it yet but logically since heat rises, this would work much better than having it below the video card...maybe I'm wrong though
 

tapir

Senior member
Nov 21, 2001
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the fan on my R8500 died so I just took it out put a slot cooler under it.

works a-okay.
 

Mloot

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2002
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Originally posted by: xSauronx
...did the fan on your card die or somethin?


Actually, I've got an AIW VE in a 2-slot riser cage in a SFF pc. The card has a passive heatsink and I didn't want to mess with replacing the heatsink and voiding the warranty. I haven't had any problems playing games, but I would like to overclock it a little when I do play games. I get artifacts after just a small overclock. I was thinking it was probably due to heat build-up and since the other PCI slot is empty, I might as well stick a fan in it.

 

zephyrprime

Diamond Member
Feb 18, 2001
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Also, i think if you just take one of those slot coolers and flip it over, (so the intake for the fan is on the bottom side) and put it ABOVE the video card or another PCI card, I think it would cool much better.
How can this be done? The AGP slot is the top most slot and there aren't any empty slots above it. And heat does rise but it rises at only a tiny fraction of the speed that a case fan can blow air.
 

SafeZone

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Oct 17, 2002
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hm, in my setup, there is an open slot above the video card...not an expansion slot like a pci slot, just an open slot in my case, and some room between the video card and the cpu hsf. I can fit the slot cooler in there and flip it over so that the fan is on the bottom, therefore it will blow out hot air that is rising off the card.

And heat does rise but it rises at only a tiny fraction of the speed that a case fan can blow air.

I still think it would be better to have the slot cooler higher up, since it might not catch all the heat coming from the card, even if it can dissipate it all. Also, the top of the card gets quite hot as well, having a slot cooler below the card wouldn't cool the topside of the card (actually the bottomside, depending on how you look at it)... while a modified hsf would do much better for cooling the underside.