Little Help? My Radeon 9500 Fan Died

[JewishAntelope]

So there I was minding my own business, and I noticed while playing a game the display started to flicker really bad, which eventually lead to a hard lock. The entire system is pretty new (3 months or so). I popped the hood and to my surprise, the fan was stationary.

I ordered it from NewEgg, and unfortunately they're not open until Monday. My delimna is that the Radeon 9500 non-pro (I bought it originally because it modded to a 9700 -- which mine did flawlessly) has been discontinued. NewEgg no longer carries it. The 9600 is trash, and the 9500 Pro most likely won't cut it. I do not have plans to purchase a $300 video card (the 9700 non-pro) because of a faulty component.

My only logical option is to replace the fan. Unless NewEgg decides to ship me a 9700 at no extra cost (highly unlikely, or possible?).

My question is: What's needed to replace the current heatink/fan combo on the Radeon 9500? Normally the fan is seperated from the heatsink, but this one appears to be 1 piece. It's almost as if the fan is embedded into the heatsink (in 1 piece of plastic). I never added a heatsink/fan to a piece of hardware other than a CPU.

At the moment in my 'box 'o supplies' I only have a single case fan. It looks like it could fit, and it does have a base (although not solid). Do you think it's possible to plop that ontop of the Radeon chipset without a "true" heatsink?

If not, do you think Radio Shack would have something I could use? I'm trying to figure out the method of fixing this problem in the least amount of time. Even if I RMA the 9500 to NewEgg, it'll take 8-10 days for a round trip and 2-3 days to process + weekends. 2 weeks down time is unacceptable.

 

[dmw16]

Alright...first off, the 9600 isnt great, but the 9600pro is a perfectly good video card...and the 9500pro would also cut it just fine. In the case of ATi the numbers being higher doesnt mean everything...

But that is a moot point. YOu cant replace the fan itself, but you can replace the heatsink and fan w/ something like a crystal orb or even one of those zalman heatpipe things. Getting The current heatsink off isnt too difficult and you can go www.plycon.com and find a crystal orb.

Finally, you dont wanna RMA that card. If you have a 9500 that softmods to 9700 speeds then you wanna hold onto that, because what comes back will most likey not softmod.
-doug

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Yeah I would just replace the HSF with a better one. The chance of you getting another good card like that is unlikely. My old Nvidia Geforce256 32MB had the same problem, and that is what I did.

 

[Czar]

buy a zalman fanless heatsink for it, win win situation

 

[JewishAntelope]

dmw16,
It doens't look too hard to take off, 2 simple screws and a plastic nub thing. The only problem is the screws are microscopic heh. I'll have pickup a pair of "eyeglass screwdrivers" or something.

Would something like this work?
http://www.plycon.com/chipset/van_ice4pro.htm

There's a local computer show here tomorrow, I assume one of the vendors should have that. The zalman seems like overkill (the giant double sided copper looking heatsink).

Edit:
According to that site, the "Pro" version doesn't have my card listed, however the non-Pro fan does. They both look identical; either or should work?

 

[Czar]

it might seem like an overkill but its fanless, no sound, I have one and it absolutely rocks