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OK to disconnect fan on video card?

T

tynopik

Diamond Member
I've got a Chaintech GSP5200T2 GeForce FX 5200 and was wondering if there was any problem with disconnecting the fan.

It will ONLY be used for 2D (1920x1200) in XP so i'm thinking it should be fine, but just wanted to check

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814145136

if it does go bad, will the damage be contained to the card or could it damage other components? (mb, monitor, catch on fire, etc)
 
No, it's not ok to disconnect the fan on that card. That's a small heatsink/fan unit on that card. Over time that card will cook itself without the fan and you'll eventually get lockups, artifacts and more!

 
Very risky IMHO

Even in 2D, the current running through the video chip will heat the chip. If the fan is not spinning, you are left with a very small passive heatsink to dissipate the heat. I guess the noise annoys you, but it might not be worth it to spend on retrofitting a passive cooler on an older card.

Maybe you could spend $4 on a FanMate to lower the fan speed:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16835118217
 
the problem is the fan is going out and i really don't want to invest much more in that system, anything easy and (very) cheap to fix it?
 
Maybe you will find a deal on This Page

You just have to go the the fan mfgr's web site and find out if the selected model is compatible with your videocard
 
Underclock your card and you should be fine.

Edit >> Watch those temps for the first few hours/days, and reconnect the fan if something gets too hot.
 
Just unplug the fan you'll be fine without it. I've run a Geforce 2 and 4 for years without a fan because they both died. They work perfectly to this day even with heavy 3d gaming.
 
I've got that card on my dad's machine. Fan went messed up and loud. I swapped the card for a passive FX5200 and it works fine. I'd try it without the fan (take it out too) and see how temps are.

Also maybe throw a extra case fan right under it if you have one.
 
My mom's computer has a fanless Radeon 7500. It had a fan, but it died. I took the heatsink off, put AS5 on it, put it back on, and underclocked ithe core as low as I could. She uses it for Word processing, and some light puzzle gaming. No problems so far. 🙂
 
I tried that on my Radeon 9700. First the heatsink turned green, later it turned purple. When it turned purple, that's when the problems came. After that, there was no fan big enough to fix it.
 
Originally posted by: tynopik
the problem is the fan is going out and i really don't want to invest much more in that system, anything easy and (very) cheap to fix it?
Click to expand...


My fan went out on my fx5500 and it would overheat before start up could finish
 
Originally posted by: BassBomb
I've got that card on my dad's machine. Fan went messed up and loud. I swapped the card for a passive FX5200 and it works fine. I'd try it without the fan (take it out too) and see how temps are.

Also maybe throw a extra case fan right under it if you have one.
Click to expand...

Fx series doesn't show temps or at least mine doesnt
 
I've removed plenty of fans from video cards, usually without issue. However that heat sink is especially small! You can probably just place a $10 slot fan next to the video card.
 
I would not do it and if you try it closely monitor the temperature. I had a PC with a Radeon 9200SE that had a fan that died and I thought it was OK and it ran for months until one day the system was completely dead. (no post)

After the motherboard (dead) and video card (dead) were replaced, the system was booted back up and I noticed the screen saver (normally disabled) was set to flying objects. (openGL) What I believe happened is when the screen saver engaged and put a load on the GPU it heated up, blew up and took out the motherboard.

Further testing of the motherboard showed the northbridge (Intel 875P) was at fault. Removing the heatsink from it and applying power resulted in lots of heat. I shot it with the IR thermometer and it went from +23°C to over 200°C in a matter of seconds! Leaving it running for a few more seconds a burning smell was detected along with the sound of crackling. Power was cut at this point.

So if your GPU goes like that it's possible it could take out something else! Not worth it IMO! If you abhor the fact of having a fan or just want the reliability of running fanless, there are plenty of video cards in that range that have passive heatsinks.
 
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