Question about the Crystal Orb from Thermaltake

[Ilmater]

Has anyone tried to lap the nickel bottom of this thing off? AFAIK, that plating isn't the best conductor. Copper is much better. I've tried to lap the stuff off, but it's not easy. There's a lot of nickel on there!'

Will this help my temps/OC?

 

[Ilmater]

Also, what is the easiest way to get through this nickel on the bottom without buying a power sander? I don't have the budget for that.

 

[OulOat]

I lapped through it. Took me 2 hours total by hand. You might want to keep using a 300 or 150 grit until you get completely through the nickel. Using a power sander defeats the purpose of lapping. The reason you are lapping is because you want the bottom to be completely flat. Unless you can hold a powersander level through the entire process, your finished product won't have a flat base. So yeah, just do it by hand on something flat. I eventually took mine off my card though. It cooled my TI200 well even at 7V, but still louder than what I was looking for.

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: OulOat
It cooled my TI200 well even at 7V, but still louder than what I was looking for.

Loud? I didn't know it was loud. I wasn't expecting this. Are you particularly sound adverse?

Do you know if it performed better without the nickel on the bottom?

 

[OulOat]

Well, it's a tiny fan. what did you expect. It's not that loud at 7Vs, but when I made everything else quiet, it was the loudest. What was surprising was when I changed it from 12V to 7Vs. When I first installed it at 12Vs, I felt the back of my card while running benchmarks and I could feel it heating up. But once after the AS settled, my card remained pretty cool even after hours of 3dmark. Then I changed it to 7Vs. First thing I noticed was the drop in noise. Second was that the card got a little hotter, but still pretty cool. So I would recommend changing it to 7Vs if you care about noise.

I guess I might be a noise freak though, since I replaced the CORB with a big P200 hs, no fan. My card does get pretty hot now, but it's stable. No freezes, no errors after a month. If you have a big hs lying around, you might want to try that before the CORB.

 

[Ilmater]

I was planning on putting two on my case (one on the NB, one on my GF3 Ti200), so I hope it's not that loud. I've got a SCSI hard drive, though, so I can't imagine it being louder than that.

 

[OulOat]

Go passive on the NB.

 

[Ilmater]

Well, since I already bought them (and don't like sending things back), I put one of the COrbs on my NB last night. However, I won't know how it sounds until I put my board together. Does anyone else think they're too loud?

 

[Blain]

I lapped two CO's down to the copper to run on a Voodoo5 that I had. Course paper is a must to start with. But they came out cooling very well.
I removed the fan guard thingies to keep the possibility of noise to a minimum. They weren't loud at all.

 

[OulOat]

Yeah, remove the fan grill. It does cut down on noise and improves the cfms. The tradeoff is looks though. The tt grill look pretty good. Eh, noise or looks, your choice. But as a forwarning, CORBs get dirty and dusty very fast.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: Ilmater
Well, since I already bought them (and don't like sending things back), I put one of the COrbs on my NB last night. However, I won't know how it sounds until I put my board together. Does anyone else think they're too loud?

I have one that is collecting dust becauise it's a little loud for my tastes (to put on a North Bridge). I could easily hear it over my Panaflos.