Running a GF FX5500 without a fan

[Bateluer]

I'm using a PCI FX5500 in one of my linux test beds. Even though its a slow card, it still vastly improves the performance on that system because its a single channel 845 chipset. Using the IGP takes precious memory bandwidth away from the CPU, a P4 2.53. Furthermore, Compaq saw fit to only equip the system with PC2100 DDR. This makes running on the IGP ungodly slow in any GUI, whether it be XFCE, Gnome, or Explorer.

The 5500 relieves this situation considerably. Unfortunately, the fan on the 5500 is dying and often makes an annoying whine. If I were to unplug the fan, would it damage the card?

I tried googling for more information, but there is little information about the heat output of a 5500. Removing the heatsink entirely will also be difficult because the manufacturer of the card saw fit to use glue on the rear of the pins that seal the heat sink to the card.

See the picture at the link below.

Text

 

[Dazed and Confused]

THose cards need that fan. If you have a 40mm fan lying arround, simply pull the fan off the heatsink for the 5500, carefully remove the pins that hold the heatsink to the video card and run some zip ties thru the fan, then thru the mounting holes on the 5500 and tighten it down snug. I've done this many times with almost every card I've own .

 

[Bateluer]

Dang, and I threw out a few boxes of odds and ends months ago.

The 5500s run hot enough to actually need a fan? I have a decent copper heat sink here that came from my old gainward 6800GT that could fit on the 5500 core using Arctic Silver epoxy, but I have no fans for it.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Oh dear god that has to be the most grossly ineffecient heatsink I've ever seen on a video card . Do not run that pitiful excuse for a heatsink without out a fan unless you have a spare card to replace it

If you have that copper heatsink from the 6800 then it might work as I think the 6800's ran hotter so that may work without a fan if it's the one I'm thinking of.

 

[kmmatney]

I had a similar heatsink/fan on my old Ti4200. It ran fine without a fan. although I did put a slot cooler near it (with one open slow between). If you have any sort of airflow in the vicinity of the card, it may be OK.

edit: looking at the picture, it really looks like the fan doesn't do much - it doesn't even appear to be blowing air onto the heat sink fins. It looks like it just spins there, not doing much of anything. You probably can run without it...

 

[kmmatney]

The first thing I would try to do is fix the fan. It may be saved with a drop of oil. It looks like the fan comes out using the screws below it. Once the fan is out, you can remove the cover over the fan motor shaft, and cap if there is one, and place a drop of oil in there. Then replace the sticker (or use electrical tape). Use only 1 drop of oil.

Here's an example of how to fix a fan:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardwa...00091,2135514-3,00.htm

I've fixed/improved several fans this way.

 

[Bateluer]

Thanks for the replies. I've yanked the card out for now. The system is running an evaluation version of Win2003 Enterprise server. It actually runs rather well compared to XP and Fedora 7 w/ Gnome. But all the GUI enhancements are turned off by default, not sure what other streamlining has been done behind the scenes yet though. I've sure just running linux with just bash would be plenty speedy.

 

[SickBeast]

If you flashed a hacked BIOS onto the card with reducded core/memory speeds, I'm sure you could run it without the fan.