Stuck an Alpha on my sound card!

[Eug]

Well, sorta...

It seems my sound card DID need cooling.

I used to gave sound dropouts with my SB Live! Platinum ever 15-30 minutes or so if I was doing heavy duty gaming. A split second loss of sound, and then everything was back to normal.

I noticed that the main chip on the card was getting VERY hot. I stuck a couple of memory sized heatsinks (small!) on with plain thermal paste and crazy glue and it seemed the dropouts decreased slightly, but I wasn't sure if I was just imagining the difference.

I was ordering some stuff to cool my vid card, so I decided to get 2cool's mini-Alpha heatsinks and stuck one on my sound card CPU, with that cool shiny Arctic Silver thermal paste (and crazy glue again). I also added another case fan.

The sound dropouts now seem to have disappeared. I can't say for sure I'll never hear one, but it's now been several days and I haven't had a glitch. This is even considering that I've upped the FSB from 105 to 110 then 112 MHz, so the PCI bus is even running (slightly) more out of spec than previously, and both my CPU and video are running faster than previously, too.

So, am I the only one with an Alpha on my sound card? Mini-Alpha: http://2cooltek.safeshopper.com/4/143.htm?665

(With all my new additions, the new setup seems much happier overall. I can't measure the CPU temp (stuck some Arctic Silver there too), but I can measure the motherboard temp. In the past I could hit 32 C if I tried hard enough and it idled around 28 C. Now I have to try very hard even to hit 28.)

Setup:

Celeron 533A@~900 (well almost... 898 according to Sandra) 1.8 V
Asus P2B, Abit Slotket !!!, Alpha PEP66
128 Mb 7.5 and 8 ns Micron RAM running 112 FSB CAS 2-2-2
SB Live! Platinum (with Alpha)
Altec Lansing ADA106 (http://hardware.mp3.com/hardware/individual/speaker/2779.html)
Voodoo 3 @ 180 MHz

 

[GiZzO]

The SBlive cards do get pretty hot, i did a little mod myself and stuck a Motherboard chipset type heatsink on the sound card with some frag tape...probably would have been done better with some arctic silver but its just sound...i have my intake fan ducted to blow less then a inch right over that are graphics/sound cards so it stays pretty cool i think....maybe i should probe that too and see.

 

[Eug]

Did you have any sound problems, or did you just do it just because it was hot?

It turns out a friend of mine has the same problem so he's considering putting one of those heatsinks on too, to see what happens.

 

[GiZzO]

No sound problems just did it cause i had an extra BX heatsink sitting around and extra frag tape, wasn't really that that hot just a little warm.

 

[Eug]

Maybe I just got a crap card - chip was VERY hot.

 

[GiZzO]

Well i have this long tube that directs the air from the intake fan and ends pressing right against my graphics board..blows all over the PCI and AGP cards and exits out some empty PCI slots. Without this it might have gotten really hot, as it does now it does get a little warm without heatsink

 

[helloworld]

Eug,

You don't have a crap card. My old SB Live (full version) overheated as well, and oftentimes crashed the machine. I have also heard the same problem from other people too. I noticed that newer revisions of the SB Live (gamer, mp3+, etc.) have a flat and rectangular looking EMU10k chip, instead of the thick square chip of the original SB Live cards. I'll wager you have a "square chip" version.

-

 

[Eug]

Hmmm... I have the CT4760 in a Platinum and it's supposed to be the latest model, but yes, it is a square chip.

I wonder if the CT4830 (Live OEM) is the rectangular one, of if just the newer CT4760's have changed.