@!!#$% Thermaltake ORB! ***Updated*** A fix!

[oldfart]

Ok, its kind of my fault. I need to rant, so if you dont want to hear me b!tch, leave now.

I like a very quiet PC. Cant stand fan noise. My VisionTek GF3 with the reference nV HS/Fan was WAY too loud. I replaced the HS/F with a BLORB. I like the BLORB because it fits with the factory mounting pins. All WAS well. Nice and quiet.

I put in a new DVD drive today and noticed the BLORB was pretty clogged with dust. I took the GF3 out to the garage to blow out the dust with my compresser (yeah, I know). The little fan spun from the air (set to low pressure), but one of the blades got nicked and broke off...arrrrgh. Need a new HS/Fan again. I saw the new Crystal ORB. Nicer construction, copper base, supposed to be quieter than a BLORB...cant lose! I got one and put it on.

Man, is this sucker loud! Nothing like the BLORB at all. Its the only thing I can hear is that thing screaming away....GRRRR. Now I need to go out and get another BLORB. What a pain.

End Rant

 

[plex24]

You must have gotten defective one. I have 2 and its little quieter than the blorb I used to have. Take the cover off and make sure nothing is touching the fan. I think with the cover off it distribute more air to the memory heatsink.

 

[oldfart]

Funny you say that about the cover. I just took it off a minute ago. Its a little better, but still a lot louder than the BLORB. Either I had an extra quiet BLORB, or an extra noisy CRORB.

 

[cockeyed]

I, like you, hate fan noise. I had a Voodoo4 which has a quiet fan. Recently, I installed a Visiontek GF3 Ti200 and it was ok for a few days. Now, it likes to growl at startup , but usually quiets down when it heats up. I thought about a Blue Orb, but wasn't sure if the stock heatsink would be hard to remove, since I didn't want to damage the GPU. Anyway, I'am thinking of fitting a standard CPU fan to the stock VT heatsink, then running it at +7 volts, the same as I do with my CPU fan. This is a sure fire way to get "quiet." You might consider doing this instaed of buying a new HS/fan. BTW, how did you remove the stock HS/fan?

 

[oldfart]

Its pretty easy. If its like the GF3 "classic", you remove the 2 little pins on the side of the HS. The pins pull up from the top, then the rest of the pin comes out. From there, it comes right off.

 

[sash1]

<< Ok, its kind of my fault. I need to rant, so if you dont want to hear me b!tch, leave now. >>


I always love to hear you complain, oldfart!

 

[oldfart]

Can't say I didn't warn ya!

 

[RgrPark]

If you really loved your Geforce, you would get this

 

[oldfart]

I found a way to quiet it down by using the 7 Volt trick. I have the Crystal ORB running @ 7V instead of 12V, which causes the fan to spin at a lower RPM. This is a very easy mod. Instead of running the fan off of +12V and ground, it's connected to +12V and +5V. The difference in potential is +7V. Basically, you just swap the gnd wire for +5. I also left the cover off the ORB. It's now nice and quiet. Cooling seems just fine. I looped 3DMark for awhile and it is perfectly stable.

 

[cockeyed]

Glad it worked. I've never once seen the +7 volt fix to not work. I run my Golden Orb on my CPU this way. at 12 volts it was too loud for my taste. I'am just about ready to yank the stock fan off my VT GF3 and replace it with a standard CPU fan at +7 volts. A standard CPU fan appears that it will fit fine and can be screwed or silicon adhesived to the stock heatsink.

 

[oldfart]

Yeah, it worked really well. That 7V trick is the shiznit. I got rid of my stock VT HS/F right after I got the card. It was even worse than the ORB. Your idea of just replacing just the fan sounds good also. I'd still take it off to replace the thermal tape with some decent HS compound.