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Video Card Fan Dying - Suggestions? (please read)

F

Fallenjedi

Member
Greetings All -

Back in Nov 01 I bought an VisionTek XTasy GF3 200Ti. About .... a couple of weeks ago, I started hearing some funny rubbing or ... fan bearing type noise going out. As many of you I have many fans ... so I'd undo one at a time, waiting to see which one it was, or if it was my hard drive, or power supply etc. Today as I laid down with a flashlight I spied my video card chipset fan ... barely running, and it would pause and start up, go, pause, go... thus I found my issue. So I figure I have a few options since it's not over clock, so while this isn't killing the chipset, its not making it happy:

A. Order a Crystal Orb and some Arctic Compound and get it together that way.

B. Call VisionTek and see what they say - and how long it'll take if I send it in? (but herein lies a better question, how long till the new fan dies?).

C. I was going say hit up Frys and see if they have the stuff - but best bet is A over C.

Any how ... any ideas? Will my Video Card's life be shortened at all because of this?

Thanks in advance.


-------------------------
- Dravin
 
I have had a couple of Visionteks and the stock fan seems to be of poor quality on mine (a GF2 GTS and a GF2 GTS-V). One died, and the other occasionally acts up. The kicker is, they're 5-volt fans, so if you do get a 40mm ball-bearing fan, you can rotate it a little and use coarse-thread screws to attach it to the heatsink, but you can't run it off the on-card header. I suppose a person could try to locate a 12V pad on the card and solder the wires right to it...

I guess Visiontek is counting on a short lifecycle for their video cards. 🙁 I'll go hunting for a source of 5V fans, though.
 
Couple other options...

-Vantec Iceberq copper chipset/vga cooler, works well and nice and quiet (using it now)
-Dunno if it will fit, but the ThermalTake GF4 cooler looks pretty sweet. You could get some arctic alumina epoxy if you can't use the stock mounting to smack it on. Just be sure to cut the epoxy with some non-conductive heatsink compound, otherwise you won't be able to yank it off in the future.
-I haven't seen a Corb @ Fry's... Blorb I have.

FYI I had a crystal orb on my 8500, yanked it off. Too damn loud... definitely louder than what it's rated @.
 
The FAC08 reminds me of the crap that 3dfx used on their V5 5500's 😀 Go with the FA420 if you must go the Global Win route.

With my friend's GF2 Ti, his fan crapped out too. I just replaced it with a passive Alpha wing fin 45mm heatsink and it runs fine now. For the GF3 Ti I would recommend something with a fan. www.2cooltek.com has a good selection, check them out.
 
Another option is to simply run it with the heatsink. Dell sells them that way. I'd monitor your temps around it with just the stock heatsink and see if that works.
 
Myself and a friend of mine have had the problem where the fan gets very loud in bursts after months of use. VISIONTEK USES CRAP FANS!!!!! these are both Visiontek GeForce 3 Ti200 cards and the fans have failed on both of these. When I called visiontek they sent me a replacement fan which I was supposed to swap out. I tried it and I ended up having to trade cards for a replacement. Now that one is failing too. Visiontek makes crap fans. Don't buy from them.
 
By the way, I have unplugged the fan and it runs fine. WIth both cards combined I've been doing tihs for about three months with no trouble. Fan not needed at all.
 
7757524,

How'd the swapping of cards go with VT? How long did it take and such .. ? I may just try this ... since in all reality I guess the life of my video card has been shortened (even though maybe not by much ... still counts). 🙂


Thanks.
 
This card has a lifetime warranty but that's three identical cards that I've seen personally in my hands with the same fan FAILED. Replacement took 6 weeks and their phone support sucked. Horrible experience. They sent me a replacement fan but wouldn't help me take the old one off over the phone so I ended up destroying the card. BAD, BAD, BAD fans, BAD BAD BAD support.
 
Go to frys and spend $11 and get a crystal orb. Maybe get a tt ramsink kit for like $6. Get or borrow arctic silver 2 or 3 or illumina or adhesive for the ramsinks.
Take it all home and lap heatsink. Put on cooler. Plug in cooler. Put on sinks. Turn on and test. If all is right than dl rivatuner and oc card.
good luck
-show
 
...

Thanks Showtime- and everyone else 🙂 I'm going to go ahead and call VT just to taunt them and then go get my Corb 🙂
 
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