wow! my radeon is louder then my entire system!

[LongCoolMother]

i got my dell last week and man was i impressed. it was near silent...literally. i kept on trying to turn it on, because i thought it was off since there was no sound. can i say WOW. i installed another hard drive, burner, memory, and some other stuff. well, it was still very quiet and almost silent. THEN, i stuck in my radeon 8500 retail and ahoy, its not silent anymore! now i can hear a hum in the case and i miss the silence the computer had before. of course, its not bothersome to the least, but if there is a way to quiet down the radeon, id do it. im probably foolish for trying to quiet it down stock, but if underclocking is necessary, i will do it!! cheers!

 

[mechBgon]

Unplug the Radeon's fan and underclock it, maybe? I haven't got a Radeon of any kind, but my GeForce2 GTS-V runs with its fan on or off, and its heatsink is nothing special. Heck, or wire in an on-off switch for the Radeon's fan. Anything you do that's 3D-intensive and generates extra heat, is probably also generating enough sound that you can't hear the Radeon anymore (I'm presuming you use the Radeon for gaming, not CAD).

 

[dirtysphincter]

i had the same problem, with a quiet system that high pitched radeon is very annoying.

i solved it by removing the stock hsf and replaceing it with one of those zalman fanless chipset coolers.

works for me.

 

[drewdogg808]

there's also a new fanless heatsink from zalman out that should be good for overclocking too.
zalman zm80-hp

 

[warrenpeace]

How hard is it to remove the stock heat sink on a radeon 8500 (retail 64 meg)? It seems to be glued on, so i was too chicken to yank it... the fan just unscrews, but i want to try a larger copper heatsink i have instead of the fan/sink combo.

 

[LongCoolMother]

Originally posted by: drewdogg808
there's also a new fanless heatsink from zalman out that should be good for overclocking too.
zalman zm80-hp

that looks neat, anyone know if it will fit a retail radeon 8500?

as for the existing heatsink, i heard you can freeze it in the freezer and then use a screwdriver or something to pry it off.