WTF, Zalman ZM80 not performing very well!

[OneOfTheseDays]

I was honestly expecting a little more from this product, but i can't even overclock a little bit with this thing on. I tried putting a 120mm fan as intake and still could only overclock a little from stock speeds. Well needless to say, i returned the damn thing because I dont feel that its very secure on the video card (yes i isntalled it properly). I mean you can still twist and turn the front and back plates. I switched back to my dinky little GF4 ti 4200 cooler thats infinitely smaller and voila i can now oc like a mofo.

 

[User1001]

probably missaplied. Its very easy to accidentaly do this.

 

[sman789]

this thing gave me more OC for my card

 

[BoomAM]

Alot of people align the Heatpipe wrong. Its not supposed to be at a 90* angle to the PCB, its suppost to be "wonkey".

 

[Dug]

If you can still turn the plates, then its wasn't installed properly.

 

[huesmann]

You need to tighten the little screw knobs that hold the GPU block to the card.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

well whatever the case, I just didnt feel safe with that thing on my video card. I returned it, got my money back, and bought a $12.99 thermaltake GF4 cooling kit. Now at full speed the thermaltake sounds like a rocket, but I 7 volted it and its pretty quiet. Now my computer is a nice and quiet hum, although that thermal take is the loudest freaking fan in my system. Anyone got any homemade ideas on how to quiet it down? Should i install a zalman fan bracket and keep the copper heatsink on? What other options are there?

 

[huesmann]

I would have kept the ZM80 and reinstalled it properly.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

I finally found out why my zalman wasn't performing properly. It was contacting with the core correctly and heat was being dissipated properly. The problem was the memory chips weren't being cooled. The backside of the zalman heatsink was preventing the hot air from rising and hot air was trapped between the memory chips and the heatsink itself. Adding a zalman fan bracket with a fan blowing across the memory chips would probably be the best solution. I'll go try it out now.