Fan has been dead for how long?
 

Well my fan on my Geforce 4 4600 is not spinning. I think this has been the case for over 2-3 months. I can not explain how this thing is still alive. I play upto 6 hour sessions of DOD quite frequently. I am going to shutdown, pull the card and inspect it.

I will update when I get it fixed.

BrianW

I'm not surprised; every small fan I've ever had on a video card or NB started failing after about 3-4mo, but I've never had any heat-related stability issues at stock speeds.

Most parts have no problems running hot, since they're spec'd to run that way--you have to remember that most parts end up in "Aunt Milda's" PC, where even good fans are going to die after eating too much cat hair, because the PC is on the floor under the desk next to the space heater that keeps her feet warm...etc, etc.

I repaired a 1GHz Duron system some time ago that had a CPU fan seize on it (stock AMD HSF), and the owner didn't notice any problems until it got hot enough to melt the fan and it's housing into a pile of goop.

*laughs* at least yours went quiety mine went down kicking and screaming... literally screaming in fact.

Personally I have allways felt that those small fans on the GPU chip are useless, they are only good if you case has literally NO proper ventilation (i.e. just a single fan on the PSU for example).

I myself got the best of both worlds.. got myself a GPU heatpipe/heatsink thingy and a quiet 120mm fan just above it blowing in that sweet cold air onto its struts. :D

Lovely and quiet.

I think that the GPU chips are as hardy as an Althlon 65*C temp for three months and the chip still works fine :D. (now you see why I got watercooling)

~ Boli

I took of that whiny little fan from my video card months ago, and put an 80mm fan over it. This weekend, I decided to put on a CPU heatsink, since I bought my last CPU with retail packaging, just so I'd have a stock heatsink to mess around with :) . Anyways, I took off the 80mm fan, decided I'd try a method I'd read about to get off the stock heatsink. Get the card running really hot so the glue softens and just pull the sink off. So I started up 3dmark 2001, and decided to wait for artifacts to show up, then turn it off and pull it off. It didn't work- the artifacts never started showing up. Everthing around the card was geting uncomfortably hot, but I didn't even get artifacts.

Though my stock speed Geforce3 Ti200 won't quite have the heat output of your card, its amazing how much more heat these guys can take than a CPU, my cpu started getting flaky in the high 60s when I still had my pally with a crappy extruded aluminum heatsink.

yeah the fan went out on my geforce 4600 a few weeks ago after 4 months or so. but it went with a fight, I was in a different room with a hard wood door shut and I heard this grating sound. the words that followed being "S***, wtf is that!" as I ran and pulled the plug on my computer, had to boot it back up and in about 2 secs figured out exactly what it was. so I had to run a 4mb pci card (which really limits the games you can play) while chaintech sent me a new heatsink

Zhentar
you can also just unscrew it and let it fall off..... at least with the ti 4600's

Update:
 

Well, after getting the card out, I noticed that the stupid housing for the fan and sink had got cloogged with dust. The bearing was shot. Took off the heatsink and the tape that was used was melted to no end, and dry an yellow looking. A new cooler is on the way. I got the Iceberq4 Pro CCB-A4P. I am sure it will be the loudest thing in may case, but I have two servers in my room right now, so I am sure I will not notice.

I have taken the down time to finish my Light Bus, and tidy up the loose ends of my 1.5 yr old case mod. Again, when I get the digi, I will post some pics.

As far as watercooling the GPU, I do plan on doing that in my next case, however am saving up money for said project, so I have to keep it cheap.

BrianW, posting from GS11 (Game Server 11)

BrianW

Come on BrianW :D
what were you thinking going air cooled after joe posted this in pro/chat?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postid=152722
:D :D :D
-Zoson

Update:

Got the cooler in, and it is not loud at all. I can hear it up close, but from where I sat @ my comp, I can not hear it over my system noise (pretty quiet when I have fans @ 7volts). Great gpu cooler, I do not have temps, but the back of the card feels way cooler to the touch.

BrianW