To Quiet Down a Graphics Card

[CK1]

I have recently built an HTPC from old components:-

Athlon XP 3200+
Asus A7n8X Deluxe
2GB PC3200 Crucial
2x 40GB HDD
Nvidia 6600GT 128MB
Netgear Wifi Card 311T
Xilence 450W PSU

WinXP Ultimate (see Windows XP Ultimate Edition (by Johnny))

I have been trying to make the PC as quiet as possible and am about to replace the HSF on the CPU. The last compnent that make any noise is the GFX card. I have looked around for a cheap passively cooled AGP card but cannot find one under £30.

I do not play games on this machine and at most it is used to play High Def stuff. So my question is would it be safe to remove the HSF from the card to make it silent? Surely for 2D desktop stuff and watching streaming video it wouldn't over heat?

Any help appreciated.

[stevie b]

To answer your question... NO. your GPU will be severely damaged if you do this. even though you are only running it on light "load" the chipset still needs to be cooled. if the card is making excess noise at the moment you could try cleaning the heat sink, there maybe dust in it making the fan less effective/work harder in turn making more noise.

[Salazaar]

You could use ATItool or Rivatuner to lower the fan speed and underclock the card a bit. Even a small drop in speed can reduce the noise quite a lot.

[nichomach]

*removed*

edit: Actually, disregard - yours is a GT. Damn.

[Bugbait]

I stuck a Thermaltake (yeah, yeah, was ages ago) passive heatsink sandwich on my AGP 6800GTX for one of my earlier HTPC's and it would game fine. The heatsink was well under £30 so this might be an option for you.

In fact, it was one of these: Schooner - CL-G0009

Not recommending it, as I'm sure there are better products out there but just an illustration of what can be done.

[finnrogers]

I agree, I definately would not remove the HSF - Even though you're not gaming, you're going to do HD playback which takes it's toll on a gfx card in a system that old. Either invest in a 2nd hand passively cooled card (I'm sure you could find one for under £30 that's capable of HD playback if you're not interested in gaming) or get a passive cooler to fit yourself as mentionned above.

I just recently bought an X1950Pro AGP gfx card for £35 on fleabay, in abolutely mint condition - so I'm sure you'll find what you need for less than £30 if you hunt around a bit.

Good luck