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Loading ...8800GTX Cooler Mod 1
oneeyeuk
Ok, so after I decided to make the move to a Core 2 system I spec’d up some new components.
I’d already recently upgraded my monitor and PSU so I ordered up an E6750 CPU, Freezer 7 cooler, P5KC mobo, 2×1gig Crucial Ballistix 8500, an Asus 8800GT and a couple of other sundry items.
Rebuilt my pc, reinstalled Windows and started to install drivers which is where my first problem happened.
No matter which version of Nvidia drivers I used for the 8800GT the Nvidia Sentinel would pop up on startup and tell me that the GFX was underpowered and it was going to throttle the performance to save damaging the GPU.
I found this a little odd as I have a 1000watt Akasa PSU.
Anyway, to progress things I packed the 8800GT back into it’s box and used one of the 7900GTO’s from my old setup which worked fine.
I then had another issue, my new system was randomly shutting down and blue screening.
After my previous experience with my old setup the first thing I did was run Memtest and sure enough it reported that the brand new Crucial memory was faulty.
Wanting to expedite the RMA process, I drove up to OcUK in Stoke and swapped the 8800GT for an OEM 8800GTX and RMA’d the memory.
The 8800GTX worked fine from the start. No Nvidia Sentinel.
Still had trouble with the memory, but a helpful guy at OcUK tech support told me I should manually set the memory timings and voltage in bios (which, this being my first Core 2 build, I was unaware of).
This helped, I’d also done some Googling and found out about the tempramental yellow memory slots on the P5KC so poppped the memory in the black slots.
Having now got a stable working system I set about OC’ing my CPU.
Managed to get a comfortable and stable OC at 3.4GHz and, although not stable, was able to do benchmarks at just over 3.8GHz.
My attention was next drawn to OC’ing my GFX.
So, after not much deliberation, I bought a Zalman VF-1000 cooler and the accompanying memory sink for 8800GTX/GTS cards.
Here’s a few pics from the installation process:
With the Zalman cooler installed I began overclocking my GFX.
I was pleased with OC results.
I managed to get 675 core, 1566 shader and 1161 memory.
Although I was a little disappointed that the GPU was still running about as hot as it did with the stock cooler and stock clocks.
So, I had a bit of a brainwave.
I’d just rebuilt my work PC and upgraded that to Core 2 also (E2180) so I had two reference coolers coolers doing nothing.
My brainwave was to remove the fans from the Intel reference coolers and strap them onto the Zalman cooler on my 8800GTX.
It wasn’t too pretty, but it worked.
Dropped the GPU core temp by about 15-18°C, and I was able to push the overclock even further to 686 core, 1782 shader and 1161 memory.
So, under load at the max overclock the GPU core temp was around 57°C
I also used a ‘Card Keeper’ to help support my GFX as without the metal bar that runs along the side of the stock cooler it was quite flimsy.
Here’s a few pics of the modded GFX cooler:
Even though I was using Akasa’s Thermally Advanced Side Panel on my Eclipse case (with a 120mm fan pre-installed), There didn’t seem to be too much cool fresh air getting into my now well overclocked system.
So, that led me onto my first proper case mod which I’ll tell you about in the next post.
LOL, awesome work - that can’t be too quiet, though!! We’ve done something similar in the lab in the past when really pushing the overclocking, by strapping a Vantec Tornado to our Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro HSF.
I have a P5KC also, well I have 2 actually tho one blew, got another and now i have re install windows every day because it screws up for some reason, often starts with a blue screen for ‘memory management’. I heard about the yellow slots being a bit troublesome so the memory (OCZ PC6400 800MHz Platinum) is in the black slots. the only way I can get windows to install is if I only have 1 HDD plugged in, if the other two are in then it really doesn’t want to know and blue screens during install. I also have the 8800GT 512MB (inno 3D - cheap on ebuyer 
) that doesnt seem to be a problem as i can see things… The PSU is brand new 500W Antec one, if anyone could help I would give you a kidney!
Detailed Spec…
Q6600 G0 @ 3.2GHz (Stock when installing Windows)
2GB OCZ Platinum PC6500 800MHz
inno 3D 8800GT 512MB 600/1500/900 (700/1500/1000 when gaming)
Toshiba 80GB HDD 2.5″ (for Windows)
2x WD 250GB SATAII HDDs for games and apps
Antec Neopower 500, 500W PSU
Thermaltake Bigwater Liquid cooling for CPU
Also Windows ‘breaks’ with both XP and Vista Ultimate…
Heh, wait until you see 8800GTX Cooler Mod 2 Alex.
TBH, it wasn’t too bad on my every day overclock with all 3 fans at low speed.
The Intel cooler fans were a lot quieter than the Zalman one on full whack.
Nattys89, defo try the black slots and manually set the memory timings and voltage in bios.
Also, the OCZ Support Forums are really good.
I’m running OCZ memory now and had an issue with it because Asus mobo’s can’t manually set come of the memry timings high enough.
After some help on the forums I was able to do a temporary work around with Memset, but a really helpful guy called Tony sent me an updated spd file for the memory and talked me through how to flash it.