Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

No, you installed them wrong! As the exe says, you need to uninstall only the CCC, not the ati drivers, atitool, ati tray tools or whatever else you have for your card, JUST THE CCC!

EDIT: Btw Dinc, according to newegg, the 7950 you want has some problems too, people say it overheats and crashes (same story with the x1950xt though...) You should check the reviews: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814150223

 

Provided you have a simple internet connection (CCC requires one usually), catalyst is fine. Your problems have been due to the shoddiness of the gecube 1950XT (which isn't an official ATi product anyway) or 3rd party drivers.

 

Ah, I see.

But for the XFX, it has reviews like "it works great", "it brings AGP back to life", "it's a monster", "runs games great".
Try to find that for the GeCube. XD
It also has MORE positive ones than negative ones, I'm sure some of the users don't cool well enough or there are some bad cards.
And cards probably react different to different systems.
I did however read about some problem with certain drivers, but it had been fixed or something.

Overheating is not going to be a problem I'm sure, I got this one to be 40 to 60-70.
It still crashed under 70 btw, as I thought before it would when it hit 80 exactly.

But I can always try, main thing is that it's cheaper and the limited performance of the X1950XT and waste of time is not worth it's price.


And I'll try the Omega-drivers the right way, thanx for telling.

 

My Gecube x1950xt has ran great, with stock cooling.

1. For some reason unlike what others have said, each screw point has 2 rubber washers on my card.. Giving it that "extra" snug feeling...

Though the copper plate was not making contact with the thermal pads it had around the edge. SO I took it off and bent the copper plate a little on both ends so that they curved in towards the card itself.. Thus making contact with the thermal pads and at the same time adding extra pressure to the center.

2. Driver install was HORRIBLE. What I recommend you do is the following (this will allow you to play bioshock)
Install the drivers from here
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=29041
DO NOT INSTALL THE CATAYLIST CONTROL CENTER...
everything else is ok...the display driver and the C++ is required.

Then after installing those, reboot... If you are missing desktop icon graphics.. or your start menu is missing icons..
Download the 7.7 ati driver
http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/previous/radeon/radeonxip-cat77-xp.html
ONLY THE DRIVER.. Just have it overwrite what you already have. and if it wants to copy over newer files say yes.

This will give you the newest working drivers for the card
omega drivers only use 7.4 which will not work with bioshock)

After that you are free to either use ATI Tray Tools found here
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=733

or you can use Riva Tuner
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163

I prefer ATI Tray Tools... as you can set it up to display your FPS in games as well as the current GPU temp, GPU speed and Video Memory usage. If you use ATI Tray Tools.. I suggest you use the ATI Overdrive 3 overclocking option and leave on ATI Hotkey Poller.

Just to shoot out some numbers for my results
P4 630 (3.0ghz), 2gig DDR400 ram, at the gecube card @ stock speeds
3DMark 06 score 4484
Max card temp 70c idle temp 48c

 

Also, regarding the copper plate..

The thermal padding on the back of the card corresponds to the VRM (voltage regulator modules) and what appears to be the PCI to AGP bridge adaptor.

For those what have removed the stock cooler.. What is the actual GPU model? It should be lasered on the gpu.

 

R580 PCI-e

 

(Hey sorry - I started this post, and off and on I was working on it all day, so I didn't see all that new information from you guys, especially your new posts, Kardson, which I might be asking you about in later posts.)

The reason for this long post (it got longer every time I came back to work on it some more) is to throw in my support for the stock Gecube cooler. People have been kind of taking a philosophical position against the peltier concept - "it's inefficient, never been done before, bad idea, etc. etc."

So I wanted to add my perspective to Kardson's thoughtful post of page 17 which kind of shocked all you guys who were flaming (with good reason I might add) the tec cooler:

But first, to directly answer the last post: (at least it was the last when I first started composing this "essay")

Dinc,

In terms of raving reviews for the nvidia, you can read the same thing for the gecube - just go to the newegg reviews: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814241049&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=100&SelectedRating=-1&Page

Look at the third review down, Hand76: "Fast, fast, fast. Way to go out with an AGP based motherboard. This will extend the life of my PC for an extra 2+ years. Was using an x800xt for 3 years prior." (That's my card now.)

Here it is:

...

And of course, many other reviews say "Don't buy this card!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Kardson made some excellent points in defense of the gecube. And Sammorris made some good rebuttal points about extra heat in the case. Some of you guys were shocked speechless by Kardson, but having read the more positive newegg reviews, I really enjoyed hearing the pro side come out on this thread. As a former engineering student, my personal bias is toward new technology (yeah, I know what you're going to say - it's not exactly "new" - Peltier discovered the effect over 100 years ago.) It seems to me that this T.E.C. Peltier device, thermoelectric cooler, aka tec, or pelt, is innovative. Not completely unproven and untested, since they already use it in mini-fridges according to Sammorris, but at least innovative in terms of PC use, right Sam?

And the size seems about right for the Gecube application, since the Marlow web site says about 40mm, or just under 2" square, is about the max you want to make a single tec due to stresses on the solder joints from the cold side to the hot side - that's about right for the size of a gpu, isn't it?

.......

The fact that gecube is the first to use a tec to cool a graphics card certainly doesn't, to my mind, mean that they are wrong. Maybe they're right! Maybe this is an idea that could be good. Sure, none of us like the thought of adding extra heat to the inside of the case, but can't we deal with that? Just because no other board company has ever used a pelt - so what? Innovation is the spice of techie life!!

So without further ado, I want to contribute to this forum an analogy that some of you (maybe all of you) might think is crap, but I believe it applies very well :=)

Let's think about your car.

This tec cooler reminds me of AC on a car. I was driving around LA in this intense heat the other day, and even without AC, (my tank was low and I didn't want to gas up so I just opened all my windows) my car was on the verge of over-heating. What a giant, major piece of $x!$@x!! (No, I want to practice the Secret - be grateful - I'm glad it runs.) I don't even want to tell you how much money I've spent to get the AC working without the car overheating!

In a car you have two major hot spots that matter the most, the motor, and the passenger area. Right? We insist that they build cars with AC, which takes heat out of the passenger area, but in doing so loads down and adds heat to the motor. Lots of load and lots of heat! You drive around nice and cool, but, as I have discovered time and again, if you don't beef up your radiator, fan, etc. your car will overheat.

So are we all saying that AC is a bad invention? Prior to AC they had little car swamp coolers you could plug into a cigarette lighter. Better than nothing for those long road trips through the desert. Forget it - AC rulz!

...

In your PC, you have two main hot spots, your cpu and your gpu. Just like the way AC on a car loads up the engine, the tec, if it is properly installed, while it should cool the gpu just fine, (as you point out, Sammorris, they use it in mini-fridges so it must get cold) it is going to load up the case with more heat. In fact it throws a lot more heat into the case than is coming off the gpu, since the tec itself generates a bunch of additional heat in operation because - yes - it is an inefficient way to transfer heat.

Lets not forget that inefficient and ineffective are two different things. On the Gecube web site http://www.gecube.com/products-detail.php?prod_cat_pid=9&prod_cat_id=166&prod_id=65116 they claim they can maintain the card at 70C under full load with the tec. Kardson just posted that he is getting those results. That sounds effective to me. Maybe not efficient, but effective.

(By the way, Dinc, the main picture they show is for the PCI version of the card - they are still using the double purple fan tec cooler on the agp version - and so is a new card company - Sparkle. Sparkle probably buys the tec from gecube on puts it on nvidia cards. Wasn't it you that told us about Sparkle? Yeah, I think it was you.)

....................................

Inefficient is more of an engineering term, meaning of course that while the tec might work very well at cooling the gpu, the actual percentage of conversion of electricity into movement of heat may, in fact, be quite low, like Sammorris says. Don't forget, in terms of thermal efficiency, a gasoline engine doesn't rate that high. Radiant electrical heating (like from a hair dryer) is 1/3 as efficient as a heat pump (AC running backward.) If you live in a cold area and don't have natural gas, you might want to invest in a costly heat pump, not cheap radiant heating - you will use 1/3 the amount of electricity. But radiant heating is more effective if you want to warm up a cold room quickly. Not efficient, but effective. Just crank up the burners until they glow red hot, and your room will be toasty quick, inefficiently burning a lot of electricity. A heat pump, three times more efficient through the phase state change of freon from liquid to gas, has to work on the differential between outside cold, and hopefully even colder outside evaporator temperature. The result is that you get a lot of mildly warm air coming in fast with a strong air handler, the whole thing taking friggin forever to warm up the room. I know. I have a heat pump. They suck.

So, back to the pelt, yes, it is inefficient. A high percentage of the extra electricity to run the pelt goes to the hot side of the pelt turning into heat thrown right into your case. So what? That sounds bad, but let's look at it - does that make it a bad idea? Not necessarily, in my opinion. Back to your car. As long as you are driving around comfortably, with the AC blowing, and the car not over-heating, do you really care that you are guzzling more gas? (Well at today's gas prices, we are starting to care. Hello hybrids.)

So my point is, that inefficiency doesn't automatically make something bad - it depends on the alternatives. Waymon's water cooler is undoubtedly the best, I would agree. But then you have to pony up that extra cash!

...
So it's all a matter of compromise. I'm thinking, if I can make the tec work, for zero additional cash outlay, I'm happy. (Like Waymon with the omega drivers. Hey Waymon, are they still working for you?) Plus the techie in me says - "Hey, this is a cool, innovative, technological trick they're trying to do, these clever Chinese engineers at Gecube - let's see if I can actually get the damn thing to work." The website states, under load, with the tec working, the gpu shouldn't get above 70 degrees C, as I mentioned above. I'm going to hold them to that, or RMA back to newegg.

So, using that car analogy, thinking about how Air Conditioning cools the inside but forces me to spend money ensuring that my car doesn't overheat while it's cooling me off, the big question is: Just like AC, can I get the stock tec cooler to work and do its job so I sit here cool, calm and collected, carefree gaming away (and pooning all you guys on multiplayer? :=)

As Kardson pointed out: It comes down to 2 things:

0. Well, three things - this comes before the 2 things: First, of course, you have to make sure you have an adequate power supply, or you won't have enough power to run the tec, right? (If the tec isn't running, you are sitting there with a big sandwich of tec ceramic filled with silicon, not doing anything but marginally absorbing the gpu heat - way inferior to a high density copper baffle on a good cooler. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=300144646741&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=020)

....................................
Powerwise, I was disappointed to read several people quoting from the user manual addendum that indicates you need 30 amps on the 12 volt rail. I don't have those amps. But I felt better when somebody else said that's for crossfire with two cards, which I hope means that my 500 watt Allied with 20 amps on the 12 volt rail will work - understandably more than one crossfire card, because I will be running a tec, and crossfire cards don't run a tec. (The website says 450 watts minimum. One of the newegg guys says his 460 Antec is working fine. In fact it's the same guy in the quote on top - read the quote.)

So for those of you worried by the user documentation, remember, as I do, that in making the big translation to English, the Chinese sometimes write confusing documentation. To prove that to yourself, just go to the Gecube web site and look up the x1950xt agp, here: http://www.gecube.com/products-detail.php?prod_cat_pid=9&prod_cat_id=166&prod_id=65116

This is what you'll see:
...........

Notice at the bottom where it says "Unite the power of two graphics cards to accelerate your games even further with CrossFire." It doesn't make sense for them to have that there, because nobody makes a mobo with two agp slots, right? So they carelessly left in advertising language from the pci express card which doesn't apply. I am betting that's what they did in the user manual addendum - they left in language pertaining to a 2 card crossfire rig.

So with that little intro on the power supply, here is my restatement of Kardson's two points:

1. Make sure there is good tight contact - under pressure - between the tec and the gpu.

(Google tecs in general - there has to be pressure!) This means yes, you might have to fix the poor job done at the factory - I've ordered a 5 oz syringe of arctic silver 5 ($6 on ebay with shipping) to get ready to redo this card when I get it. I also ordered an $18 piece of thermattach 412 tape that somebody on the hardforums mod forum recommended. (They were talking 411 but that looks extra heavy duty and from the web site it looked like 412 is better - am I wrong somebody?) I might have to do the hardforums mod here: famous hardforums mod.

...
As regards that particular mod, I think it was Kardson who said, don't use electrical tape, use the thermal tape, yes Kardson 29 August: Kardson modifies the famous mod. There is another mod you might have to do, having to do with the 4 rubber gaskets surrounding the pressure nub. Go to this forum page 13 or open the url. At the top of the page you see Waymon's beautiful water cooler, then scroll down to MaccerM 9 August: MaccerM rubber gaskets tape mod

...
Hey, I started this huge post this morning, now as I am finishing it, there are a bunch of posts ahead of it. I notice that Kardson found extra rubber washers on his Gecube. Way to go dude, I hope that's the board I get! (But if not, then what MaccerM found will be helpful.) MaccerM used duct tape, but probably the thermattach 412 will work better there too. And finally as Kardson said, when you reassemble everything, make sure you put the tec back on right side up - maybe label it before you take it apart - or, if not, you will be heating up your gpu! (Wouldn't that be lovely!)

(If that all sounds like a giant pain, for $40 plus shipping, get a thermaltake cooler. Thermaltake again

....................................
But you'll have to razor blade off the pelt.)

The techie in me says, "I'm staying with the pelt." All of you guys have taught me what to do - thanks dudes. I might have to RMA it back to newegg if it is obviously defective, but I am confident from this forum and others that I can fix it, within reason.

Ok, so the first part was, after making sure you have at least a 450 watt power supply, then make sure the cooler is on properly - fits tight, under pressure, maybe with arctic silver 5. Two major mods help you do that - all kinds of great ideas for doing Gecube's job better than they did.

2. So the only thing left is the next step: Vent your case. No kidding! VENT YOUR CASE!!

I hear you, Sammoris, you have convinced me that I'm going to have a boatload of heat inside my case. But if I can get it out of there, I'm in business. If the radiator on my car can keep the motor cool, I'm turning on the AC!

First of all, I'm looking at all my fans. I found a really slow one. I am using a utility called speedfan, which is found here http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php and which tries to locate every control point on the motherboard. It found two fans - one of them obviously the cpu fan, and another running at 1241 rpm whose speed I can't change. I think this must be the one just under my power supply, which I call my #1 case vent fan (in addition to #2. the cpu fan, and #3. the power supply vent fan.) I will probably replace that 1241 rpm quiet fan with something else - I have a couple of fans around the office here I might try. I bought some extra molex y-splitters to run all this stuff - the quiet fan plugs into the mobo and doesn't free up a molex.

...
My #2. cpu fan is thermal controlled - speedfan shows it running in thermal cruise mode, which is what I set it back to after I was done playing with it. It's noisy when it revs up. Speed fan gave me a way to manually control it, the same way that Ati Tool Tray allows me to manually control the gpu fan. In the picture I've got both utilities open - you're looking at speedfan and the advanced configure tab, with the ATT overclocking window on the lower right, running the 3d renderer to load up my PC.

Ati Tray Tool, aka ATT, is great - set a hotkey and view your gpu temp, fan speed, clocks, and framerate any time you want. Use the hot key (I use Ctrl + num pad -) two keys on opposite corners of the keyboard, to turn it on, and turn it off. You get it right here: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=733

Yesterday I took off the side cover while I was testing speedfan. When I revved up the cpu fan to about 3750 rpm, I was really surprised at how strong it blows. No kidding, I am convinced it does a great job of venting the entire case as it cools the cpu.

The weird thing was that prior to yesterday, I actually thought it sucked! :=) I thought it was pulling air into the case! With the side cover on, the side cover vent holes reduce the cfm down to almost nothing - even under full noisy load, and I actually thought air was being pulled in to cool the cpu chip. I held my wet fingers there and felt the slightest bit of cooling. I was writing notes to myself: "cpu fan pulls in air, weak case exhaust fan, strong psu exhaust fan."

Why is the case reducing the airflow, for noise reduction? But since I game with a pair of 5.1 Medusa headsets, who cares about that! Wait a second. These pictures are very similar to my black case. Hmmm. I see I am missing the conical piece that fits over the cpu fan, and mates to the cylindrical piece attached to the side of the case. I sort of remember Mo starting to put that on, and having a hard time with it, and saying "Oh you don't need this." That's probably why I don't feel the air coming out. Another good reason to visit my friend, Mo.
...
Tomorrow I'm going to go visit my PC builder friend Mo, at PC Trade in El Toro, and take the side panel with me. I'm going to lean on him to get me another conical piece like the one I sort of remember him tossing out two years ago when he built the computer for me. And I want to see if he has any old power supplies lying around that he hasn't already tossed. It might be necessary to hacksaw out the 2" opening, eliminating those restrictive vent holes, and solder on the type of unrestrictive, very open, circular venting like on the back of my power supply, which allows my #3. power supply vent fan to blow lots of hot air out the back.

I'll do whatever I have to do to get major case venting! After all, I have to prove Sammoris wrong, right Sam? Just kidding. (I'll keep the piece I hack out in case there was a hidden benefit I don't understand now - but I doubt it!)
...
So yes, the Gecube throws all the heat into the case. But I wonder if, in doing that, they also have another thing in mind, because I see a lot of other cards designed to do the same thing. Versus trying to touch and cool all parts of the card, and then vent out the back, is it possible that they can't really do that effectively, and cheaply, so they are touching and cooling only the most critical parts, and for the rest of the parts they figure that if they blow a lot of air everywhere (even if, as Sammorris says, it's hot air) everything else will be cooled, like the large Rialto pci-x to agp bridge chip?

Again, if the big square vent at the bottom of my side panel is sufficiently unrestrictive to let a lot of air in, (and if it's not big enough I have my hack saw) then my three powerful (replacing the weak one) exhaust vent fans should give me lots of case venting. Add to that 5 more fans inside the case - a fan card with 2, 2 on the gecube, and one inlet fan on the power supply - 8 total - I believe I will have case temperature under control.

Just to make sure, the speedfan program allows me to monitor 4 temperature points on the mobo, two of them for my cpus (p4 3.2 multi-threading) and two for the case. When the gecube goes in, I'll be watching those temps closely in addition to the ATT temps on the graphic card.
.....................
Anyway, like all you other guys, I just want to get by for the next year or two until I really need DX10 and shader 4. Then I'll move over to PCI Express. Waymon's water cooler idea is great! We'll all stop arguing about tecs, and in my case I'll pick up 2 toxic sapphire x2950 crossfire cards, or whatever is out at that time, with the water pump assembly taking up a hard drive slot, with enough capacity to water cool my cpu too. I won't have to be so worried about venting the case. (You still have to get the heat from the water cooler out of the disk drive slot - but I would hope they sapphire would vent it straight out the front of the computer. Right?)

In the meantime, hello Gecube monster with tec cooler on straight and tight, and I'm going to vent the hell out of my case. I'll let you know how it goes, Sam.

 

Right, here goes. That's got to be the longest post I've ever seen on the forum, but also one of the best structured, best illustrated and best written. Given that I've been here for 3 1/2 years, that's high praise indeed! Anyway...

As for sparkle, new to ATI, yes, but they have been around for several years, my Geforce 4 MX440 was made by Sparkle.

As for rating the tide water the best, I'm still dubious. The whole warming up something else concept is admittedly true, but the fact is, most graphics cards until recently always used coolers that exhausted hot air into the case, most of the time that worked fine. So what about coolers like the one I use (the HR-03)? I run my case fans (because they're pretty dire for noise and need changing) at such a low speed you may wonder why I bother, and yet I can run games at any resolution for any length of time and suffer no heat problems whatsoever. That solution's inefficient from the perspective that all the graphics card's heat is dumped into the case, but it's very effective, because I can turn my case fans pretty much off (500rpm) and not have any heat issues. Bear in mind I'm running an overclocked E4300 that uses around 130W, in addition to all the heat from the graphics card.

The interesting thing about all this is that the AGP card suffers if it gets above 70C. My PCIe version runs around 75C max, and that's cool, with the stock cooler they usually get to 90C and there aren't any problems with that.

With regard to the conical flair, Mo was right to bin it, they do very little unless there's a side fan there.
The case cooling issue really depends on how much heat the TEC puts out, I've already stated that 500rpm works for me, but here's what I did:


My case has three 120mm fan slots, and two 80mm slots. Although the 80mm fans are installed, they do so little they're not even usually turned on. There's a 120mm fan at the front of the case, behind a dust filter, a side fan that's usually blowing in through a dust filter, and a fan at the back exhausting. However, what I found was that if I turn the side fan around to exhaust out and remove the dust filter, everything runs cooler. It's my belief that what this is doing is booting all the heat from my graphics card out the case, and leaving only the CPU to heat up the rest.

As for the front mounted rad, I'm dubious, heat usually goes IN the front, and you don't want to heat up your hard drives excessively. Ideally, the radiator wants to be outside the PC nearby, or on the top.

Keep us posted on how you fare with your modifications.
It pleases me to see two newbies appear in the forums who are very adept at commenting usefully on situations AFTER they've read the surrounding material.

 

harvrdguy

Looking at your case I would recommend getting a 120mm fan for the front or whatever side you can, just in front of where the harddrives go. Then place your hard drives in slots where it will not restrict the airflow... That way will be the primary source of cool air flowing over the gecube card.

With the 120mm fan in front pulling cooler air into the case... the vent near the bottom of the side of the case will act as a passive exhaust helping to push out the hot air from the card..

Then you should have a 80mm intake fan on the upper part of the side of the case. (Don't wory about the cone.. its not needed...) This will bring cool air in toward the CPU and finally the 120mm Exhaust fan on the back of the case to pull out the CPU heat.

If at all possible, since your case isn't a window case.. You may want to attach a small, quite fan to the vent holes at the bottom of the side of the case. That is actually almost perfectly aligned with the "hot" side of the card.. (the side that cools the tec cooler) something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835191001 or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835705020

IF you have an extra slot below the card this will definately help
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835114024
After I installed this, the ambient temp of the system dropped 12degrees F

 

To answer the point of the Tec Cooler Heat output...

My case has a built in thermometer on it.. I put in inbetween 2 of the fins on the Tec side of the heatsink... Temps were at a steady 160f and actually MAXED the thermometer so it only displayed the letter H (im guessing for hot lol)

So it does indeed output ALOT of heat. Though all that is really needed as stated in my previous post is some kind of minimal exhaust near the heat sink.

 

Sound advice, obviously a 120mm side fan would be nice, but since there's no room for one on the case it'd be a little pointless. I wouldn't advise using one of those size adapters, there's nothing to be gained by using them, since you can't force extra air through the same sized hole without a pump, and pc case fans just don't generate the pressure.

 

Hey, a quick post, and I'm outta here. Thanks for the encouragement, Sam. So I shouldn't burn Mo too bad for dumping the cone? Okay, I'm glad you told me that.

Your information about fans really opened my eyes. You said the side vent doesn't do much unless there is a fan mounted there. I never would have thought of mounting a fan there. That is exactly what I am going to do.

You said you had an intake fan on the side that you turned around to convert to an exhaust fan, with noticeable improvement in cooling the case. Fantastic! That tells me that I'll unscrew the little plastic cylinder, forgetting about the hack saw for now, and I'll put an exhaust fan there. (It will be a little awkward to take the cover on and off, having to unplug the molex each time. I guess I should get an extra long molex cable somewhere.) But I am certain that is going to be a big help.

Like I say, I haven't been able to feel anything coming out of that hole - I thought all along that the cpu fan was sucking in, not blowing out. So, even with that amount of restriction in air flow, the cpu fan has had no problems so far in keeping my p4 from burning up. It stands to reason that adding a solid exhaust fan to that side vent can't do anything but help. So in that case, I'll just leave the other slow 1241 rpm fan right where it is. You have fans cruising at only 500 rpm, and you have no problems with your case. So I'll leave it there, and go for the side fix.

Great suggestion, Sam. Thanks again - and thanks to everybody on the forum!

Rich Estes

 

Wow, Kardson, I didn't see your post. I just answered Sam. I'm going to have to study your post carefully. Between you and Sam you guys know a lot about air flow. I didn't even realize it was possible to mount a fan in front.

Great suggestions! I'll catch up next week.

Thanks,
Rich

 

wow, wicked long posts.

Yep, they're working fine, no problems so far...

Sammorris, can we see a pic of your case opened up? I really want to see how the hell you can have your fans at 500rpm, and not heat up.

As for harvrdguy's post, I have to agree with sam, it is the longest, and best structured post ever! I cant really comment on anything as I have the TW, but man, that took me a while to read.

 

Speaking about the SIDE of the case...

the TOP hole where a fan is supossed to go... this should be an intake fan.. IE BLOWING INTO the case...

The bottom part of the side of the case... where there isn't holes to screw a fan into it... just the vent. Since its not a window you don't have to worry about how "pretty" it is.. Just superglue a fan to that as an EXHAUST fan ie blowing AIR OUT. a couple little drops near the edges will work just fine. OR you can get a PCI slot exhaust fan... but that uses up yet another slot..
Like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835888112


As for the front intake fan.. Yes, most cases either allow for 2 80mm fans or 1 120mm fan. I like the cases with the 120mm fan better .. less noise.
In most cases you have to remove the front of the case to screw the fan into place.. and ussually the front of the case is held on by 2 screws on each side (inside the case) and those little knobs you squeez to pull it off.


So to give you a better idea of how MY case is setup...
I have 2 80mm fans in the front blowing air into the case between my 2 hard drives.. which almost line up with the video card.. then I have a 70mm fan that blows air OUT the side near the bottom of the case. So air comes in the front.. blows over the hard drives.. hits my sound card and video card.. then the side exhaust fan blows that air out..

THEN near the top of the side of the case I have a 80mm intake fan that blows air onto the CPU and motherboard. With a 120mm fan on the back of the case as the primary exhaust fan.

This ensures that air is flowing through most of the case....
IF you have a window case.. and you know a smoker... or don't mind a cigar or 2.

Pick up 1 cigar.. cheap or expensive.. doesn't matter.
Light that baby up and blow smoke into the FRONT of the case...
watch the smoke, is it making it to the Hot spots in your case?
Does it flow over the graphics card and cpu? if not your airflow isn't set up properly.

 

Hey Waymon,

Thanks for the supportive words from you guys - I was getting a little nervous - I kind of got carried away with that post and it accidentally turned into an encyclopedia article.

So the drivers are still working good? I'll have to get more details later. What about that one game they are saying you can't play with omega drivers - I think it was in kardson's post. Is that true? The author of ATT, Ray Adams, says that he has not had a problem with the ATI drivers or Catalyst, and he is running an x1800xtx. Isn't that almost the same chip?

Kardson, it's scary how much you know about fans and case exhaust. I have to head out of here for sure, and I haven't had time to really study all these great posts.

But I have to ask you one basic question. Heat rises. Then doesn't it make more sense, since heat rises, that the bottom square set of vents be an intake into the case, allowing the cooler air closer to the floor to come in?

Now, maybe it normally doesn't matter because we're only talking 1 foot max, but here's my setup:

I'm in an office and I can't move anything. I actually have my tower under a desk that is formed from some built-ins meeting at the corner of the office, allowing me to slide a chair right into the corner. The two desk surfaces merging are 2 feet in depth, so the corner extends from point to point about 2.8 feet - square root of 8. Large sliding drawers create a wall. The total rectangular space is about 10 square feet for the tower and a trash can, and my legs. The heat from the tower rises, and there is only a little 2" round hole in the very back through the desk surface but it is jam-packed with cables. (I do have a circular drill, and I could drill another hole.)

It gets really warm under there when I am gaming, and I can feel the heat coming out over my legs.

So, given that scenario, are you still telling me that in your experience, you don't care about pulling from lower, cooler air? Are you saying that the flow you create over-rides those concerns?

By the way, I like your cigar technique. Expensive or cheap, it doesn't matter. You mean to say I don't have to pull out one of those rare Havanas I've been hiding? :=) Don't tell customs. Just kidding.

See you guys,
Rich

 

2 reasons I would have the bottom be the exhaust and the top be the intake.

bottom as exhaust..
Reason - its closest to the TEC side of the heatsink on the card. Thus will remove that heat quicker... you already have cool air coming in from the FRONT of the computer.. or should be at least.
Also the Gecube is a pretty wide card.. leaving little room for air to go up

Top as intake.
You already have an exhaust fan in the back at the same level as the top fan. If you set it up like that the 2 fans are working against each other creating improper airflow. Not to mention the fact that the CPU fan should be blowing air onto the heatsink, not away from it... where is the fresh air coming from? if your sucking it all out via the top vent and the back vent before it has a chance to cool the cpu... your just making its job harder as well.


http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/airflowtweak/print.shtml

http://www.heatsink-guide.com/casecool.htm

 

Well, the omega drivers are working fine, great actully. Best drivers for a ATi card I have encountered so far.

Note: When you install the drivers, follow the instructions on the first page of the exe, it states that you have to remove the CCC, and only the CCC, not the Ati drivers, or anything else. Then you can go ahead and install them. At first I had a problem where the omega drivers wouldnt install, the installation would just quit, like its supposted to, but the omega drivers wouldnt be there, just the crap that came from the exe, like tray tools and some other little apps. I wrote a guide thats a few pages back, and it tells you how to install the omega drivers, so that you can enjoy the ATi card the way its meant to be enjoyed.

 

I agree with Waymon3X6, Omega drivers are great.

I just wish he would update them so they are compatible with Bioshock

 

Yeah Waymon,

BIOSHOCK RUINS OMEGA'S PARTY
That's the program that kardson was mentioning before - bioshock. (Not that it bothers me - I'm strictly WWII plus crysis.) So according to kardson, no bioshock with omega drivers, true? Well, what about medal of honor airborne? Do you get full shader 3 support with omega? So out of curiosity what is bioshock running that is not supported?

And yes, I am very familiar with your earlier post about directing windows to the omega install folder and with a great deal of trepidation, telling xp to go ahead and do the radeon x1950xt even though Windows said "This is not the right driver - you will die!!!" You were gutsy enough to do it and look where it got you - double the frame rates!

WAYMON'S ACT OF COURAGE
I remember clearly that you were so stoked you typed your whole post in bold. It made a strong impression on me, you think I could forget? Those magic words, "I'm so happy!" are permanently engraved in my brain, just waiting for the day they will come out of my lips when Airborne demo stops telling me "card not supported." Grrrr!

All kidding aside, it was a nice post.

WAYMON'S VIRUS
But seriously dude, why were your framerates so slow in the first place? The Gecube is so strong, and you're oc'ing it, right? Near 700 or something - at least 675? At one time, I couldn't believe it, you said you were longing for the old days of your 9800xt, which I have installed in my really slow computer, (should I mail it to you :=) they'll pay you to take it off their hands on ebay!) I mean, for crying out loud, the x850xtpe that I still am using is easily double the 9800 speed, and I'm only getting 2250 3dmark 6, while all you x1950xt dudes are scoring 4500, and some of you a crazy 6000! So how could you have been getting lame framerates? It doesn't make any sense.

MATCHOFF
I know you blame the drivers Waymon, but ......... Hey, Kardson, what do you think about that? Yes I am intentionally trying to pit the two of you AGAINST EACH OTHER. But it's all for the good of science, right Sam?

Kardson, here's a thought. You're running strong right now with ati (I know - no catalyst). Why don't you do some poking around in whatever Battlefield waymon was trying to run, same program, same settings, same map, same size armies, hopefully same server, and take a look at your framerates? Wouldn't we all love to see the results of that! My bet is that your framerates would be rockin - just as good as waymon is getting now! If that were the case - and I'd put money on it that it turns out that way, then we would really be getting somewhere. We would know that it wasn't omega vs ati, it's the fact that waymon has a virus of the slow Battlefield variety!

But if waymon ruled, and, all variables considered, you should be getting what he's getting, but he's way above you, then we would know, clearly, omega is superior.

So what about it guys. A battlefield faceoff. We've got Kardson in the right corner with ati and stock cooler. Waymon weighing in with water cooled omega unit. Who has the better framerates? Winner gets $5 - I'll send a check!

- - - - - - -

FAN PLACEMENT
Kardson, back to hardware. You make too much sense. You've got me convinced about the case fans. Heat rises is not a factor. That hot air will damn well go where we tell it to go "Get out of the case b*tch!"

I'm with you dude. None of this "heat rises" puppy-footing around for us hard core Gecube tec masochists :=) "Airborne!" I'll study your stuff a lot more in the next few days and follow the links, and between you, me and Sammorris you guys will get me squared away, while old waymon kicks back with his Bud and his acceptable framerates "vent the case, what .... ?"

By the way, kardson, how many amps do these aggressive fans draw - and is it 12 volt rail, or 5 volts? If it's a molex, that's 12 volts right? I have 500 Allied watts and 20 total amps on the 12 volt rail.

I am guessing and hoping that my devices don't draw power when they aren't being used. Like cd burner if I'm not burning. Or even dvd reader, after the game disk is logged. Or the C disk after xp boots up and runs on D - I just changed power settings to "turn off disks in 10 minutes" so the C should shut down and not draw current, right? But how many of those strong fans do you want me to get and install before I run out of amps and I can no longer power the tec? That would be bad, right?

TEC MONITOR
Hey, speaking of the tec, is there a way to tell if the tec is actually working? I think I saw something like that, either on the marlow web site, or here on these forums. Supposedly Gecube turns the tec on and off. Temps rise, the tec comes on. Does Ati tools pick up on that? Should I go back over to that forum and ask Ray, the author? If it's not in there, he's got some coding to do, right? I'd like to see a button light up - THE TEC IS ON!! I mean for all the trouble we're going through, bugles should sound! I'll go find the wav file. (Waymon floats on by, watching the mermaids, "What....? what trouble? ...what bugles...? what heat rises? ...there is no hot air when you are submerged.... gurgle gurgle".) Waymon, we're jealous. Well, actually, Kardson isn't because he's already won. I am. I have to vent my case!

FRONT DRAW
Kardson, I really like the idea of cool air coming in through the front (and yes I hear you about, set up side to suck, not blow. I'll study your stuff more.)

I do have a concern, however, about the front. It sounds good. Only thing is I don't know if I have any front left. You're going to laugh but I have a floppy, a dvd reader, a cd writer, a c drive and a d drive. Five devices. You know my case - is there any more front left?

Well, I'm looking now, maybe there is. There is an aluminum colored piece near the bottom, but above the folding down window that exposes the front usb ports. That aluminum colored section is 4 inches high. In the middle is the start button and reset button. I am guessing that I could pop that whole aluminum colored piece out, and get something else that would position the start and reset buttons to the side, allowing me to mount a fan up front. If that's where you want it, that's where I'll put it. I'll go into the case again later for a closer look.

See you guys,
Rich