Chris Ihao

Update: Finally got the Zalman heatsinks on place. Should be just as good, and looks better too. Look at attachments for a few pics.

The voltage regulator modules was another matter though. You cant just glue on the vrm hs of the accelero, as you NEED thick pads to get down through the electrical jungle to fasten them. You would just touch a lot of other things with the heasink if the pads were gone. I bet the glue on them is even worse now, even if those pads ironically turned out to have pretty ok ashesive, so I'll just cross my fingers and hope that it wont suddenly fall off one of these days. The vrms ARE a bit on the hot side though, like before this operation. Nah, cant really recommend this cooler.

Attached Thumbnails

   

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Anth0789

The Accelero Xtreme GTX280 out yet? Can't seem to find it online...

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vilespankmachine

For all y'alls hoping for those problems to be addressed, I wouldn't count on it. The Accelero S2 I bought for my original 4870 had very poor instructions for installing the heatsinks, same BS eraser system, and they didn't really stick at all, some fell off during operation and the VRM module and 1 of my GDDR5 chips cooked. Luckily I slapped the stock cooler back on and returned it, no questions asked.

Upgraded to a 4870x2, and again I am thinking of buying the Arctic Cooling Cooler (there is a nearly identical version of this coming for my card) primarily for the purpose of quieting things down. I was also going to look at some other small chip coolers and some sort of adhesive TIM to correct the problems, as the cooling of the actual GPU's is quite good. I will probably be one of the first people on the board to buy one, if no one else has a review I will drop one, with pictures.

Chris Ihao

Yeah. I'm doing 100c+ on the vrm's. They should be built for this heat though, but I would expect somewhat better from a cooling specialist like AC.

Its the adhesive that is the real issue here. If it were better this kit would be a ok in my book. Also, if they built the vrm hs so that it could be placed on the board without having to use 3 mm thick pads, that would help.

At least I wont have to worry about that dreaded backplate bending and losing contact again, thanks to AS epoxy and fourth part memory hs's.


PS: Are you sure you are not thinking of the avivo chip when you say that your "vrm module" (as there are several voltage regulator modules) cooked btw? Its the single small chip that controls all in/out from the card, and I would think that it get rather hot at times. I agree about the gpu cooling though. Its great.

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vilespankmachine

Added coolers to area 1 at first, had some left over, didn't do areas 3 or 4 at all. Tested with Furmark, GPU was very cool but some of the other temps looked ALOT higher than I remember, so I shut it down and went and grabbed two Antec 80mm fans which I zip-tied to the Accelero. Helped a little, brought the GPU temps down more, but graphics started to correct and be unstable.

Googled my problem and added the leftover coolers to area 2, too late, damage had been done. Never did add heatsinks to areas 3 & 4, just found out I should have today. Let's hope I don't blow up my x2 whenever the cooler for it comes out.

Pretty ridiculous it's taking nearly a year for an aftermarket cooling solution, I will be off to another card not long after since it's suppossedly delayed until May now.

Chris Ihao

Latest update. I removed the voltage modulator heatsink and like I suspected it does in fact have NO effect whatsoever. I have a fan blowing in from the side of the cabinet, and that combined with the tri fan solution seem to keep the temp at the same level as when the hs is installed.

This is compared to the first time I used the hs, when the glue still stuck.

Temps are around 100c +-3 degrees.

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WaLshy11

Found this thread on another site

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showth...84#post1282484

He uses the stock VRM Heatsink (he cut it off the stock cooler) and you can put that on. Temps are about the same as stock cooling, which is fine IMO instead of the crazy high temps you get with the AC cooler.

AC should look into this, it isnt acceptable IMO. You shouldnt have to try and fix it yourself, it should just work.

Chris Ihao

Thanks man. I'll see If I get around to do that. Its only furmark thats through the roof though.

Edit: And thats about how long time it took before I "just had to do it". This has bugged me quite a bit the last few days, so I just wanted to get over with it.

Cut stock vrm sink is in place. Glued on with epoxy though, instead of the screws. I will not push the temps before tomorrow, because of the properties of epoxy glue, but it looks good so far. The temps are evenly divided, and they are at least 5c cooler on idle. More like 7-8c. Should be making even more of a difference when the temps start rising

ps: I shook like a leaf on a windy day. These vrms are really small, and I really didnt want to get this semi-conductive material on the myriad of other things that surround them.

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Chris Ihao

Latest and LAST update:

I'm happy to say that after doing the "cut out stock cooler vrm hs" thing, mentioned in the link above, I have now got a decrease in temps of more than 20 degrees on the vrm's!

And thats considering one of the vrm's is about 7-8 degrees hotter than the rest. Nothing I could do about it, as I saw beforehand that it didnt have the excellent contact that the other ones had. It seems like the epoxy creates a quite good bridge between the chip and the hs anyways. Still, The hottest I've reached now is about 81c with Atitool cube, contra the 105c I got beforehand.

I chose to not take any pictures when I did it, as the above link contain lots of good pics of the process, and I finished doing this at 3.30 am before workday (yes, I'm pretty wasted now).

I am now finally content with this "bastard gtx280" (three different brands of coolers on the board), and can finally start enjoying it like I should

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hi7of3of2hi9

glad to hear about the improvement of the VRM temps~

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