[MrD]

my nephew bought secondhand a leadtek 6600gt 128meg agp card and whilst it plays most games fine there are about 3 or 4 that give it problems, overheating the card upto 100c on the GPU, where 98c and up starts to wreck the graphics in game.

the Ram was overheating, but i sorted that by riffting the stock heatsink on that and using some fresh arctic silver.

the paste on the gpu and ram resembled powdered milk.

i am hoping that either the supplied gpu fan is distorted and not fitting the GPU, or it is simply not powerful enough. and would like to hear what 3rd party fan options will fit this card, and whether there is any fan control with the 3rd party options.

drivers seem to be a major issue with how this card behaves, certain games work better with certain drivers. whilst i understand a lot of these cards had to be RMA'd my nephew does not have this option anymore, hence looking into 3rd party cooling. getting the temps on the gpu down 5c will be enough to allow him to game (but not say much for the longevity of the card obviously!!!!)

 

[zone]

check the Zalman VF700-Cu

 

[MrD]

i tracked that down between £36 -32 inc p&p in the UK. one site, ebuyer.co.uk, offered up this alternative at £15 plus postage that i can't find much on

Code:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=16878832705&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=94035

dutch offering, Point Of View : Chameleon.

one reviewer said it fitted a leadtek 6800gt and the size of the Zalman model was worrying me a bit really. those HSI VGA cards are a bit cluttered an limited in aftermarket solutions obviously.

both have range of speed on the fan, no specific connectors on the fan or card that suggest speed change is incompatible (not sure where or what product i heard theres no speed change available through software/drivers)

but at least i have two options available now so my nephew can stop with the plaintive eyes at me!!!!

EDIT : i have a temporary fix. i removed the fan unit and finally managed to open it (thescrews were jammed tight for so long) and inside the design for the ducts running off the fan is so poor that they were all blocked. with NFSU2 running on maximum graphics on his system (barton 2500 333mhz and 2x512meg pc3200) he can play the game full speed and see 92c maximum. before it went to 101c and unplayable due to "lagging" the design is unacceptable and will need frequent cleaning. i will persuade him to get a different cooler that isn't so lame

SECOND EDIT : i have browsed the shops on the net for reviews and pics of the card. this particular card is over a year old now and the fan on it is hardened plastic, enclosed, with plastic channels. is it any wonder there are overheating issues when they now fit an aluminium flower type fan housing to the new models? it looks like when i emailed leadtek themselves they should have been real men and offered me a replacement fan to solve their design fault. the new fan runs the card at 81-82c apparently. a cut of 10c is a sign of design fault in the original and so everyone with the old fan design has been done over by leadtek IMO and the company don't deserve to have a fan base really if when contacted they don't offer a resolution to the problem. shame it's out of my countries one year warranty really, and not worth the hassle and cost to take them to court for supplying a product that didn't work as designed.

THIRD EDIT : turns out an extra part must be bought to fit the leadtek agp 6600gt 128meg card. a Zalman slimline heatsink to replace the big nasty thing already on the card.
Code:

http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/videonorthbridge/zm-vhs1

so you need to get fan and a seperate heatsink. drives the prices up really to do the job of which the modern fan on the card does. they didn't use the dirty great big lump of plastic for long before realising their mistake.