Air cooling advice

[eNxy]

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post, but I'll give it a shot !

I have a Thermaltake Soprano with an 8800GT and it has a 120mm in and 120mm out, with another 92mm one taking air in on the side. My GFX card has been running at a fairly standard 58 degrees idle and 70 degrees max on load, but ever since I added a new sound card that sits directly underneath the GFX card, it now idles at about 63 degrees. I know this is still well below the threshold limit, but I was wondering if there's anything I can shove on the inside (fan wise) that could either help the air flow a bit better and just generally lower the GFX card temp back to it's original value. I'm just guessing it's because the sound card is going to generate a little bit of heat, bringing everything up a little.

I'm not much a huge modder myself, and I don't have access to drillbits or bandsaws so I'm just seeing if there's anything simple, whether it's just tieing another fan on the inside to push the air out faster or whatnot.

Thanks in advance for any help :worship:

 

[ace8uk]

You could always get an antec spot cooler and aim it at your graphics card, they don't require any modding and can be mounted pretty much anywhere inside a case.

 

[eNxy]

It looks ideal, but do you mind explaining how it mounts "virtually" anywhere ? I don't really get how it works... hehe, I'm terrible

 

[Ham]

Have you considered a thrid party cooler that carries the heat to the top of the card?

Like the Thermalright HR-03.

 

[ace8uk]

You screw the bottom bit into one of the motherboard mounts on your motherboard tray, then bend the "stem" of the fan to angle it towards what you want to cool, in your case, the graphics card.

 

[eNxy]

I looked at that, but the problem is... the 8800GT I have is the Inno3d Wind Edition one, so it has a mini Zalman-like cooler on it and I can't seem to take it off. I'm worried i'll snap the board or something. I think I basically need something to move the air that's being circulated between the bottom of the GFX card and the sound card.

 

[eNxy]

Ah thanks, I'll give it a look. It's only ~£10 so it's not a huge amount !

 

[zzhang]

Silly question but have you put the sound card as far way from the graphics card as possible? Also generally it's better to have negative air pressure in your case, so could look into that too.

 

[eNxy]

I tried both, and it's nearly identical. Slot 1 is closer to the GFX card and slot 2 is only one down. Having it in PCI Slot 2 makes it fluctuate 1 degree lower, so it's possibly only 0.5 degrees difference, but it makes everthing more confusing on the PC as it's in slot 2 ! So i kept it in slot 1.

 

[zzhang]

What do you mean confusing? Windows isn't gonna care which slot you put it into. What motherboard do you have? Try to clear the air flow from the bottom case so tidy up your cables from your hard drives meaning more fresh air will make it to your graphics card. But as you said in the first post it's still well inside safe temperatures range so it's not a major concern.

 

[eNxy]

I have a Asus P5N-E. There's only like a 1inch between the first slot and 2nd slot. The cables from my HDD's go directly to the side of my PC, so there's minimal cables flying around and they're all at the side of the PC between the sheet of metal.

 

[Bungral]

I have a Asus P5N-E. There's only like a 1inch between the first slot and 2nd slot. The cables from my HDD's go directly to the side of my PC, so there's minimal cables flying around and they're all at the side of the PC between the sheet of metal.

Ok so what's the question??

Also 1st slot and 2nd slot of what?

 

[eNxy]

1st and 2nd PCI slot, there isn't really a question... apart from my very first one, just wondering if there's anything to do about the slight rise in temp after adding a sound card. Moving it to the 2nd PCI slot only decreases the temp by 0.5 degrees.

 

[Bungral]

1st and 2nd PCI slot, there isn't really a question... apart from my very first one, just wondering if there's anything to do about the slight rise in temp after adding a sound card. Moving it to the 2nd PCI slot only decreases the temp by 0.5 degrees.

Sorry, I misread the post....

 

[Fake]

Have you considered a thrid party cooler that carries the heat to the top of the card?

Like the Thermalright HR-03.

Even waiting for the t-rad2 will be a good idea. Outperforms the HR-03 and isn't as large.