skollieguns
New member
So I finally splashed out on a new PC, and not a moment too soon. The old rig is going on 5 years now.
(i5 2400 3.1 ghz, Sapphire R9 280x) The GPU is 3 years old though. As is the ssd. So I'm not about ready to give up on the old girl just yet.
About 2 weeks after I setup the new rig. The GPU on the old rig decides to kill one of its fans.
The more important one of the 2 as well. Mounted directly over the chip itself.
Now the only direct replacements I could find are off ebay and will probably take a month or so to get here from China if I'm lucky. Aftermarket GPU cooling solutions are few and far between in SA and assuming I could get the right one for my card, they are also pretty expensive. I'm not prepared to fork out that much on an old system that might see any of its 3-5 year old components die soon anyways. Considering their prices. I'm better off buying a cheap GPU as a replacement. Oh I forgot the mention the mobo I have has no onboard VGA. So I'm keen to keep the 280x kicking for as long as I could. She is still pretty capable.
When the fan died I wasn't too worried. I gave the the old PC to my daughter.
Who doesn't play the most graphic intensive games (she's 5)
Its also setup with her HD ready 32 inch TV (which is only 720p capable)
But... idle temps jumped to 45 after the fan died.
Then I played NFS Rivals for about 15 minutes just to test and it jumped to 83
I was doing donuts till the tyres burst...
After corpeus amounts of googling. I decided I had to do something.
Scratched in the old parts bin and found an old 80mm molex case fan.
What happened next was somewhere between stupid and genius. But mostly funny.
Pilot holes with the smallest precision screw driver in the plastic shroud (this was tricky)
Some sticky foam tape for vibration. Short wood screws and presto.
Idle temps dropped to as low as 33. Did some more donuts and she held out around 68 degrees under load.
Job done right? Well yes. For now. The oldschool fan is definitely older than 5 years. Come to think of it.
My fix. For an old PC. Was to use a part probably older than any component in there.
The other thing is. The molex fan is powered separately from the GPU and not controlled by it at all.
So its spinning at 100% all the time. (probably why the GPU is so cool too)
Now I'm not sure how long a fan that old. Constantly spinning at 100% is going to last.
I'm sure it could last however long it takes for the replacement fans to get here from China.
But before I order something I know never worked too well to begin with.
I was wondering if I could get some simple 80mm pwm replacement fans locally.
Something that could plug directly into the GPU's fan controller.
Something with the same pin connectors as the replacement fans below.
Something that would work with the cards software for temp controlled fan speeds.
Any help would be appreciated.
In case you were wondering. I can't believe a fan this old, spinning at 100% is that quiet!
The same rig has 2 cheap molex case fans which cost me like 50 bucks back then and have been spinning at 100% for 5 years without problems. But Sapphire. A high end GPU manufacturer can't slap on a fan decent enough to last as half long as that.
(i5 2400 3.1 ghz, Sapphire R9 280x) The GPU is 3 years old though. As is the ssd. So I'm not about ready to give up on the old girl just yet.
About 2 weeks after I setup the new rig. The GPU on the old rig decides to kill one of its fans.
The more important one of the 2 as well. Mounted directly over the chip itself.
Now the only direct replacements I could find are off ebay and will probably take a month or so to get here from China if I'm lucky. Aftermarket GPU cooling solutions are few and far between in SA and assuming I could get the right one for my card, they are also pretty expensive. I'm not prepared to fork out that much on an old system that might see any of its 3-5 year old components die soon anyways. Considering their prices. I'm better off buying a cheap GPU as a replacement. Oh I forgot the mention the mobo I have has no onboard VGA. So I'm keen to keep the 280x kicking for as long as I could. She is still pretty capable.
When the fan died I wasn't too worried. I gave the the old PC to my daughter.
Who doesn't play the most graphic intensive games (she's 5)
Its also setup with her HD ready 32 inch TV (which is only 720p capable)
But... idle temps jumped to 45 after the fan died.
Then I played NFS Rivals for about 15 minutes just to test and it jumped to 83
I was doing donuts till the tyres burst...
After corpeus amounts of googling. I decided I had to do something.
Scratched in the old parts bin and found an old 80mm molex case fan.
What happened next was somewhere between stupid and genius. But mostly funny.
Pilot holes with the smallest precision screw driver in the plastic shroud (this was tricky)
Some sticky foam tape for vibration. Short wood screws and presto.
Idle temps dropped to as low as 33. Did some more donuts and she held out around 68 degrees under load.
Job done right? Well yes. For now. The oldschool fan is definitely older than 5 years. Come to think of it.
My fix. For an old PC. Was to use a part probably older than any component in there.
The other thing is. The molex fan is powered separately from the GPU and not controlled by it at all.
So its spinning at 100% all the time. (probably why the GPU is so cool too)
Now I'm not sure how long a fan that old. Constantly spinning at 100% is going to last.
I'm sure it could last however long it takes for the replacement fans to get here from China.
But before I order something I know never worked too well to begin with.
I was wondering if I could get some simple 80mm pwm replacement fans locally.
Something that could plug directly into the GPU's fan controller.
Something with the same pin connectors as the replacement fans below.
Something that would work with the cards software for temp controlled fan speeds.
Any help would be appreciated.
In case you were wondering. I can't believe a fan this old, spinning at 100% is that quiet!
The same rig has 2 cheap molex case fans which cost me like 50 bucks back then and have been spinning at 100% for 5 years without problems. But Sapphire. A high end GPU manufacturer can't slap on a fan decent enough to last as half long as that.