ATI Arctic Cooling Silencer

[Waldoinsc]

I purchased a AC Silencer 1 Rev 2 for an ATI 9700 Pro AIW, and, before I remove the stock HSF, I have 2 questions:
1. Does the AC Silencer vent duct clear the Philips tuner case on the AIW, or do I need modify it?
2. It appears I have to break the clips to get the stock HSF removed from the board. Is there any way to release the clips without destroying the stock cooler?

Thanks.

[Poisonsnak]

1. you will probably need to modify it, but I don't know for sure. On AC's website they mention it fits the 9700 series, and then the X700 series Pro and AIW, they don't mention the 9700 AIW. This is because the new TV tuners on the X700 are a lot smaller, so the omission of the 9700 AIW is probably deliberate.

2. Each clip should have 2 little 'barbs' 180° apart from each other and if you squeeze them together (hard, with pliers) they should just push through the PCB.

edit: I have a better answer to #1 it's a drawing from AC's website, if you have a good ruler or something you can measure it yourself.
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/downloads/compatibility/height_restr_ati1_r2.pdf
it looks like 12.5mm is the magic number

[Waldoinsc]

Appreciate the feedback Poisonsnake... I just removed the stock HSF...it was attached tight and I had to heat the card to about 60C to relaese the thermal pad. I need to clean up the board to see if AC Silencer 1 Rev 2 fits...I'll post later with results of that

[Waldoinsc]

The stock AC Silencer 1 Rev 2 will not fit onto the 9700 AIW... the Philips tuner on the card and the acrylic shroud on the cooler, as well as 2 fins of the cooler heat sink, interfere with mounting. :twitch:

I test mounted the cooler as best I could and marked the cooler where modifications would be needed. I ended up cutting out a 50mm long section, 8mm wide, and 6 mm deep. This gave me about a 1mm clearance to the tuner on the card (see photos).

I initially drilled small holes along the boundry of my cutout, then used a Dremel to finsh the cutout. It was much easier than I anticipated. After cutout was complete (which included cutting the corners off 2 aluminum fins inside the shroud), I used an X-Acto knife to remove burrs on the fins and casing. The modded cooler fit up nicely.:D

Before modding, the default core/memory was 325MHz/310MHz. Using ATITool and stock HSF, I OC'd the card to achieve 383.79 core and reached 344.65MHz memory, but could only reliable run at 383.79/324.00.

After adding the AC Silencer, acheived OC's of 416.57MHZ core, but could only reach 324.00 MHz for memory. I guess that is correct since this cooler does not have thermal contact pads for the memory IC's to help cool them.

Thanks again to Poisonsnak.:respect:

[bikr692002]

thats a decent oc, i cant get it to get that high of an increase with my x700 pro with watercooling :(

[Waldoinsc]

:) I appreciate the feedback...what's awesome is that I can achieve this with a Dell 4550 system from early 2003 (P4 2.8GHz & Intel mobo). I've upgraded to 1 GB RAM, installed 400W PSU from PC Power & Cooling, the 9700 AIW card, and a Plextor 716A DVD-RW. I've had zero problems with the hardware. I use the rig mainly to capture and edit home video, and burn DVD's. Though I have begun to play some games on it. I probably should benchmark it. ATITool shows that I get an average of 131 fps at default card values, and 167 fps avg at the new OC'd values with this setup.

[Waldoinsc]

I ran PCMark05 and 3DMark05 at default clocks for the video card, and OC's.

The default values for PCMark was 2772, and 3DMark was 2219. My OC's values ended up at 2778 for PCMark and 5078 for 3DMark...how about that overclock!:rockout: (see photos)

[trog100]

3dmark2005.. ???? strikes me your default score was in 3dmark2005 your overlclocked score was in 3dmark2003.. thats the only way it makes sense.. cards dont clock up from 2219 to 5078.. least not when u are useing the same benchmark they dont.. he he

i just got rid of a 9700 pro.. so i know what they are capable of.. about 5000 in 3dmark2003 and a not very clever 2000-ish in 3dmark2005.. good for two years ago but not very good for today..


trog

[Waldoinsc]

That could be..I had difficulty with that benchmark....first time I'd benchmarked the system.

Initially 3DMark 2005 was unable to run on the system, and it directed me to use 3DMark 2003, which I loaded. 3DMark 2003 wouldn't run either and said I need to use 3DMark 2001, which I also downloaded. 3DMark 2001 did not respond, so I unistalled it. I opened 3DMark 2005 and it claimed it could now benchmark the system...so I ran it and achieved the 5078 score.

Any other suggestions as to what could have happened? Should I unistall all 3Dmark versions and reload them?

:( I guess you are right Trog...I didn't look at the screen shot I posted...it plainly says 3DMark2003 on the header....Sorry to all for the bogus posting...I was too excited by the results to look closely, I guess. I'll retry my benchmarks.:o

Yep, I screwed up on this one...3DMark 2005 only improved to 2227.:cry: I again humbly apologize for my over-enthusiastic response.

[Poisonsnak]

Wow that is a nice mod, I bought the rev. 1 for an X700 Pro I had and naturally it didn't fit so I had to dremel around a capacitor but nothing like this, glad to hear you got it to fit.

3dmark has always been a finicky program for me, I find sometimes if I'm prime / occt / memtest stable 3dmark will crash my system. Is your CPU/RAM oc'd?

Hehe reminds me of when I oc'd too much playing Quake 2 and somehow the crate texture and lava texture got swapped so I jumped into a "pool" of wavy red crates.

[Waldoinsc]

:) Appreciate the candor. No I haven't OC'd the CPU or RAM...still running default values. I'm not sure I want to with this rig as it is for my video editing.

I built a gaming system for my son....SiS mobo (M871G rev 1.5c) that came with an Athlon Mobile 2800+ (754 pin), 1 GB Corsair Value RAM, in an ASPIRE X-QPack case (which included a 420W PSU), SATA WD 80GB HDD. Currently running onboard video and audio, but I purchased a Sapphire X800GTO AGP for the system and installed AC ATI Silencer 5 on it. The Oversized cooler won't fit into the case (case has a slideout mobo tray that is very handy). So my next mod is to get X800 GTO with cooler into the rig (looks like I'll have to cut off the fold over top piece of the aluminum heatsink from the back of the board). I also have a Clawhammer 3700+ to put in it and Arctic Cooling Silencer 64 Ultra cooler for it.

I tried to benchmark it today on the stock system, and PCMark05 caused the system to Reboot immediately after the initial HDD test. Any ideas on what caused this? (I'm thinking maybe my PSU isn't up to the task).....Actually, I'll post a new thread on this one.(http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=7532)

[bikr692002]

:) I appreciate the feedback...what's awesome is that I can achieve this with a Dell 4550 system from early 2003 (P4 2.8GHz & Intel mobo). I've upgraded to 1 GB RAM, installed 400W PSU from PC Power & Cooling, the 9700 AIW card, and a Plextor 716A DVD-RW. I've had zero problems with the hardware. I use the rig mainly to capture and edit home video, and burn DVD's. Though I have begun to play some games on it. I probably should benchmark it. ATITool shows that I get an average of 131 fps at default card values, and 167 fps avg at the new OC'd values with this setup.
I only get 120 fps average on my stock settings on my video card :( and I have a x700 pro :(

[bikr692002]

Where did you get pcmark05? Can I get your serial :-D

[Waldoinsc]

I finally got a complete run with the system and scored a 1432....:ohwell: time to start the mods. See the following link for this system http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=7532