Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 5 Rev. 2

[W1zzard]

To read this review go to: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...ilencer5_Rev2/

Please Digg the review to help us promote it.

i know i am unregistered. but this is a true tale.

i have had two of these coolers. and the fan on both has died. it seems to be a somewhat common problem around the net (do a google search). i am waiting for the warranty replacement now and will sell them on ebay or something. since i obviously cannot trust the fan on the Silencer, i went ahead and replaced the Silencer with a zalman VF700-CU.

the zalman is alright, but not quite as good as the Silencer. there is about a 1-2C temp difference between the two at idle and a load (in the Silencer's favor). and i liked the fact that the Silencer could be hooked into the video card's fan header for control. i have to control the zalman manually.

on a good note, when both the Silencer's fans died, the idle temp of the GPU core never rose above 56C. although when i started up a 3D app (by accident) the temp soared and the screen went blank. i had one of the first Silencers on my ATI 9800, and i really like the fact that it exhausts the heat out the back of the case. so maybe i will try Silencers again on my next video card.

[SPHERE]

im wandering y this got a 9.5 and the zalman got a 8.9?!?!

the zalman is alot smaller, has better contact, cools better, is compatable with almost all curent, next and, last gen cards and, imo looks better

I bought one of these for my X800 XL and my fan also died, but I discovered that if you unplug the power cable to the fan(with the pc off of course) and plug it back in, the fan will come back on; but only for a few minutes. I'm not sure if there is a permanent solution to this but if anyone has heard anything I'd like to know.

i am the person with the two dead fans. in trying to figure out what happened exactly, i took an old power supply i use for testing, jimmy-rigged a connector so i could plug into the fans directly (tested on some other old fans to make sure the setup worked and it did), and the fans were still dead. just for clarification, i run my computer 24/7 (doing SETI) and while not playing 3D apps, i underclock my X800XL @ 300/390 just to be safe. the first Silencer died after about 4 weeks. the second one died after about a week. good thing i keep a close watch on the system temps b/c of my SETI crunching.

like i said before, i really love the silencers and how they work (it worked better than the new zalman i got), but there is just something wrong with the current fan design. maybe next time.

where do you buy Arctic Silver Lumière?? where are the specs on it also? i went to arctic silver's web page but the page for Arctic Silver Lumière is Under Construction.

thanks.

[W1zzard]

it's not publicly available for sale. if you are a reviewer/person who needs it for testing, just shoot them an email

just wondering if this cooler is compatible with sapphire x800 pro pcie cards? its kinda confusing, coz ive seen ppl saying that they have it their x800 pro pcie with a silencer 4 rev 2, and then seeing a computer store selling a silencer 5 rev 2 with this card

help? thanks!

[fishgoh0nk]

will this sucker work on an AIW x800 xt? the thing has two pins, it looks like it will.... i'm not very familiar with the characteristics of my card right now... so i can't estimate room for caps and tv tuner.... thanks.

[thedivinehairband]

Ive bin using the acrtic silencer aswell on my x800xl and have been doing sum ovaclocking. Noticed couple days ago that there wasn't the hot air exhaust that there was before. yesterday took a look inside and discovered that the fan had stopped. only checked this after gettin sum checkerboarding during star wars jedi academy after bout 3 hours gaming. the temp actually hit 86degC!! This was after i turned my case fans rite down tho so i think it was only the case ventilation that has saved me from a fried card. looks like the heatsink itself is quite capable even without the fan. as you can see i run sum quite high clocks. great cooler. shame about the fan trouble.
Looks like a retun to base coming up. only a month old.
Cmon lads sort it out!!

[yobo]

Quick question here
Bought the rev 2
Installed it according to the directions, which instructed to spread some thermal paste onto the GPU

I thought that the thermal paste had been misplaced or not included, so I used some leftover thermal paste from a water cooling install I did earlier.

Just now read this review which pointed out that there was a thermal pad already on the silencer. Is it dangerous that I doubled up on the thermal pad+paste?

[spectre440]

it can be. yes.
too much TIM (thermal interface metrial) could seriously hamper the heat transfer from the chip to the cooler.

i suggest you remove the cooler, remove all the thermal paste, and put in a fresh new thin layer of the good ol' arctic silver 5 on the chip and remount the cooler.

just be careful not to damage your card.

also: using previously used TIM isnt such a good thing either. you definantly should use a fresh layer of the stuff every time you mount/dismount/change/whatver any cooling component that requires it.

[Silver-Arrow]

Do you guys just use the thermal paste/pads that come with the arctic cooler or do you remove it and use Arctic Silver 5 paste instead?

[spectre440]

personally, i use AS5 on everything.

[MadMigMR2]

Hi!
Can this cooler be applied on a Asus x800 Pro AGP ?

[noneed4me2]

everything i read says you should use revision 4 ATI silencer for your version, there is a review in this section of the forum http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=1858 . The 5.2 is strictly for PCI/E x800 cards. I use the 5.2 and it works great but others like the zalman 700c and that one should fit your card too. I chose the ATI silencer because i have a smaller OEM case and it shunts heated air out the back while the zalman just circulates air around the vid card. If you got a case with good ventilation the zalman will fit your card to. A review of the zalman can also be found here http://forums.techpowerup.com/showth...p?t=2655.There are three versions, one with a light and one thats all copper and one with copper/aluminum mix, all cool about the same. both the ATI silencer and zalman are priced about the same.

[Fatfairy2005]

I think you have provided me with the answer to a problem I have with the HIS X800 GTO. At any speed less than 100% it makes a noise like a ciccada and I suspect it must have the earlier version of the Arctic Cooler. Anyone else come across this problem?

As for any help from HIS - forget it, they have failed on three separate occasions to respond to requests for help on this matter. Great card, rubbish customer care.

[SunShine]

Yesterday i buy this Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 5 Rev. 2 for 28$.
I have a Sapphire X800GTO Ultimate edition.Before whit standart heatpipe on 550/1120 temp on full load hit 80C.Whit Silencer temp going down whit 20C.

[zekrahminator]

I'm hearing all sorts of things about the ATIsilencer 5, some say its the best thing ever, some say its unreliable, some say theres a review saying that the ATI fan control itself will fry the silencer. I was just wondering, how good is the stock cooler? I'm just trying to find these things out BEFORE I get my new X850XT.

[Thermopylae_480]

A stock cooler can be adequate for normal operation and some sporatic overclocking. If you intend to run the card for extended periods of time overclocked, or wish to obtain really high overclocks a stock cooler just won't cut it. If your afraid of the Arctic Cooling heatsinks, Zalman makes good ones also.

[OOTay]

Will the Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 5 Rev. 2 heatsink work on an agp version of a x850pro 256mb?

[infrared]

It should work ok

When you fit it, use the thermal pad it comes with also, AS5 will increase temps by around 3c.

Good luck!

[OOTay]

Thanks thats good news. But why does that thermal pad work better then the as5? Just thought that was weird that a therm pad works better then a appilication of AS5.

[infrared]

Yeah, It's strange. It's the same with all of arctic cooling's cpu coolers as well. I'm not sure what the thermal compound is, but it's pretty nice stuff! I've even polished the botton my my ATI Silencer, and used my credit card to get a very thin layer of AS5, yet temperatures are still higher than they originally were.

It's like a very thick (as in viscocity) square of grease, it goes fairly soft while hot, but doesn't appear to run. I don't believe it needs any time to get to it's optimal state either, unlike the 200hours needed for AS5 to harden.

I'm gonna send Arctic cooling an email and see if i can get hold of any of the stuff

[OOTay]

Wow thats cool! Thats a definate company secret lol.