[frownyfrank]

Hey all,

I knew the 9800 would be louder than the stock 9600 when I ordered it, but my 9800 is going above and beyond its call of duty to make high-pitched noises. If it was just normal fan noise, it would be OK, but when the fan really gets going, it's a definite 'whine.'

I looked at solutions for PCs that involve removing the stock fan and installing a heat pipe (frozencpu.com), but that won't work given the lack of space around the AGP slot.

Has anyone come across another, quieter, fan to replace the stock one, or anything else that might work to remove the whine?

My next option is to swap it with someone's 9600, but I'd really rather not.

Thanks!

[Arkham_c]

I have the OEM 9800 and there is no whine. You may have a bad fan. Consider calling Apple or bringing it into an Apple store and demanding a replacement card.

[Webscreamer]

I already tried that. They won't do **** unless it is REALLY loud.

[Slave]

Hey, I feel your pain... but in a completely un-mac-related sense, I'm currently writing this on a very noisy X86 machine with a 7000 RPM heatsink-fan so I really do know what noise is and how bad a whine can be. Anyway, the BEST thing you're going to be able to do is replace the fanner with a large more beastier one, plenty of people did this with their 9700s as they had one of the noisiest suckers going! Anyway, luckily thanks to mod-happy Windows users you should be able to find plenty on hardware forums. I suggest signing up on www.overclockers.com.au (it's Australian but the guys here know what they're talkin' 'bout!). I know someone on SpyMac has done a fan mod, but everyone there (mainly because it's a Mac community) thinks that kind of thing involves plenty of labour and skill, it doesn't and is quite elementary. The only problem is that you'll probably have to sacrifice one or two of your PCI slots to get much out of the cooling solution. As it is though it probably wouldn't be good, for airflow anyway, to stick a card into that slot right next to it (whatever number that may be). Your best chance, and it'll probably be what anyone on the forums says, is to try and fit a larger fan with a slower speed on it, that way you move the same amount of air (cfm, cubic feet per minute) of air over the hot parts but as it's spinning not so loud you won't experience that yucky noise, finally if you think it could just be a dodgy fan just get a replacement to match it exactly maybe a better brand like a papst, delta even YS tech are okay. Anyway g'luck dude and I hope I don't get a noisy in my Dual 2.0 (ordered it about a week ago, should be here soon, it also has a 9800P).

[frownyfrank]

Thanks for the tips. I think the 'whine' is caused by the fact that the card might not be completely secured. If I press on any part of it, the whine goes away. I'm going to try to reseat it better. But that certainly illustrates that the fan is spinning pretty fast.

I don't think I can take the G5 into Apple, at least not under warranty, as I've already voided it.

I went to some local PC chop shops, but they only offered fans for the power supply. I'll investigate, but I'm not sure if I could just replace the fan with a larger one, because the heatsink surrounds the fan rather tightly. A fan/heatsink combo would be great, but as I saw before, it's too large for the G5 (because it needs about an inch underneath the card).

Maybe I'll just try to fix the whine, and then put up with the extra fan noise until the next generation of cards comes out, and they can make something as powerful as this one without a fan.

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by frownyfrank:
Thanks for the tips. I think the 'whine' is caused by the fact that the card might not be completely secured. If I press on any part of it, the whine goes away. I'm going to try to reseat it better. But that certainly illustrates that the fan is spinning pretty fast.

The whine is caused by an unbalanced fan. It's not that it's going too fast. The out-of-balance is causing vibration, which is what you hear. When you touch the card, your hand absorbs the vibration, quieting the sound. You could probably fashion a rubber "finger" to absorb the vibration if you don't want to replace the fan.

I have heard of someone swapping the OEM fan with the retail 9800 fan with good success. I don't know if the retail fan is easy to come by or not, but I know that CompUSA and Radio Shack sell all manner and size of fan, and one of them ought to work. Just check the power requirements of the one on the card and get one that will run with the same power source.