[jebjeb]

Not sure if this is best here or in Peripherals.

Just installed a Zalman VF700 Cu cooler on to the 7800 GT in my Quad. Followed the instructions on HardMac.

Fairly easy to install. I had a couple of issues.

1: The plastic PCI card slot guide on the left of the PCI-e bay had to be removed as the card was in an encloused section of it rather than just in the slidy slots. I imagine Apple does this so it can't be dislodged in transit.

2: Horrible job trying to get the thermal paste cleaned off the GPU. Got a little on the pins around the processor but made sure I cleaned it all off well with alcohol. To stop this happening when I was putting new paste on, I put tape up to each of the 4 sides of the processor so it was only the GPU surface exposed. Worked well.

3: I wanted the fan speed controlled from the card but I didn't have one of the old plugs as the HardMac guys did. I rigged up a new connector with some indivdual pins and soldered and heat shrinked them on to a connector for the fan wire.

4: Reseated the card. I couldn't even slot it back in the normal slot in the plastic guide as the card is too long. Had to unscrew the plastic guide again.

5: Scared the crud out of me! I turned the machine on and the display did not un-sleep. Restarted the machine, display woke up but only until the Apple logo disappeared and then the display turned off.
I went and had some lunch to cool my nerves and console myself that I may have just screwed my new 'pooter. Came back, unplugged and then reseated the card. It worked fine.

All is well and I can really notice the drop in noise. To show this, I have made a little video. It is only done with my Digicam but at these low noise levels, I think that the mic keeps to a constant gain so it is representative.

I have included comparisions with the ambient noise (machine off), the Standard cooler and then the Zalman cooler. I have recorded these from two feet in front of the machine, a few inches behind and beside the machine, up at my normal seating level and finally, the case open and me using my finger to stop the fans.

GPU Cooler Comparison Movie
1 Minute - 6 MB (Sorry)

Let me know what you think.

Jeb

[Groovy]

nice but i can't get the mov to play (or i should say it is never sent)

EDIT: ok able to download it directly and listen to it. Streaming just was not working.


yes much better. I also noticed that the pitch makes the standard fan sound
MAYBE sound louder than it really is. I'm curious if the Decibel level is about
the same or not but the perhaps zalman just has a more soothing pitch.

As an example a 30 dB 4000Hz tone is very annoying where as a 40 dB
ocean waves sound is very relaxing

[jebjeb]

Originally Posted by Groovy

nice but i can't get the mov to play (or i should say it is never sent)

EDIT: ok able to download it directly and listen to it. Streaming just was not working.


yes much better. I also noticed that the pitch makes the standard fan sound
MAYBE sound louder than it really is. I'm curious if the Decibel level is about
the same or not but the perhaps zalman just has a more soothing pitch.

As an example a 30 dB 4000Hz tone is very annoying where as a 40 dB
ocean waves sound is very relaxing

Yeah, don't know about the streaming side but if one waits, it eventually downloads.

The pitch has definately changed to a lower one but I also really do think that it is quieter as well. I think the pitch of the Zalman is now very similar to the rest of the fans in the PowerMac now so it all sort of blends together.

[voo]

Damn that 7800 fan is quite loud. Isn't even a sound like that with the 6800 fan but I don't think it was wise using your finger and forcing the fan to stop like that, as pressure upon the core from the heatsink can damage these things...

[jebjeb]

Originally Posted by voo

Damn that 7800 fan is quite loud. Isn't even a sound like that with the 6800 fan but I don't think it was wise using your finger and forcing the fan to stop like that, as pressure upon the core from the heatsink can damage these things...

The things are so tightly clamped to the core that I doubt that a little lateral pressure would cause any problems.

I could be wrong though

[robby818]

I broke a fan by using the finger stop method. It was the cheap fan that came standard on a Sapphire Radeon 9600. I pressed a bit too hard on the center and it wouldn't spin up again. I think it would be hard to damage the chip though.

The stock video fan on some Apple graphics cards are extremely loud- much worse than the CPU fans in my opinion. Replacing it with either a Zalman or Arctic cooling fan is a really good idea. The difference is very noticable.

[k2director]

Thanks for posting this, it was an extremely useful demo. I'm going to look into doing the same thing to my 7800.

[jebjeb]

It is like working on a completely different machine now. There is just a steady non-intrusive noise coming from the tower now rather than this irritating, higher pitched one.

I'm very happy with the mod and recommend it to anyone who is after a significantly quieter machine, as long as one is willing to give up a certain amount of warranty coverage.

And I don't plan on stopping fans with my fingers too often . Just did it to initially identify the culprit for the excessive noise and the to demo to you guys the differences!

[bitjumper]

Originally Posted by jebjeb

3: I wanted the fan speed controlled from the card but I didn't have one of the old plugs as the HardMac guys did. I rigged up a new connector with some indivdual pins and soldered and heat shrinked them on to a connector for the fan wire.

Hi Jeb,

Thanks so much for your description and the link to the hardmac site. I'm in the same boat with a very loud 7800.

Could I get more details on your multi-speed fan wiring. I'm not getting which wires and connectors need to be connected where. I can't really make out what needs to happen on the hardmac site either.

Thanks,
Erik

[k2director]

FYI:

I held out some dim, remote hope that my particular 7800 card might be the culprit, so I called Apple and they sent me a replacement 7800. I just went through the whole rigamarole of taking out my old card, and installing the new one, and guess what....?

The new card is just as loud!

So at least that's settled for good. I'll have to find someone in the LA area to install the quiter fan. I'm not going to do that myself, but definitely intend to get it done in the next month or so...

[jebjeb]

Originally Posted by bitjumper

Hi Jeb,

Thanks so much for your description and the link to the hardmac site. I'm in the same boat with a very loud 7800.

Could I get more details on your multi-speed fan wiring. I'm not getting which wires and connectors need to be connected where. I can't really make out what needs to happen on the hardmac site either.

Thanks,
Erik

Erik, I am in a rush so haven't got any images for you at this time.

Inside the pack with the Zalman cooler is a 4 pin power splitter that you would take power from the optical drive to power the fan. It has four connectors on it. Two 12v fan connectors and two 5v fan connectors. I cut one (anyone) of them * off the adapter and kept the adapter for safe keeping. With this removed connector, I crimped and soldered two little female pin sockets that fit over the two actual pins on the 7800. The cut off connector is a female that fits onto the male connector coming from the Zalman fan. The red wire goes into where the red wire was originally and the same for the black wire. Don't worry about the white one.

A much easier solution, but it does involve modifiying the original 7800 heatsink you have just removed, is to cut the fan connector off the standard heatsink/fan and the crimb that to the above adapter (marked by * above). This then plugs securely on to th 7800.

I will make this a little clearer later on when i have some time.

Jeb

[jebjeb]

Originally Posted by k2director

FYI:

I held out some dim, remote hope that my particular 7800 card might be the culprit, so I called Apple and they sent me a replacement 7800. I just went through the whole rigamarole of taking out my old card, and installing the new one, and guess what....?

The new card is just as loud!

So at least that's settled for good. I'll have to find someone in the LA area to install the quiter fan. I'm not going to do that myself, but definitely intend to get it done in the next month or so...

Looking at the size of the standard fan on the 7800 and the speeds it has to rotate to sufficently cool the chip, I think it is alwasy going to be loud.

I guess it depends on the room the machine is located in and if it is quiet or not. I would imagine that if my machine was on my desk at work in an open plan office, I probably would not have been bothered by the noise.

If you don't feel comfortable doing the swap yourself then it sounds like a good idea to get someone with experience of these things to do it.

I will try and post some more details to make the job clearer.

[BigJimSlade]

I'll just chip in and say I've done the same upgrade thanks to the HardMac article.

My experience is similar to jebjeb - the Quad was much louder than I was expecting, but is fine now with the HSF installed.

I did have one issue - it didn't fit! The rear of the fan assembly has a supporting brace (I assume to stop the card warping under tension) that protrudes about 7 or 8mm. On my quad, the gap between the x16 PCIe slot and the processor casing is about 5mm, so there was no way the card could be inserted with the brace attached. I removed it and the card went in fine.

HardMac don't mention attaching the brace, and the photos are unclear. It occurs to me now I might have got the card to go in if I had removed the plastic guide. Is that what happened to you jebjeb?

[jebjeb]

Originally Posted by BigJimSlade

I'll just chip in and say I've done the same upgrade thanks to the HardMac article.

My experience is similar to jebjeb - the Quad was much louder than I was expecting, but is fine now with the HSF installed.

I did have one issue - it didn't fit! The rear of the fan assembly has a supporting brace (I assume to stop the card warping under tension) that protrudes about 7 or 8mm. On my quad, the gap between the x16 PCIe slot and the processor casing is about 5mm, so there was no way the card could be inserted with the brace attached. I removed it and the card went in fine.

HardMac don't mention attaching the brace, and the photos are unclear. It occurs to me now I might have got the card to go in if I had removed the plastic guide. Is that what happened to you jebjeb?

Ah yes, thanks for reminding me. I forgot to mention that I did NOT install the rear brace as I thought it would have been a tight fit.

It may fit with the card sitting slightly higher in the plastic guide on the left (in the slidy slot rather than captive in the lower "sealed" slot).

It's quite a difference in noise output isn't it?!

[OreoCookie]

Just a quick comment: first of all, congrats to the improvement in noise, it really helps to replace the regular cooler (my brother did so too for basically all his graphics cards) and Zalman coolers were his coolers of choice as well (he has a watercooled system now ).

Just be careful not to stop the cooler of the graphics card for too long (with your finger), though

[jebjeb]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

Just be careful not to stop the cooler of the graphics card for too long (with your finger), though

Oh, i consider it an extreme sport! See how long you dare stop the fan spinning before your gpu melts

I can honestly say that I have only stopped the fan 3 times for under a second each time. One would hope that the GPU could handle that

[OreoCookie]

Grilling a cpu/gpu seriously takes only a few seconds. It happend to a friend of my brother once, the cooler was not properly seated on top of the cpu so that there was a fraction of a mm of space between the die and the cpu. Took something like 3-5 seconds until smoke was the harbinger of bad news.

Today's gpus don't use less power … but as long as it works Glad your Quad is a lot more silent now

[jebjeb]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

Grilling a cpu/gpu seriously takes only a few seconds. It happend to a friend of my brother once, the cooler was not properly seated on top of the cpu so that there was a fraction of a mm of space between the die and the cpu. Took something like 3-5 seconds until smoke was the harbinger of bad news.

Today's gpus don't use less power … but as long as it works Glad your Quad is a lot more silent now

Noted. Mine is well seated though and I have never seen the GPU temp go beyond 42 degrees. But don't worry, there will be no more excursions on Mr Finger into the fan anymore!

[madmanXwater]

I got a Quad for the studio just before the holidays and it has been just great. I run Final Cut Studio HD, Logic Pro 7, Aperture and Adobe CS2 for most of my work. The Quad has been very quiet even when all four cores are at 90% or more when rendering. Overall I'm very impressed with this Mac, tons of power and a smooth transition from my previous Dual 2Ghz G5 PowerMac.

Mike

[jebjeb]

Originally Posted by madmanXwater

I got a Quad for the studio just before the holidays and it has been just great. I run Final Cut Studio HD, Logic Pro 7, Aperture and Adobe CS2 for most of my work. The Quad has been very quiet even when all four cores are at 90% or more when rendering. Overall I'm very impressed with this Mac, tons of power and a smooth transition from my previous Dual 2Ghz G5 PowerMac.

Mike

Nice one! Has it got a 7800 GT graphics card or the standard 6600? I know that the DC 2.3 I use at work, which has a 6600, is much quieter than my pre-mod Quad. Mind you, my openplan office at work has a much higher base sound level than my very quiet home-office.

Anyway, might not be able to respond as I am off snowboarding for a week tomorrow!

[madmanXwater]

It has the 6600 but is great for what I'm doing, I spend most of my life in Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro. I plan on getting the Dual 2Ghz for home next week after MWSF unless something new makes more sence, so I'm looking forward to that as well!

Have a great time snowboarding,

Mike

[bitjumper]

Just wanted to mention I successfully installed the Zalman VF700 Cu cooler also. Much quieter. Thanks again for the additional instructions.

I went ahead and used the original cooler's power connector, splicing it onto one of the connectors supplied by the Zalman.

I also discovered (before seeing that it's mentioned here) that the back brace didn't fit. I tried a little pushing, but decided to go ahead and remove it. I hope that is okay.

The *scariest* part to me was reconnecting the auxilery power connector for the card itself. When pushing on the main board I bent the connector. All is well. But scary. Next time I remove the cable from the card.

I have both the 6600 and the 7800 cards. I must say that with non-game use, there is no perceable difference, so the 6600 is prefered because it is so quiet. For game use I definately notice the benifits of the 7800.

Erik

[justmetoo]

OK guys, I'm impressed by the thread and the results, and have done some background research on Zalman (impressive reviews all around) and it seems very reasonably priced, so I'm nearly sold...

Now, the only thing stopping me is the fact that the Mac warranty maybe/is voided by this??? Also, what background do you need to have in electronics to approach this install? I'm pretty handy, have stripped and rebuilt old VW engines, some basic drive installs etc., so can follow directions well, but I must admit, electrical was never my strong point.

Obviously I'm not going to attempt this based on anyone's opinion on a forum, but advice appreciated none-the-less. Thanks.

[bitjumper]

Originally Posted by justmetoo

Also, what background do you need to have in electronics to approach this install?

I can lend a few more thoughts...

It wasn't hard. And the tools I used were just a screw driver and a knife to nick the insulation of the wires to strip the ends. I also had a cue tip, tape, and alcohol to clean off the graphics chip from the old thermal paste. And a small pliers to pinch crimping connectors.

I have to admit that since I had both the 6600 card and the 7800 card, I was more willing to take the risk. I knew if I destroyed my 7800 I still had the 6600 and I would be perfectly happy. I was okay with that possibility.

I sat everything out on my coffee table and really took my time. Mostly it's unscrewing things, cleaning things, and putting things back together. Make sure you follow the directions carefully. The little rubber washers I had to look closely to notice I needed to use them on both sides of the board.

I used little phone wire crimpers found at Radio Shack to connect the red to red and black to black wires between the original 7800 fan power connecter and the Zalman fan power connector. Worked well and I didn't have to solder anything.

For me the hardest part was reaching deep into the Quad to plug in the auxilery power connector for the 7800. It was hard to push and see if I had the connector secure. (I had previously not connected it secure enough and the graphics card operated at what seemed like 1/6th of expected speed. So I wanted to be sure I connected it good.) When I pushed, the receptical bent forward. I was scared. But I knew that such a repair would be maybe an hour at the service center. Luckily I did no damage. All is connected fine.

It's a little harder job than installing a hard drive. If you ever opened up a Mini and replaced anything in there, I felt it was about the same difficulty. The difficulty is more mechanical (making sure the screws are right, the connectors connected, etc.) The other tricky part is stripping the insulation off the little red and black wires. I didn't invest in small enough wire strippers. The wire is very tiny. I'm miserable at stripping insulation off the ends of wires and I was very careful. I saved enough length to redo if I needed to. In the end all four of my striped ends came out perfect.

For the week since I have swapped the fans, I haven't even been bothered by my Quad's noise at all. I think it is still be a little louder than the 6600 card (it must be, the 6600 doesn't have any fan.) But it sure isn't objectionable in the least. I could not stand the 7800 fan and would have definately not used it in its original form.

Erik

[jebjeb]

I am just your basic geek. It is fairly straight forward. Justmetoo: you will be fine. Just take it slow, follow the hardmac instructions and the ones in this thread and it will all come together.

The most complicated thing is rigging up the fan connector. As long as you can connect two wires together using either crimps, solder or whatever, than it will work. Just try to keep everything neat.

bitjumper: I'm not sure what you mean by the auxiliary power connector. No wait, I have just remembered. It is a bit of a nasty type of plug. Harder to pull off than plug in but I guess you just need to be careful. I had a mini screwdriver that I used to gently spread the tabs so that it would slide out. When reinserting, I lined it up nice and straight and used the screwdriver to click it into place.

Also, I would believe that the warranty on the video card has now gone out the window. I guess that one might have a chance for a claim if i could be proven that it is not the replacement cooler that has caused an issue but it is safest to think that your warranty on the card is gone. It certainly should not affect the rest of the machines warranty though.

Like lots of things like this, when we start to give more and more instructions, it looks much harder than it really is!

[Mister Elf]

Just don't break the card, and you should be fine...

[MOTHERWELL]

Does anyone live in Los Angeles and know someone or somewhere that can do this for me? I tried to mod my PS1 many years ago and I fried it. I am not taking any chances on this G5.

[justmetoo]

Thanks for the encouraging (and some not) words My quad is on its way, so I really have no idea what to expect as far as noise goes. I'll try to live with it first, maybe set it up in the next room (I work out of my basement, so it's pretty cool down there) and then do the Zalman if need be. I've got hard copies of all the instructions, and a print off of this thread.

Looking forward to getting to know this community, as you all seem very helpful, although I have to admit, I've seen some pretty questionable posts here in other threads... Just an observation, don't shoot!

[bitjumper]

Originally Posted by jebjeb

bitjumper: I'm not sure what you mean by the auxiliary power connector. No wait, I have just remembered. It is a bit of a nasty type of plug. Harder to pull off than plug in but I guess you just need to be careful.

Jebjeb, yes, that cable, but the other end -- the end that connects to the mother board. See, I received the card from my dealer and self installed it. As received, the cable was already plugged onto the board, I needed to plug it into the motherboard.

What was silly now that I think about it is that when I removed the card to do the fan replacement, I disconnected the cable from the motherboard again. Don't do that. It's very difficult to reach back in and reconnect it.

Everyone else, just disconnect at the board. Yes, a little screwdriver to lift up the latch works great.

Sad, but, since I'm not playing games right now, guess what? I put back my 6600 for now. The difference in sound is very slight, but I like the quietest room I can get. Visually the only difference I see with the 6600 vs 7800 is a tiny bit of stutter going in and out of dashboard -- which I rarely use.

Erik

[jebjeb]

Originally Posted by bitjumper

See, I received the card from my dealer and self installed it.

(Snip)

Sad, but, since I'm not playing games right now, guess what? I put back my 6600 for now. The difference in sound is very slight, but I like the quietest room I can get. Visually the only difference I see with the 6600 vs 7800 is a tiny bit of stutter going in and out of dashboard -- which I rarely use.

Erik

Erik, where did you get the 7800from if it wasn't built to order? I thought there was no way of getting an aftermarket 7800 at the moment.

Also, it would be nice if you could just 'turn' a PCIe slot off wouldn't it. Then you wouldn't have to remove the 7800 from the machine.

Anyway, I am very happy with noise coming from my Quad now. I can handle a quiet constant noise. My iMac G5's fans ramping up and down all the time used to drive me mad!