How important is that fan?

[Spidey]

My converted juke box in work started to act up with video problems, first lines and artifacts…the usual stuff, then it went black and failed to shut down when I turned it off, and failed to boot again. So I started it in safe mode, and it started but with some video problems.

So I pulled the card, and it seemed like it wasn’t quite seated properly, and the fan on the heatsink is froze.

I put the card back in the machine, rebooted into normal mode (set to 640 x 480 x 256) now everything seems ok, although I have not tried to put it back into 1024 x 768 high color.

The card is a Gforce 4, and the box is an old P4 running ME. (DELL)

So the question is this…do you think I can put it back into the higher rez without any problems, the box sits all day long with media player in the main window. No games…just a few programs like Excel and Word, ever get used.

It does get hot in the room during the summer.

[Krom]

Important enough from the sounds of it, and resolution doesn't really make a difference in power draw or heat on the windows desktop. The good news is you can probably just rig any sort of PC fan over a GF4 and it will be sufficient to keep it cool.

I would suggest getting some air moving over the heatsink or the chip will likely overheat again.

[Spidey]

I’m not really sure it did overheat, that fan could have been stopped for months.

I’m leaning towards the card was mis-seated.

You are probably right tho…better safe than sorry.

Do you know how to operate those clips on that heatsink? I have trouble seeing, they are like little nuts with a piston action…

[AceCombat]

if im reading your description correctly, look underneath the card, and see if it has little expanded tabs on it, grab some needle nose pliers, and squeeze the tip just enough that it pops out.

[Spidey]

Got it.

I used to brag about being able to do stuff like this with my eyes closed…lol.

[AceCombat]

heh