Remember my RAM cooling mod?

[Chuck232]

Well, I'm back at it and I cut up a stock P4 heatsink and mounted it on my Raddy 9700. Some step by step instructions for anyone wanting to do this:

• First you gotta measure your heatsink to see how much you need to cut. On the other hand, you could just buy a heatsink that doesn't get in the way of anything on the board.
  
• Cut the thing down. I used a hacksaw and to tell you the truth, it was not easy. Took me ~1 hour of pure cutting (the breaks I took, cause my arm was aching, are not included in this time) to cut it to the right size. Cutting it too big the first time did not help.
  
• Then wrap the bottom on the heatsink in masking tape. Place it over your core and line it up whatever way you want to. Keeping the heatsink pressed against the core, turn it upside down and push a pencil through the mounting hole on the back of the card and mark only one hole. Go ahead and drill the hole. I used a high speed drill bit and it was no prob.
  
• Now find some 4/40" nuts and bolts that are about 3/4 to 1" long. The 1/2" I got were too short so I had to go out and get some 1" ones. You'll also need either rubber or plastic washers to prevent shorting out anything on the card.
  
• Put it through the heatsink and then through the mounting hole on the card. place the washer on the back of the card and tighten the nut on the back. Once you've got it fairly secure, mark where the second hole will be. This way, it'll be sure to fit perfectly. (I did this but my drilling technique leaves something to be desired so it was crooked anyways)
  
• Go and drill the second hole.
  
• Now I lapped the bottom of the heatsink with first 220 grit, (to get all the crappy drill marks off) then 600 grit, then 1500 grit finally.
  
• Apply ASIII or whatever you're gonna use to both the heatsink and core.
  
• Now, there are 2 ways you can secure the heatsink. First, you can just screw it in and tighten it til it's good and tight. But I was scared of crushing the core so I decided to use the springs from the push pins to provide some safety. Just place it around the bolt , put it through the heatsink and card, place the washer on the other side and tighten the nut til it can't anymore. That way, the spring's taking some of the pressure so not all of it's transfered to the core in case you overtighten.
  
• Tighten both sides until you're nice and secure.
  
• Slap a fan on top and you're ready to roll!

This was basically free for me since I had most of the materials (except the nuts and bolts which costed me all of ~$2.50) and yeilded quite an improvement. The back of the GPU used to be extremely hot to touch after playing some games even at stock speeds. Now when o/ced it's only warm. Before I could only go artifact free to ~375MHz and this morning I just tested it to 392MHz with no probs at all. Hopefully I'll be able to reach 400MHz.

Expect some new 3DMark scores from me soon..

BTW, I'll get some pics up later tonight as I don't have the digital camera here. So yeah, you can see my ugly, ugly work.