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ATI 3870 and replacement Accelero Twin Turbo advise fan

robbo007

robbo007

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 7, 2005
25
0
Valencia, Spain
Hello all,

My Ati 2600XT failed on me and I (stupidly) purchased a ATI 3870 MAC/PC Edition. I say stupidly because the fan noise is unbearable.

I managed to find a solution that looks pretty good, the Accelero Twin Turbo fan replacement kit which costs me locally here €20.

The only question I have is my Mac Pro's motherboard power connection is different to that on the Accelero Twin Turbo. I've seen a youtube video of some guy replacing his card with the same setup but not sure which cable I will need?

Has anyone successfully stuck a Accelero Twin Turbo on a ATI 3870 in a Mac Pro?

Any help much appreciated as the noise is driving me crazy and I want to upgrade the fans ASAP.

Thanks,

Rob
 
atleast for the 4870 twin turbo, there are 2 cables

one to plug into molex
one to plug into the graphic card

just plug it into the graphic card, like the stock fan is.
that is the only way to have the fan adjust itself after the cards temperature.
i have it like that on my mac pro 2006 with 4890 and twin turbo.
 
Cindori,

Thanks for the reply. Any chance of a few photos? My 3870 came with two cables. I think one is for PCs and the other MAC. I'm using the MAC one to connect the card the the Mac Pro motherboard.

Thanks,

Rob
 
kylare.jpg


the 2nd connector is hidden behind the fan on the picture..

the first connector is to plug into the card, the 2nd connector is to plug with an molex adapter that came with the accelero.

note that you only need one of them to power the fan.
 
Cindori said:
the 2nd connector is hidden behind the fan on the picture..

the first connector is to plug into the card, the 2nd connector is to plug with an molex adapter that came with the accelero.

note that you only need one of them to power the fan.
Click to expand...
IIRC, someone hooked up both of the connectors, and fried the logic board in their system. :eek: So this seems absolutely critical. :D
 
I use an Accelero S1 with no fan whatsoever on my 3870. Works great for hours of gaming.
 
Cindori said:
just plug it into the graphic card, like the stock fan is.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately with the Mac 3870, the plug on the card isn't the same as what the Twin Turbo fans have so it doesn't fit.

OP, I went through the same thing, putting the Twin Turbo on the 3870. I went so far as to pry the little white plastic bit off the 3-pin connector on the card and shoved the 2-pin connector from the fans onto it, but that accomplished nothing. Got an adapter off some site that didn't work either.

Unfortunately I was left with a card $200 paperweight that worked with the Twin Turbo's passive cooling while not under load but crashed if I tried to actually do anything with it. I've had two of the damned cards, the first one the fans were OK but the card overheated and crashed anyway... the second one that I tried putting the Twin Turbo on had the defective fans that stayed on at full power 100% of the time and still overheated and crashed anyway.

Ended up getting the 8800GT which has never once had any problems and is nearly silent.
 
The Mac&PC 3870 is perfectly capable of regulating fans with two wire control. I retrofitted an Akasa Vortexx neo and reduced its 3 wire (red black yellow) fan control to two wires (black and red). Never had any issues and it was grave quiet. Perhaps the yellow wire is an RPM sensor which isn't needed for temperature control.
 
gugucom said:
The Mac&PC 3870 is perfectly capable of regulating fans with two wire control. I retrofitted an Akasa Vortexx neo and reduced its 3 wire (red black yellow) fan control to two wires (black and red). Never had any issues and it was grave quiet. Perhaps the yellow wire is an RPM sensor which isn't needed for temperature control.
Click to expand...
When you operate a 3 wire fan (+12V, sensor, ground) with a 2 wire connector, it's always at +12V, so it spins at max. (Yellow = sensor btw).

You just have a low rpm fan if it's not loud (or they spent the $$$ on a decent fan; i.e. better blade designs,...). ;)
 
nanofrog said:
When you operate a 3 wire fan (+12V, sensor, ground) with a 2 wire connector, it's always at +12V, so it spins at max. (Yellow = sensor btw).

You just have a low rpm fan if it's not loud (or they spent the $$$ on a decent fan; i.e. better blade designs,...). ;)
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure the fan speed was variable because on installation it ran full speed until the temperature control kicked in. There is no reason an RPM feedback is necessary for temperature control. The card is designed for 2 wire control with temperature feed back. The only problem is the poor design of the stock base plate, radiator and fan. The AKASA had a proper design with heat pipes and a big 2 slot radiator. So it went totally quiet primarily due to the much higher efficiency.
 
gugucom said:
I am pretty sure the fan speed was variable because on installation it ran full speed until the temperature control kicked in. There is no reason an RPM feedback is necessary for temperature control. The card is designed for 2 wire control with temperature feed back. The only problem is the poor design of the stock base plate, radiator and fan. The AKASA had a proper design with heat pipes and a big 2 slot radiator. So it went totally quiet primarily due to the much higher efficiency.
Click to expand...
No, if the card was wired solely as a 2 wire device, can use thermal data off the GPU diode to control voltage to change the rpm speeds. Most of what I've seen recently is 3 or 4 wire versions used in graphics cards.

But if the voltage isn't variable without the rpm sensor (constant voltage such as the fans on an Areca RAID card) , it will run at max rpm due to full +12V. You get the same thing when you place a 3 wire fan on a 4 wire port (3 wire fan on a PWM controller for the CPU fan header for example). They just spin at the full rpm, as the voltage change is dependant on a signal that's not there, and the default is +12V.

If in such a situation, you need a voltage divider on the +12V signal, such as the ULNA adapters bundled with Noctua fans (built into a small extension cable in this case). But you can get into a situation where the chip is too hot quite easily, and especially with GPU's (run really hot; very close to the Tmax the gates can sustain w/o damage). Not advisable here. Case fans, it can work quite well to cut noise, as there's usually a better chance you can double up a fan at the reduced voltage for adequate airflow.
 
Fired motherboard... OMG I'm getting nervous.

I've ordered the cooler, when it arrives if I have any doubts I'll be in touch with your guys.

I just got a reply from this guy on youtube. He hooked his up via the power on the superdrive connector. Seems then no need to connect to the motherboard?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlhb8uKEhss

Rob
 
nanofrog said:
No, if the card was wired solely as a 2 wire device, can use thermal data off the GPU diode to control voltage to change the rpm speeds. Most of what I've seen recently is 3 or 4 wire versions used in graphics cards.
Click to expand...

The Mac&PC has a two pin red and black wire connector and no additional 3 or 4th wire. It obviously controls the fan speed by temperature feed back with the stock cooler. It has a very bad stock cooler design with the air actually going against the direction of the Mac Pro fan. The design is flawed in pretty much every aspect as I posted above. This is the reason why the card makes a lot of noise. People who fitted a passive cooler or the AKASA cooler got it very quiet. It is a very good card considering the energy consumption. You get pretty decent graphics power with only one PCIe cable and it will power two 30" cinema displays with Dual-DVI. So it is usefull once you sort out the Fan issue.

I used to have a very similar design on an X1900 which was made by HIS. The X1900 had a comparable heat dissipation as the 3870 and was fitted with an IceQ cooler very much the same design as the AKASA cooler. Heavy base plate, multiple heat pipes, dual slot radiator and exhaust by the second PCIe slot. I flashed that PC card and it was good as gold. It did not have the HD capabilities of the 3870 though.

When I got the 3870 on a cheap Ebay deal I was shocked by the noise it would make as soon as I put some mildly demanding work on the GPU. It was clear that the card was doing temperature control but the capacity was extremely poor. So I searched for an after market product that gave me all the design aspects of the IceQ and that would fit on the 3870. The AKASA did it and even at full load it was never as loud as the stock cooler was with 20% load.
 
gugucom said:
The Mac&PC has a two pin red and black wire connector and no additional 3 or 4th wire. It obviously controls the fan speed by temperature feed back with the stock cooler. It has a very bad stock cooler design with the air actually going against the direction of the Mac Pro fan. The design is flawed in pretty much every aspect as I posted above. This is the reason why the card makes a lot of noise. People who fitted a passive cooler or the AKASA cooler got it very quiet. It is a very good card considering the energy consumption. You get pretty decent graphics power with only one PCIe cable and it will power two 30" cinema displays with Dual-DVI. So it is usefull once you sort out the Fan issue.
Click to expand...
2 wire was possible, and cheaper than the other methods. The trade-off, is less control, as there's no way to adjust the voltages (profiles or user adjustments). This is important, as any fan has a minimum voltage before it will even rotate, and it's curve will differ from other fans (rpm/voltage).

The other methods are taking over, as they can offer greater control over the airflow through the cooler, as the GPU's are getting larger and hotter. And they're not horribly expensive either, but it is a bit more than the 2 wire method, as the diode is in the GPU.

gugucom said:
I used to have a very similar design on an X1900 which was made by HIS. The X1900 had a comparable heat dissipation as the 3870 and was fitted with an IceQ cooler very much the same design as the AKASA cooler. Heavy base plate, multiple heat pipes, dual slot radiator and exhaust by the second PCIe slot. I flashed that PC card and it was good as gold. It did not have the HD capabilities of the 3870 though.
Click to expand...
GPU coolers are all over the place in quality, but most of the stock units are inadequate IMO, as they're after the lowest cost. Compromises are made in such situations, too many for my tastes.

From what I seem to gather from users, though they're more of the professional and enthusiast crowds (engineers, IT,... and some love to game), they'd be willing to pay a few extra bucks for better coolers on the card as shipped. It might stunt the 3rd party cooler companies on the graphics side, but as it won't happen, it doesn't actually matter. :eek: :p
 
Cindori,
My cooler arrived today. I notice that with the cables there is no way to plug the fan onto the card? My card has a small white two pin connector which the original ATI fan uses. The cables that came with the cooler don't fit it.

cooler1.jpg


Does the fan need to be plugged onto the card or can I plug it via the molex adapter to the Mac Pro second DVD molex adapter? Do I use 12V o 7V?

cooler2.jpg


This is the DVD bay with the molex connector.

cooler3.jpg
 
ok cool. Will try 7V first. I gather I need to connect as well the original ATI power cable to the motherboard like when using the original ATI fan right?
 
All installed and working like a treat. OMG its sooooooo quiet. Can't believe it. :)

Are there any programs for MAC to monitor the temp of the graphics card? Would be good to see what RPM my fans are running at and the temp.

Thanks for all your help. Most appreciated.

Cheers,

Rob
 
Hello again,

I've got another question. In then end I used 7V to power my fans. Under OSX I don't have any problems but hen I run bootcamp and Dragon Age Origins after about 1hour my Mac Pro Power off.

I've entered into the ATI control panel and see my GPU temp is at 110-120 degrees. This is too hot right? Could it be Windows XP does not handle well the heat management? Or Does Dragon Age Origins push the card to its limits and over heat because 7Volts is too low?

Thanks,
Rob
 
Yes 120° is too high, no wonder your PC shuts down.

That's the problem with a fixed voltage, your card can't control the speed of the fan itself. I'd recommend you fit the Accelero connector directly into the card (which requires obviously a little DIY).
Another, not so nice option, would be to connect a little switch within the Molex wire that powers your cooler that allows you to select 12 or 7V.
 
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