Cooling Problems with X1900 XT

[stevo86]

I did a quick forum search but didn't really find anything, so if this has been brought up already i'm sorry, and a link to the thread would be awesome...

So i just upgraded my 7300 to the X1900... the graphics boost is awesome, but i'm having trouble justifying it over the increased noise and heat. The thing puts out so much heat it's unreal, i can't imagine how uncomfortable it'll be in the summer. Does anyone have any solution for this problem? The noise i can deal with i guess, but the heat, oh the heat...

 

[MRU]

Wierd thing is - i never percived any extra noise when I put in my X1900XT over the 7300 and why/how is your machine suddenly so hot ?

Your exhaust vent on the card isn't blocked is it ?


There are meant to be quiet fans you can put onto yout X1900XT that make it quieter - although that does void the cards waranty.

 

[thagomizer]

Compared to how quiet the Mac Pro is, yea, the 1900XT is a bit noisy on demanding games (e.g. Quake 4). I silenced mine completely with an Accelero X2.

http://xlr8yourmac.com/archives/oct06/101806.html#S21871

As for the heat, I'm not sure what's going on... just for reference, mine doesn't seem any warmer than the 7300, with or without the Accelero fan. So you might want to try swapping out the card for a different 1900XT before modifying it in any way.

I just checked, and by far the most heat is coming out of the bottom fan, where the CPUs and RAM are. The middle zone, with the graphics card, is hardly warm at all (when not gaming).

Is your card an Apple-branded one, or did you flash a 3rd party card? Mine's an Apple card that I overclocked.

 

[Digital Fury]

Same problem with mine stevo86, but the card does draw 150W, so they have to go somewhere. The HSF design on those ATi cards since the x1800 series has been horrible, compared to nVidia's, as far as noise goes.

In the end my Mac Pro is just as noisy as my former X2 + 7800 GTX Ultra rig during normal use and in games the noise of the X1900 XT is just insane.

I don't mind much because I use headphones, but my wife first though I left a DustBuster on, and told me to close the door of the room if I do any gaming.

Try smcfancontrol with higher fan speeds because it also "survives" restarts in Windows.

 

[JeffDM]

I have an X1900 and the noise is hardly noticible. It's loud on boot-up but it slows down a few seconds later. As a whole, my Mac Pro has never been as loud as my G5, and the G5 had a passively cooled graphics card.

 

[MRU]

I have an X1900 and the noise is hardly noticible. It's loud on boot-up but it slows down a few seconds later. As a whole, my Mac Pro has never been as loud as my G5, and the G5 had a passively cooled graphics card.

Yeah exactly the same here. Fans are on full when you first switch on and then when the bong happens it's quiet and then 'just' briefly as mac osX loads you hear the fan again for 1 - 2 secs and then its back to quiet.

Even in a game I can hardly say the noise is 'loud'. My G5 with the X800XT was vastly louder.

Are the noisy cards the apple ones or third party ?

 

[Digital Fury]

No it's the stock Apple card, which is just a reference X1900 XT design with a specific firmware.

That fan always has been extremely noisy under heavy load, try something like F.E.A.R. and push it to the max, it will behave just like every other card using that fan == noise and I mean real noisy.

It has nothing to do with it being in a Mac or coming from Apple, it's by design of the fan; which is a very bad one.

Under desktop usage it isn't exactly dead quiet, but it's OK.

Like mentioned by somebody else already, the Accelero X2 works fine if you don't mind the potential warranty problems.

 

[stevo86]

well, my card is directly from Apple, not a third party one. I also get the max fan when i first turn on my machine and then it settles down again. But i'm finding that it picks up again (not max but a constant speed) during low demand games like WoW. It's not so much the moise that bugs me, it's the heat.

I meant to open it up this weekend and check to see if anything was being blocked like MacRumorUser said, but i didn't get around to it ... i'll have a look at it in the next day or so.

Plus i just ordered the 24" Dell monitor and i'm thinkin the old 7300 might be a little under powered to run games at max res on that, so there's no going back now :s ... time to get an air conditioner i guess.