Think of it this way. Passive doesn't use moving components (fan), so not as apt to fail.
So nothing to really be scared about. 
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is your 3870 fan always loud?
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So nothing to really be scared about. 
Blue card but 2.66 old MacPro. Wonder if there is a firmware update for the MacPro that would fix this?
So if this constant running of the fan is not intended I think I have a problem here. Is anyone just putting up with it thinking it is okay?
I didn't put up with it, RMA'd it back to Canada, got a replacement yesterday, still noisy! Tried ATiTool on Vista, the average temp is 52C and according to the app, the card is always at least on 25% fan speed. Lowered the fan speed to 2% (very quite) and tried Crysis on highest possible settings, it didn't miss a beat, the highest the card temp went over an hours worth of gameplay was 85C on 2% speed.
Does anybody know a similar utility suitable for the Mac? If I RMA this one, I'll have paid half the cost of the card in posting it to Canada, which obviously is not something I'm happy about doing.
I'm on the 2.66 2006 model with a blue 3870 (P/N 100-435928) a few days old and the fan rev at max speed in both 10.5.5 and Vista 64-bit home prem.
I asked ATI about what to do about the rev'ing fan and the only thing they did was to supply me with a link to the RMA.
Will try ATI tool and look at the fan speed.
How can you see what the 3870's fan speed is? I am using iStat Pro but not seeing that piece of hardware listed. Is there another way.
I just did a clean install with an archived "previous system" and did not have the ATI CD drivers installed in that new system. On re-boot under an older version of OSX the screen was real jaggy. On system prefs. updates to the newer/newest version the jaggies were gone. In other words, as others have said, they must be included in the newer versions of 10.5XX.
Anyway, upon re-boot the fan was much quieter, for about 60 seconds, and then it returned to the higher fan speed/noise.
I really don't want to give up the better performance that the 3870 gives, but the fan noise seems to be a little much when I'm just surfing and listening to music.
I wish I knew if this is just the way it is, or people are in fact getting less fan noise in 2.66 MacPros under the ATI Blue 3870. It is hard to gauge what different people find acceptable. If I could find a way to read the fan speed on the ATI, and post it, maybe we could all compare?
Well I just started playing Spore on my Mac Pro with the 3870 and for the first time I heard the fan noise.
When I am not playing games I do not hear the fan AT ALL!
Now while playing spore the fan will come on low, but when I am in more detailed areas of the game, the 3870 will throttle the fan up and down depending on the detail in the game. I only hear the really loud hairdryer like noise when things in the game are super complex and it will go back down right away when things get less detailed in the game.
When surfing the net, playing videos, or even using pro apps the fan is way quieter than the 2600xt.
When I am not playing games I do not hear the fan AT ALL!
Now while playing spore the fan will come on low, but when I am in more detailed areas of the game, the 3870 will throttle the fan up and down depending on the detail in the game. I only hear the really loud hairdryer like noise when things in the game are super complex and it will go back down right away when things get less detailed in the game.
When surfing the net, playing videos, or even using pro apps the fan is way quieter than the 2600xt.
Which card to get?
I just purchased a Mac Pro which currently has a 2600XT, but I'm going to be powering 1x30" monitor and 2x20" monitors rotated 90 degrees. I will be using a decent amount of Photoshop, Motion, and After Effects so I'm looking at the 3870, but I'm wondering which manufacturer is best for reliability when it comes to fan noise/heat dissipation? I'd be willing to buy an aftermarket cooler if necessary, but I'd really prefer to keep things as simple as possible.
I will be running Bootcamp occasionally and will be frequently using VMWare on the Bootcamp partition.
I see the ATI version for $217.99 on OWC but also see a MSI version of what looks like the same card on MacMall.
Really looking for the best chance of the fan being silent as I work in a shared office, so any recommendations would be very much appreciated.
thanks,
Rob
I just purchased a Mac Pro which currently has a 2600XT, but I'm going to be powering 1x30" monitor and 2x20" monitors rotated 90 degrees. I will be using a decent amount of Photoshop, Motion, and After Effects so I'm looking at the 3870, but I'm wondering which manufacturer is best for reliability when it comes to fan noise/heat dissipation? I'd be willing to buy an aftermarket cooler if necessary, but I'd really prefer to keep things as simple as possible.
I will be running Bootcamp occasionally and will be frequently using VMWare on the Bootcamp partition.
I see the ATI version for $217.99 on OWC but also see a MSI version of what looks like the same card on MacMall.
Really looking for the best chance of the fan being silent as I work in a shared office, so any recommendations would be very much appreciated.
thanks,
Rob
AFIAK, the ROM hasn't been extracted successfully, and this isn't possible ATM.
Just thought I'd add my experiences...
I received my 3870 last week (a blue one, mac and PC version) and it was incredibly noisy. Fans on very high speed all the time, from cold boot. I couldn't be bothered to send it back so having found this thread, I got myself one of the Arctic cooling Accelero S1 passive cooling things and installed that.
Really simple to install if you have a screwdriver and some sort of cleaning solution for getting the old thermal paste off the GPU. The instructions that came with it are not brilliant but you can find a few videos of installing (on various vid cards) on youtube and that helped a lot (didn't find a 3870 vid but watching an install on any recent ATi card seemed similar enough).
Although the Arctic cooling thing does come with some thermal paste stuff on it, you might want to order some different stuff for a slightly neater application.
The card with just the Accelero on it is obviously completely silent which is a very joyous thing after the jet engine noise of the last few days. However, I also decided to add the turbo module fans to the top of the Accelero heatsink just to keep a bit more airflow going (the turbo module isn't much to buy anyway).
I had read somewhere about the problem of where and how to power the fans but managed to get mine powered from the old 2 pin power supply on the card. You can do this by modifying the turbo fans 3 pin socket to fit the 2 pin power on the 3870. Just snip the fans yellow wire where it emerges from the black cable sheath and tie the end away neatly with some insulation tape. Then use a sharp knife or something to slice the yellow cables socket away from the side of the 3 pin socket, leaving you with a slightly ugly two pin socket with a black and red wire emerging from it (I should say that I don't know what the yellow wire does, but the original 3870 fan was running off just a black and red wire, so I took a chance on it not being essential)
You then need to get a pair of pliers and gently pull the white piece of plastic off the two pin power prongs on the card, leaving the two prongs exposed. You can then attach your newly chopped two pin socket from the fans. Then clip the fans onto the heatsink as per the instructions. When you boot, they will spin. Mine stopped again quite soon after and I worried that they had stopped functioning. However, after a bit of COD4 or intensive Motion work, they span up to add a bit more cooling. Which was cool (and more important, still silent)
So far so good. Not sure I've explained this brilliantly, so if anyone is really interested, I could post a pic or two I guess. But the bottom line is that I now have a 3870 in an early 08 mac pro working silently via an Arctic cooling Accelero S1 rev 2 and the turbo module fans.
Would be a lot simpler if ATi could just make it work in the first place of course...
I received my 3870 last week (a blue one, mac and PC version) and it was incredibly noisy. Fans on very high speed all the time, from cold boot. I couldn't be bothered to send it back so having found this thread, I got myself one of the Arctic cooling Accelero S1 passive cooling things and installed that.
Really simple to install if you have a screwdriver and some sort of cleaning solution for getting the old thermal paste off the GPU. The instructions that came with it are not brilliant but you can find a few videos of installing (on various vid cards) on youtube and that helped a lot (didn't find a 3870 vid but watching an install on any recent ATi card seemed similar enough).
Although the Arctic cooling thing does come with some thermal paste stuff on it, you might want to order some different stuff for a slightly neater application.
The card with just the Accelero on it is obviously completely silent which is a very joyous thing after the jet engine noise of the last few days. However, I also decided to add the turbo module fans to the top of the Accelero heatsink just to keep a bit more airflow going (the turbo module isn't much to buy anyway).
I had read somewhere about the problem of where and how to power the fans but managed to get mine powered from the old 2 pin power supply on the card. You can do this by modifying the turbo fans 3 pin socket to fit the 2 pin power on the 3870. Just snip the fans yellow wire where it emerges from the black cable sheath and tie the end away neatly with some insulation tape. Then use a sharp knife or something to slice the yellow cables socket away from the side of the 3 pin socket, leaving you with a slightly ugly two pin socket with a black and red wire emerging from it (I should say that I don't know what the yellow wire does, but the original 3870 fan was running off just a black and red wire, so I took a chance on it not being essential)
You then need to get a pair of pliers and gently pull the white piece of plastic off the two pin power prongs on the card, leaving the two prongs exposed. You can then attach your newly chopped two pin socket from the fans. Then clip the fans onto the heatsink as per the instructions. When you boot, they will spin. Mine stopped again quite soon after and I worried that they had stopped functioning. However, after a bit of COD4 or intensive Motion work, they span up to add a bit more cooling. Which was cool (and more important, still silent)
So far so good. Not sure I've explained this brilliantly, so if anyone is really interested, I could post a pic or two I guess. But the bottom line is that I now have a 3870 in an early 08 mac pro working silently via an Arctic cooling Accelero S1 rev 2 and the turbo module fans.
Would be a lot simpler if ATi could just make it work in the first place of course...
Not necessarily true. My first 3870 (a blue one) in my 2008 Mac Pro was incredibly loud. My replacement 3870 (also a blue one) in the same machine is silent when idle. It's only audible when under heavy load, such as gaming in Windows.
Do they even make a red one that is Mac compatible? Early promo photos of the card before it was released showed a red one with a dual slot cooler, but soon after all the sites that showed red cards started showing pics of a blue one with a single slot cooler.
As AMD/ATI don't manufacture finished cards, they likely sourced production of the Mac & PC ed. to vendors that buy their GPU chips. So it is possible the cards were made by different companies using their existing components and custom parts used in the PC side. So differences such as color of the cooling housing, and even the fan issue would differ between some units.
All the Mac & PC edition cards are blue. Or, I've never seen or heard of one that was not. It closely resembles the cards made by Sapphire.
I just got a replacement card from ATI - my first one was crashing inexplicably - and the new one has constant fan noise. Not full speed, vacuum cleaner loud, it's a step slower than that. It's almost identical to the sound of a CD spinning in the disc drive. ATI cards, at least the ones I've had, seem to have overheating issues anyway so I'm definitely getting one of those coolers (I think I've said this before earlier in the thread, but I wanted to report more news of constant fan noise).
I'd like to see some pics if you can.
I'm thinking about this one with the Turbo module, and you're the first I've seen post a solution to hooking up the fan power. Also, where did you order the cooler and the turbo module? (and is this the right part?)Arctic Cooling has another model specifically indicating it works with the HD3870, and the fan module is included. So hopefully, this will eliminate the need to mod the fan's power connector to make it function.I'd like to see some pics if you can.
Accelero TWIN TURBO for $47.00 at frozencpu. For the slight cost difference, it may well be worth it for an easier installation.
They also have a twin fan unit meant to attach to the Accelero S1 Rev2 (also fits the 3870), and sells for ~$10. When you combine the two together, they are just slightly less expensive than the model I linked above. The arctic cooling site clearly displays it as a separate product. It's a more elongated cooler, and rated for 120W. Perhaps the different shape can make things easier/less crowded. Not sure on this, as the photos make it a little difficult for me to tell.Ah I didn't realize that's what the Twin Turbo was.
I just thought it might be prudent to list the different unit, as it could be useful.
Hope this clears things up.
The fan on the card is fed from a simple 2 wire connection so speed detection is not possible. It can only be controlled voltage wise and not with revs/time Can it be that thermal detection is simply messed up or broken since many cards including mine runs at full speed no matter of load or system as in OS X/Vista.
Slightly wishing I'd seen the twin turbo one first as it seems to be a simpler installation.
BUT... I am very pleased with the accelero s1 rev2 now that its in there.
Yes that is the right part. I'm in the middle of an edit today so I can't get the card out to show you the power mod. I'll do it as soon as I can. Although the twin turbo may be the way to go.
One other thing to bear in mind is that these coolers are huge. If you have other cards in other pci-e slots, you may have problems. If you're just running the one gfx card, you should be ok. I'm running mine in slot 2 at the moment and it obscures slots 3 and 4, but leaves slot 1 free for a (non accelero modded) vid card should I wish (stuck it in slot 2 to increase airflow under the card on the off chance that it may help keep temps down)
BUT... I am very pleased with the accelero s1 rev2 now that its in there.
I'd like to see some pics if you can.
Yes that is the right part. I'm in the middle of an edit today so I can't get the card out to show you the power mod. I'll do it as soon as I can. Although the twin turbo may be the way to go.
One other thing to bear in mind is that these coolers are huge. If you have other cards in other pci-e slots, you may have problems. If you're just running the one gfx card, you should be ok. I'm running mine in slot 2 at the moment and it obscures slots 3 and 4, but leaves slot 1 free for a (non accelero modded) vid card should I wish (stuck it in slot 2 to increase airflow under the card on the off chance that it may help keep temps down)
Here is a picture of the red one. I've been searching for a 3870 for a 2008 Mac Pro and have seen this red version pop up on many sites. It says in the description it is mac and pc compatible. I would love for someone to be able to tell us what the differences are between the red and blue versions. Was one released before the other? Does one only work with a certain model Mac Pro? I personally like the red one better because it exhaust heat OUT rather than keeping it inside like the blue one, but I'm not sure if the red one is compatible the the newer MPs because I can't find any info on it.
http://www.amazon.com/ATI-100-43592...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1226427441&sr=8-1
That is not the Mac & PC Edition card. I'm not sure what the current situation is regarding the ability to run a PC-only card in the MP but that's not the card we're discussing. The real one comes in a retail ATI branded box and is called the "Mac & PC Edition".
Here's the Sapphire 3870 with "Single Slot Fansink". Besides the stickers on the top, it's identical looking to the Mac & PC Edition card (which just has an "ATI" sticker on the fan).
That is not the Mac & PC Edition card. I'm not sure what the current situation is regarding the ability to run a PC-only card in the MP but that's not the card we're discussing. The real one comes in a retail ATI branded box and is called the "Mac & PC Edition".
Here's the Sapphire 3870 with "Single Slot Fansink". Besides the stickers on the top, it's identical looking to the Mac & PC Edition card (which just has an "ATI" sticker on the fan).
And what is your proof for saying the Amazon link to the red card is not mac compatible. Not only does it say it right in the product description but I've seen this same card elsewhere. I even contacted OWC directly and asked them and they said it appeared to be the same card because it has the same SKU number. If I'm wrong, SHOW THE PROOF.
Sorry, yes, the product for sale by Amazon in your link is the Mac & PC edition card. The card pictured is not, and I've seen no evidence to the contrary unless you want to buy it and show me a picture of the red card. Amazon is not the be all and end all of correct product pictures.
well, i just insalled mine and was watching it. the fan starts during the boot then shuts down, and only comes on as it takes on load. so maybe i am lucky, but mine is quiet, and i couldn't be happier. well, i'd be happier if it was a 4870, but thats okay. i think i'll live.