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Silencing ATI 2600XT on 2008 3,1 Mac Pro

R

Rendition

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 1, 2007
65
0
One of the main reasons I got a Mac Pro was the quietness and power. For over a year, things were fine. I even got a Intel SSD drive vs. mechanical hard-drive to make it quieter

However in the last week or so, my ATI 2600XT graphics card developed a VERY annoying fan whine sound.

Is there any way to silence it with an after market cooler?

I searched for a fan-less Mac compatible graphics card, there doesn't seen to be any. Sigh. There are plenty of fan-less cards on the PC.
 
I suggest you clean your Mac Pro and ATI2600 card from all the dust inside.
I had the same problem with my Mac Pro 2008 and even had it collected by Applecare.
The called me after 2 days and said there was a large amount of dust inside.
They cleaned it with compressed air, now its completely silent,with both my graphics-cards (8800GT + ATi2600) inside.
When you don't have air compressor you can use canned air.
 
That is a very sensible proposal. You may also have a bearing damage which may necessitate a new fan unit. Accelero fanless units will do the job.
 
The ATi2600 is a pile of crap.

The original card in my Mac Pro had a faulty chip, it was causing terrible problems displaying 3D graphics, it also developed into a hair dryer. Replaced free of charge under Applecare. Replacement developed the same problem, again replaced under applecare. This in turn decided to start doing rocket impressions. It was collected, transported to London, fixed - new card + machine serviced - returned to me in 5 days, all under Applecare. I'm hoping it dies in another 10 months because they'll have to five me something decent instead then.

If you have AppleCare, use it. A can or compressed air will do more good than any extra cooler.
 
G4DP said:
A can or compressed air will do more good than any extra cooler.
Click to expand...

I must disagree. The heat sink and fan on the X2600 is by no means adequate or state of the art of that time. Much better coolers were already available then. Sapphire and HIS used better heat sinks and much better fans with sophisticated fan geometries. Good heat sinks were already using multiple heat pipes at that time, which gives huge increases in radiated heat. The accelero actually has such elaborate heat pipe design. Due to the excellent PCIe cooling channel of the Mac Pro you can use this system completely fan less. For guys who love belt and suspender you can use an additional fan unit or go directly to a two slot heat pipe cooler like the Akasa Vortexx neo. All of these solutions will keep your GPU much colder than the standard unit. You will not have any problems with burned out cards or frequent cleaning.
 
I regularly clean the dust in my Mac Pro using compressed air can, so that's not the problem.

I'll look into the fan you mentioned, anyone else try any other after market coolers on 2600XT and had success?
 
Another point to consider are the voltage regulators. Follow the instructions meticulously because they are often the reason for failures.
 
Has anyone here actually put a Accelero S1 rev. 2 on their 2600XT inside a Mac Pro and have it work? Does it fit in the Mac Pro? The Accelero sure looks big in pictures.
 
Rendition said:
Has anyone here actually put a Accelero S1 rev. 2 on their 2600XT inside a Mac Pro and have it work? Does it fit in the Mac Pro? The Accelero sure looks big in pictures.
Click to expand...

I used one for a while. Works well. I'm using an 8800gt with one right now and it works well also. It is large but you can still fit two cards in slot one and two.
 
My ATi card did the same a couple of weeks ago then all of a sudden it died.

:apple: diagnosed a failed component on the card and it was replaced.

No dust on my card it was clean, I would guess the fan bearing was failing ???
 
Rendition said:
Has anyone here actually put a Accelero S1 rev. 2 on their 2600XT inside a Mac Pro and have it work? Does it fit in the Mac Pro? The Accelero sure looks big in pictures.
Click to expand...

I have used it on my card since I got the machine. Never had a problem with it and installed it in 10 minutes or less. For me that silence is worth allot :)

Good Luck.

C
 
My 2600XT also died, lugged the MP to the store and without diagnosing the guy walked back with a replacement card. Of all the noise, the ATI is actually one of the quietest cards when compared to 4870s and 4890s.

I sold mine but would have been nice to experiment with that fan turned off as gugucom points out, the MP internals have plenty of self ventilation to manage a card that small.
 
My Mac Pro is anything but quiet. It is fine until Snow Leopard gets to the login screen and then the fans kick up to 1500rpm or so. I've tried everything to quiet it down.
 
My 2600 after a year started making loud fan noises at start up and shut down then a week later it would black screen at restarts. They replaced the card 3 times before one would stay quiet. I would see about replacing the card or changing to another all together.
 
The Rominator said:
I don't think they do.

They are EFI32 and I do believe they don't work in 3rd and 4th gens.
Click to expand...

While you may be right, I suspect the newer machines are backward compatible; an EFI32 card should boot fine on an EFI64 machine, but not necessarily vice versa (unless said card has a dual mode EFI like the current Radeon offered by Apple).
But again, like I said, I could be wrong. Email the guys over at BareFeats. They've probably tested just such a configuration.
 
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