NV30- the fan will last how long, we must dust it how often?

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g__day

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Looking at the piccys of NV30 again I really wonder how long that fan will last, before it gets jammed, a bearing goes, it sucks in some dust and then poof your expensive toy is a flashbulb in about 30 seconds max.

What design steps might/have been taken to avoid sudden death? A GPU that gets this hot and needs this much stock standard cooling is not likely to last long if the $5 fan goes or the intake gets blocked by dust or whatever lies at the back of our cases.

Also how easy and safe is it to continually remove the HSF assembly and clean it every 2-3 weeks for life. How often must we clean this thing?

All up I am uneasy about this element of the GFX design. What are your thoughts?
 
Currently with what we have seen of the GFFX in pictures I am quite dissapointed with the design

The card is still to long (IMO, I like small sized cards) and has a massively ugly cooling system, as reference!

Maybe the cooling system will change for the retail product, and maybe manufacturers will have better cooling methods... I guess we just have to keep waiting to see...
 
I'm thinking it won't be any more unreliable than any of the other fans on the market.

What give you reason to suspect this would need cleaning every 2-3 weeks?
 
Russ it sucks air directly from the outside of your case - close to the floor, through a small vent , round a high speed fan and then back out again - that's a recipe for dust collection in my experience.
 
Opening myself up totally to colorful retorts, does the fan "suck" or "blow" from the rear port on the 2nd slot piece of the card?

That's the real question. If it is indeed "sucking" air from behind the case, it is highly likely to accumulate lint and dust particles where most PCs live. My front three case fans are direct "suck" fans from front of case and these pack-up pretty commonly, especially if the PC is used in a carpeted room. It was never a concern though as they are like $12 and snap-out in seconds (i.e. Antec snap-in fan enclosures). Height doesnt make as much as an impact either as my drive-cooler fan is about the same height upwards in the case as would be the AGP slot on the backside.

I had always assumed the back of the NV30 board was an "exhaust" port, which would blow/exhaust hot air outside of the case. I dont see why it would function in reverse, drawing cool air and sending hot air directly atop your CPU/memory/chipset area (which doesnt need any more hot air accumulated, believe me).. and thus possibly packing up the fan with debris from outside the case.

Is anyone absolutely certain or have a source that would indicate the back of the NV30 is indeed a cold air intake versus a hot air exhaust?
 
Sharkfood said:
Opening myself up totally to colorful retorts, does the fan "suck" or "blow" from the rear port on the 2nd slot piece of the card?

That's the real question. If it is indeed "sucking" air from behind the case, it is highly likely to accumulate lint and dust particles where most PCs live. My front three case fans are direct "suck" fans from front of case and these pack-up pretty commonly, especially if the PC is used in a carpeted room. It was never a concern though as they are like $12 and snap-out in seconds (i.e. Antec snap-in fan enclosures). Height doesnt make as much as an impact either as my drive-cooler fan is about the same height upwards in the case as would be the AGP slot on the backside.

I had always assumed the back of the NV30 board was an "exhaust" port, which would blow/exhaust hot air outside of the case. I dont see why it would function in reverse, drawing cool air and sending hot air directly atop your CPU/memory/chipset area (which doesnt need any more hot air accumulated, believe me).. and thus possibly packing up the fan with debris from outside the case.

Is anyone absolutely certain or have a source that would indicate the back of the NV30 is indeed a cold air intake versus a hot air exhaust?

as far as i know it intakes and exhausts all from the back

right next to each other matter of fact

a very poor design IMO

in the pic i linked above is the one they were promoting in their pdf, and it shows a filter on the intake part
 
Brent said:
in the picture they have in the PDF's its shown with a filter on the intake

Interesting, I suppose that would help, but I expect I'd have to clean that filter practically every few days in my apartment with how dusty it gets...
 
Thanks for the clarification Brent.

Looking at those pics a second time, it looks like the top section is indeed the intake, bottom is exhaust, with the top having some sort of filter on it (which is good).

From reading the text from several sites, I had somehow assumed the CPU/socket area was somehow "perforated" around the socket to actually allow air to travel "through" the card. All the hype/marketing of this totally new, exotic cooling turns out to be nothing more than a fan locked inside a plastic housing that causes the air to take a 180 degree high pressure turn as it cyclones around the gpu top surface (i.e. nothing really new).
 
:LOL:

Now I have to admit I didnt see this one coming!

I guess if you are going to find things to complain about, try something a little less banal.

Has anyone seen a fanless powersupply on mainstream PC's lately? I wonder how often I'll have to clean that, or if it will jam making my motherboard a lightbulb.

It will be really interesting to read the spin next month when the reviews come out, I doubt I'll read any "The NV30 is 2.5 times as fast as the R300 @1600x1200 with AA!" spiel then.
 
Username said:
:LOL:

Now I have to admit I didnt see this one coming!

I guess if you are going to find things to complain about, try something a little less banal.

Has anyone seen a fanless powersupply on mainstream PC's lately? I wonder how often I'll have to clean that, or if it will jam making my motherboard a lightbulb.

It will be really interesting to read the spin next month when the reviews come out, I doubt I'll read any "The NV30 is 2.5 times as fast as the R300 @1600x1200 with AA!" spiel then.
Yeah me too. Thats because its not going to be that fast, IMO.
whats your point?
 
Username said:
It will be really interesting to read the spin next month when the reviews come out, I doubt I'll read any "The NV30 is 2.5 times as fast as the R300 @1600x1200 with AA!" spiel then.
I doubt you will too. A recent post of your's stated that NV30 was 30% faster than the R300 at every resolution, now your saying it's 2.5 times as fast? Amusing.
 
Brent said:
RussSchultz said:
Ever thought that it might blow out instead of in?

there are two ports for air on the back

one is intake, the other is exhaust

I wonder how on earth they prevent sucking in the hot air that they just blew out...

Mize
 
banal - a simple design flaw that could scotch a very expensive investment - and the heat sink with all its ridges is a bigger dust trap too. It only takes a small design flaw to stuff up - remember the O rings on the space shuttle?
 
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