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Possible to replace fan on ati 5870?

K

kalex

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 1, 2007
1,341
57
Hello

I recently had to go back from using gtx 680 for 2 weeks on my mac pro to my old apple ati 5870 card. I decided to build windows box and transferred my gtx in there.
Now I noticed how annoyingly loud my 5870 card is. Its making a weird grinding noises when the fan spins. I tried to blow it out but that didn't seem to help.

I found few articles online on how to replace fans on reference 5870 cards and was wondering if anyone tried to do it on the apple card?

thanks

Alex
 
According to the Find A Cooler tool on the Arctic Cooler site, yes it will.

See here... http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/assistant/vga/chip/7 (middle row).

I would still consider the proper Arctic Silver thermal cement rather than the thermal pads.

EDIT : I see it ships with the heatsinks supplied but also comes with a molex power connector - check the power requirement of the fans before buying. Just ask the Arctic Cooler guys after the Easter Weekend.
 
If you have a small set of phillips screwdrivers you can replace just the fan itself.

They are on Ebay, the ones in a reference 4870 work too.

Just fine someone selling them new.

There is a good 20-30 minutes of work involved but gets you card back to new.

If and when ypou go to sell the 5870, it will be worth much more with reg fan on it.
 
tjlazer said:
How do you remove just the fan? You have to remove the whole fan/heatsync assembly and replace? And use new thermal paste?
Click to expand...

start unscrewing things from back

lots of small phillips screwdriver screws

you can use new thermal paste or a solvent that turns old stuff back into paste if it has dried

people over think thermal paste

the delta T of metals is far greater than any gooey paste, the paste is just meant to fill areas that aren't flat, it can NOT add magical heat removal properties

You can call it "Silver-Z 1000" or "Heat-b-gone 1,000,000" but you can't alter fundamental laws of thermodynamics. Heat is never vanquished or destroyed, it is just moved from one place to another. Metals are best at this. Gold is great, copper is good, aluminum not as good.

it can NOT increase heat transfer above simple old metal to metal contact

it is meant to fill microscopic voids between two surfaces

in a perfect world, the two surfaces would be totally flat and smooth and no "thermal paste" would be needed

thin the stuff out evenly and slap the bits back together

Fan is ultimately held in by 3 screws, but you do have to take it all apart to get to it.

do it on a flat clean surface and take advantage of opportunity to clean everything thoroughly

It isn't a dual overhead cam V8 with 32 valves, it's just a plastic fan housing with metal innards and 15 or so screws.
 
The eBay fans (or the ones that I bought from the states, at least) have a slightly larger square protrusion retaining the wires than the stock fan. If you simply assemble the parts without trimming to fit, the whole assembly locks up and won't spin.

Check the width of the cable retainer on the old fan and make sure the new one is the same.
 

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cal6n said:
The eBay fans (or the ones that I bought from the states, at least) have a slightly larger square protrusion retaining the wires than the stock fan. If you simply assemble the parts without trimming to fit, the whole assembly locks up and won't spin.

Check the width of the cable retainer on the old fan and make sure the new one is the same.
Click to expand...

Yeah I saw the ones for sale in the US and those look like older fans than the ones on the 5870. Well the graphic logo makes it look like it's from older cards maybe? They look to be the same fan assembly but it seems there are some differences. I do see some for sale in China that have the same logo as our Mac ATI 5870 so maybe those are a better choice? (ATI Radedon - Premium Graphics)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/75mm-ATI-Ra...US_Video_Card_GPU_Cooling&hash=item2a2964667e

----------
MacVidCards said:
start unscrewing things from back

lots of small phillips screwdriver screws

you can use new thermal paste or a solvent that turns old stuff back into paste if it has dried

- snip -

It isn't a dual overhead cam V8 with 32 valves, it's just a plastic fan housing with metal innards and 15 or so screws.
Click to expand...

Thanks, yes it seems to be a fairly cut and dry process. Should be an easy repair. My fan is omitting a slight buzz/humm sound and it does not go away. Fan seems to work ok. I bought the card used on eBay. So it has to be a few years old...
 
Last edited:
A few clarifications:

  1. The photo posted above is of a fan that had failed on a reference ATI Radeon HD 5870 that had originally been fitted to an Alienware gaming PC. It had a "Batmobile" style cooler, just like the Apple-branded version.
  2. There are slightly different versions of the fan available via eBay. They have slightly different mounting hole pitches, 37mm or 39mm. The Apple-branded cards use the 37mm pitch, as do the Alienware cards.
  3. The width of the cable retaining clip indicated in the photo is 12.7mm (or ½").
 
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