You shouldn't have much trouble. I would either buy a replacement (Plentiful and cheap) or snap off the fan blade opposite the broken one to give it balance.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/12V-2-Pin-9-Blades-PC … rkAAOSwCGVX5taU

Go big : LINK
Go SMALL : LINK
Choise is Yours 😀

Well, it's no longer my problem now. Somehow manages to get the order cancelled. Now I feel stupid for letting someone else nab the cheap Ti4600 I found, at least that one had the fans intact... 🤐

I know it would have been an easy fix, but I'm in no rush. I'll just wait for a card in better condition.

Mods, delete this thread if possible.

Fixing a fan on a GFX card is easy.

Original fan (jammed) at the bottom. Clear 35mm fan from ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/35mm-Plastic-VGA-Grap … NQAAOSw6btXTHzh was glued in place with a drop of superglue. Works better than ever now.
Total money spent on parts: $0.99 plus a drop of superglue
Total time spent: 15 minutes (not counting the 10 days or so for the fan to arrive from China, but now I have a bunch of them so this waiting period won't happen again the next time I need to do such a repair).

stamasd wrote:

Fixing a fan on a GFX card is easy.

Indeed. Earlier this year I picked up a Ti4200 with a slow fan. I was lazy and cheap, so I remembered that I had an old 486 HSF, brand new and never used. A drop of oil in the 20yr-old fan, a bit of ceramique thermal epoxy on the GPU, and the video card was working good as new. Bonus: the CPU HSF is probably doing a better job than the original cooler. However, the card now uses two slots.

I like the way I solved the replacement better. Simple, works well and as a bonus the card looks better now with more of the blue heatsink showing. I may 3D-print a fan shroud out of clear PET at some point. PET is a cool 3D printing material, with the right parameters on the printer it comes out almost crystal-clear. It's not very mechanically sturdy, but there will be virtually no mechanical stress in this particular application.

stamasd,

I agree with you completely. Your repair is much more elegant than my hack.

I was trying to make the point that you can easily repair a dead fan on a video card with old junk you have lying around. My fix isn't pretty, but it is functional.

For video cards that I really like, I generally use these:

EC-VC-RI

EC-VC-RF

Those two coolers are cheap and highly effective.

I used to have an AGP 7900GS that had a dead fan. Getting a replacement was difficult and there are no aftermarket solutions, so I cut out the old fan and used two-part epoxy to glue an 80mm fan over the hole. Again, it wasn't pretty and it used up an adjacent slot, but it worked better than the original fan.

stamasd wrote:

I like the way I solved the replacement better. Simple, works well and as a bonus the card looks better now with more of the blue heatsink showing. I may 3D-print a fan shroud out of clear PET at some point. PET is a cool 3D printing material, with the right parameters on the printer it comes out almost crystal-clear. It's not very mechanically sturdy, but there will be virtually no mechanical stress in this particular application.

Also, it won't block more PCI ports than necessary.

Until then you could always cut loose the shroud from the old fan, and reuse it. Keeps the air stream where you want it, between the fins 😀

I'm a fan of these Chinese coolers. They are a bit smaller than the VF700 and clones. Can't hear them running.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC12V-2-Pin-Connector … sAAAOSwymxVMhQI

Here's my Ti 4600. I noticed I have metal posts for mounts. I think those are actually from one of the larger V700-like models that I also have.

Not a single slot solution but got a Zalman VNF100 waiting for my Ti4600 when the original fan dies.
I'm all for anything that allows me to use generic size fans which will wear out before the card (hopefully)

chinny22 wrote:

Not a single slot solution but got a Zalman VNF100 waiting for my Ti4600 when the original fan dies.
I'm all for anything that allows me to use generic size fans which will wear out before the card (hopefully)

I too have a VNF100. It's actually a single slot cooler unless you're using a BTX system. The heatpipes wrap around the back of the card so natural convection cools it. However, the heatsink on the GPU is still small/thin enough to put another card right next to it. It would be pretty easy to use some zip ties to strap a fan to the back of it for improved performance.

I wish they still made these coolers. They're quite good, especially for old AGP cards like the Ti4600 or FX 5900/5950. I bought mine several years ago thinking that I would use it on my 6800 GT if the fan ever burned out. Well, the fan never burned out and I still have the VNF100 BNIB. Now I'm hesitant to use it because they don't make 'em anymore.

It's still very easy and cheap to get a single-slot aftermarket cooler for a Ti4600. I see all sorts of Chinese coolers on eBay for about $5 or less. My FX 5950 cards are of the LeadTek design, so the fan on the cooler is also a very common and cheap part to replace. I still want to keep my 6800GT card as a single slot configuration because I use it in a micro-ATX case. So, I suppose I will continue to save the VNF100 for the day my 6800GT fan burns out.

An update:

It looks like Performance PCs still has five of them in stock:

http://www.performance-pcs.com/zalman-vnf100- … -heatsinks.html

They're $45, which is quite a bit more than the $20 I paid for mine years ago. But hey, if you need or want one, here ya go.

Actually yes you are right! I remember now I originally got it to make my 6800 Ultra single slot, but then chickened out trying on such a hot running card and set it aside for the 4600 instead

My x800XT had a broken blade, i just broke off the one opposite, its at most 5C higher

candle_86 wrote:

My x800XT had a broken blade, i just broke off the one opposite, its at most 5C higher

That's a pretty big increase in temperature. Why not just spend $4 and buy a cheap replacement cooler from eBay? The ones that Swaaye linked work well.

I mean, I'm a pretty cheap guy. I'm all for re-using and re-purposing old parts, right up until the point that performance suffers. If I hadn't had the old 486 cooler for my Ti4200, I would have spent the $4 and bought a cheap one off eBay.

I just paid $1.07 shipped for a 60mm fan to replace a broken one atop on a Socket 370 heatsink. Amazing prices if you can wait a month or so for your gear to arrive from China.

I've become quite a fan of superglue for these heatsink/fan repairs. I've replaced the fan on a GF2GTS yesterday using the same technique and replacement fan as for the GF3Ti500 in my previous post; and tonight I've reattached the heatsink on a TNT2 (It was originally attached with some sort of goop that was readily soluble in acetone when I cleaned it; my best bet is rubber cement which is a stupid thing to use to glue a heatsink) using a hybrid technique.

Instead of buying thermal epoxy or making my own like I've seen other people do, I placed a small drop of MX2 in the center of the chip, and dabbed superglue around the perimeter; then pressed down the heatsink on top of all that. Now there's a thin layer of MX2 between the chip and the heatsink in the center, surrounded by a perimeter of hardened superglue.

Not that a TNT2 really needs such a treatment, but I did it as a proof-of-concept. It works well, and for harsher environments/chips with higher thermal dissipation you could use epoxy instead of the superglue for the perimeter. Seems quite sturdy.

How does the air get out?

You press down gently. The blob of compound is taller than the glue (just spread a thin layer of glue) so as you push down the air expelled goes over the top of the glue layer until the compound layer becomes as thin as the glue; by that time the compound has extended to the edge, or almost. If you want you can also leave openings at the corners in the layer of glue.

Or to put it in another awkward Paint drawing:

swaaye wrote:

I'm a fan of these Chinese coolers. They are a bit smaller than the VF700 and clones. Can't hear them running. http://www.ebay. […]
Show full quote

I'm a fan of these Chinese coolers. They are a bit smaller than the VF700 and clones. Can't hear them running.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC12V-2-Pin-Connector … sAAAOSwymxVMhQI

Here's my Ti 4600. I noticed I have metal posts for mounts. I think those are actually from one of the larger V700-like models that I also have.

Is this single slot replacement? Hard to tell from the pic. Thanks.