Replace the heatsink as well, it's not so great.

I recommend a DeepCool V65 if you can find one new. It fits Ti4200 cards like a glove, and it is very quiet as well. Here's a picture of one mounted on my card.

I have those knockoff Chinese coolers on my GeForce 4 cards. They aren't great, but the are significantly better than stock, inexpensive, and readily available. There are Chinese replica card coolers for GeForce 4 cards on Ebay if keeping the card stock looking is important to you.

Have you tried pealing back the sticker on the back and the small cover over the axle and adding a few drops of lubricant in there? Something like sewing machine oil, or GT85. That usually works wonders for old fans.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-02-20, 21:58:

I recommend a DeepCool V65 if you can find one new. It fits Ti4200 cards like a glove, and it is very quiet as well.

I'll try to find one but it doesn't look like any of them are on eBay...

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-02-20, 22:36:

I have those knockoff Chinese coolers on my GeForce 4 cards. They aren't great, but the are significantly better than stock, inexpensive, and readily available. There are Chinese replica card coolers for GeForce 4 cards on Ebay if keeping the card stock looking is important to you.

Do you have any links to them? I'm trying to search for "GeForce4 cooler" or "4200 cooler" and can't find anything on eBay or Aliexpress.

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-02-21, 08:43:

Have you tried pealing back the sticker on the back and the small cover over the axle and adding a few drops of lubricant in there? Something like sewing machine oil, or GT85. That usually works wonders for old fans.

I'll give that a try, thanks! I don't have sewing machine oil and it looks like GT85 is a spray? Can I use any other type of lubricant?

You can buy them from Ebay vendors, or Ali Express. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox- … DIA+ATI+Geforce

sofakng wrote on 2024-02-21, 14:16:

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-02-21, 08:43:

Have you tried pealing back the sticker on the back and the small cover over the axle and adding a few drops of lubricant in there? Something like sewing machine oil, or GT85. That usually works wonders for old fans.

I'll give that a try, thanks! I don't have sewing machine oil and it looks like GT85 is a spray? Can I use any other type of lubricant?

It comes in a can with a straw. You can carefully press the trigger slowly to dribble some out of the straw and get it where you want it without getting it everywhere else.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-02-20, 21:58:

Replace the heatsink as well, it's not so great.

I recommend a DeepCool V65 if you can find one new. It fits Ti4200 cards like a glove, and it is very quiet as well. Here's a picture of one mounted on my card.

I've seen / used the clones of that DeepCool v65, but I wouldn't consider them an upgrade over the stock TI4200 cooler, at least not to the one that sofakng has.
Fan is bigger (50 or 55 mm, IIRC, compared to the 40 mm stock fan.) But the heatsink itself has smaller surface area and thus cooling is about on par, if not worse if the fan runs at slower speed.

What I would suggest to sofakng instead, is to get a 60 mm fan (2 or 3-pin) and put that over the stock heatsink (after removing the original noisy 40 mm fan), then direct-wire it for 5V or 7V, depending on how powerful it is. This will provide better cooling and run much more quiet too. Better yet, if 70 mm fan fits over the stock heatsink without going over the edges, use that instead. Sure either of these may not preserve the original looks of the card, but who cares - at least it would be reliable and quiet. I'll always take better performance over aesthetics if I had to choose between the two any day.

As for adding oil / lubricant to the original fan in hopes of reviving it:

DO if it's a sleeve bearing fan.
DON'T if it's a ball-bearing fan.

Sleeve bearing fans can indeed be salvaged with oil. However, removing the sticker on the back and simply dropping lubricant in there is usually only a short-term fix at best. If you're going to put any effort, might as well take apart the fan and clean it properly first (particularly the sleeve bearing) using IPA and scraping the old gunked up lubricant from it. Then add light machine oil (engine or transmission oil for cars OK too.) Avoid using grease, especially lithium grease - it's too thick when it's cold and many fans have a hard time starting when cold. And remember, WD-40 is not a proper lubricant.
A properly cleaned and lubricated sleeve-bearing fan can last for more than a few years (sometimes even longer than what it did with the stock factory lubricant.)

As for ball-bearing fans... it's almost the reverse of what I mentioned above about sleeve bearing fans.
First, they are usually not salvegeable once the bearing gets too worn. But in the case of a noisy bearing that still has some life left: the ball bearing has to be taken out of the fan and taken apart (remove metal shield on at least one side). Then clean/spray with generous amount of break cleaner. Finally lubricate/fill/pack generously with lithium grease or grease specifically engineered for bearing use and put back together. This will usually work for larger bearings, in the sense that it may give them a few more years of life again, at best. But for very small ball bearings like these 40 mm fans, don't expect the repair to last even that much.

I use a Zalman VF700Cu on a Quadro 900, which is basically a Ti4600, so it should fit the Ti4200 also.
But in a quick search I don't see them on eBay US right now. I have no idea about other sources.

shamino wrote on 2024-02-25, 01:44:

I use a Zalman VF700Cu on a Quadro 900, which is basically a Ti4600, so it should fit the Ti4200 also.
But in a quick search I don't see them on eBay US right now. I have no idea about other sources.

That's a good suggestion for a cooler.
Both the VF700 and VF700CU would be more than fine for this card. They are capable of handling around 30-40W TDP (maybe 45W for the CU version.)

However, as you noted, these are getting harder to come by. Might actually be easier to find one of a dead/as-is video card than sold by itself separately.

Another "quirk" for the VF700/CU coolers is that their fans are rather powerful and will be quite loud when connected to an older card like the FX5200, because it provides constant 12V on its fan header without any fan voltage control. So to make this cooler more quiet, you'd need to resort to either using power resistors or direct-wiring for a specific voltage... or use a dedicated fan controller / buck converter (though that would be overkill probably.) But then if considering to do all of that with the fan, it brings us back to square 1: why not use a larger fan on the stock cooler.

There's also these universal coolers:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/393688612418
...though I can't attest to the quality of their fans as I never used one myself. But they look more than capable to cool an FX5200, maybe even without a fan (though I wouldn't suggest it.)
Attaching image for future reference, in case the above Ebay link stops working.

You can replace just the fan and keep the original heatsink if you want, just need to measure the fan and the mouting bracket to make sure you get the right size. Ebay has pretty much any size you might need.

Example:

I was able to repair this fan in my Ti 4200 relatively easily. It comes apart and can be cleaned and oiled. So long as it's not damaged, it can be restored.

NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti 4200 triage and repair

You could also just replace the fan's bearing.
This site could help in selecting a replacement type:
https://shop-rc.causemann.de/Kugellager

Edit:
The DeepCool V65 is ok as a replacement for a totally lost cooler.
But it's still a bit on the loud side and no big improvement compared to an OEM one, imho.

Judging from the photo and my memory, the fan uses a sleeve bearing slug that is pressure fit and cannot be removed. Cleaning and refurbishing is the best that can be done.

Pino wrote on 2024-02-26, 16:38:

You can replace just the fan and keep the original heatsink if you want, just need to measure the fan and the mouting bracket to make sure you get the right size. Ebay has pretty much any size you might need.

Example:

If stock fan sleeve bearing or bearing lock is worn out but cooler is good enough I would try this option 1st. That fan in picture looks like the blades move air better than original fan so modding it to run 7v lower rpm should be fine too.

Only ti4400 and 4600 really need cooler replacement like Asus fisheye model 😁

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-27, 10:52:

Judging from the photo and my memory, the fan uses a sleeve bearing slug that is pressure fit and cannot be removed. Cleaning and refurbishing is the best that can be done.

If that's the case, it's right.
It would only work with ball bearings.