Here's a fanless HD3450 in AGP

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16814102862

It's been out of production for a while, though, and it will probably not be easy to find.

There were also HD3650 AGP cards with big heatpipes/radiators attached, but you would lose a PCI slot, which you said you don't want to do.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16814121260

gerwin wrote:

I have the Abit Siluro myself, and fitted a much larger heatsink then asus did.

There are 2 versions of Abit Siluro 440mx, one that is passively cooled (V 2.0 or something) and the normal, fan-based one (V 1.0). I had the V 1.0 version and it was the sickest, meanest GF MX out there. It overclocked crazy, far beyond the MX460 specs and on Nforce2 with overclocked tbred @ 2Ghz I had almost 10k score in 3dmark 2001 back then.

Fantastic card. 😊

Feipoa, for a more modern machine you might want to ponder moving up to something with SSE2 support so you can get Flash and VC-1/H.264 acceleration. Video cards with support for such acceleration also require SSE2 to use it. You'll also get more video card for your money by moving to PCIe since AGP cards with modern features carry a premium.

For such video acceleration, you need at least Radeon 4350 or GeForce 8400.

sliderider wrote:

Here's a fanless HD3450 in AGP

Some of the fanless budget DX10+ cards have barely adequate cooling. I bought a 3450 years ago that would overheat and freeze playing Bluray. It pretty much needs direct airflow. The heatsinks vary though so there is some choice and some appear more capable.

feipoa what do you really really want to use and can you spare an extra slot if you decided to widen your choices? Since you are or will be using XP there are lot of options on the table as is so why not one of the more capable cards. As for passive I am not fond of except in the very low end like a 9200se ect that don't use much power.

Good comments everyone!

The reason I wanted to restrict myself to a single slot is because I've been in situations in the past where the only PCI slot left in the computer was next to the AGP port. In fact, that is the situation in my dual 850 right now. While it is preferred not to fill this slot, the PCI card I put in was a USB 2.0 card whereby the back end of the PCB was cut diagnolly to still leave the graphics heatsink mostly uncovered.

I suppose we could lighten up the 1 slot width rule as I beleive my two Tualatin boards have one more PCI slot than my current machine, but it would be preferred to have the two-slot graphics heatsink as stock, like with the ASUS AH3650 card which Sliderider indicated.

My time frame is long and budget is small. You can find most things of this size for under $20 shipped with a little patience.

Swaaye, a dual PIII-S 1.4 GHz is my upper limit. I may have a sort of genetic mutation which doesn't let me to use anything newer. This mutation seems to be limited to motherboards/CPUs and hasn't spread to graphics cards. In actuality, I just don't get the same buzz using anything beyond a PIII.

My past experience with ATI AGP cards wasn't the best; they either ran hot, or the fan crapped out. A fanless NVIDIA would be preferred.

swaaye wrote:

For such video acceleration, you need at least Radeon 4350 or GeForce 8400.

Interesting, there is a PCI GeForce 8400 from Sparkle which is fanless.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/310393090984

feipoa wrote:

swaaye wrote:

For such video acceleration, you need at least Radeon 4350 or GeForce 8400.

Interesting, there is a PCI GeForce 8400 from Sparkle which is fanless.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/310393090984

You also might want to move to an early PCIe motherboard. Your fanless video card options improve immensely just by switching to the newer interface. Sapphire displayed a fanless HD7770 recently and there's a rumor floating around that someone is hard at work on a fanless HD7850.

If you are able to get some good heatsinks that are thin enough but fairly large you could mode on onto a higher end card to help keep things single slot and passive but you have to be able to mod the cooler including cutting if needed. Do you have room above the cards that isn't blocked? You could mode an heatpipe equipped cooler that has a rather thin and flat base but also has long heatpipes to mount onto the card.

EDIT: I did some searching through eBay and it is mostly ATI and a few Nvidia here and there. I bought a Quadro FX4000 agp last year and did a quick test an hour ago (it was only $10 and in the cabinet it went) it didn't dump much heat but if you want silent it isn't a card that you would want but has win98 support. Has 256mb of vram, is 256bit, and ran cooler than the 6800gt that I once had but only 8 shaders are active vs the 16 that is stock for the 6800gt and ultra. Lower power consumption and often cheap $20 shouldn't be hard.

feipoa wrote:

swaaye wrote:

For such video acceleration, you need at least Radeon 4350 or GeForce 8400.

Interesting, there is a PCI GeForce 8400 from Sparkle which is fanless.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/310393090984

SSE2 is required for hardware acceleration of H.264 and VC1. That means a PIII is not an option if you want it. I don't know why it is a requirement but it is such for both NV and ATI. This issue came up often years ago when people were putting new video cards into their Athlon XP systems and finding HD video acceleration non-functional.

Did anyone here just buy these fanless 128-bit, 128 MB GeForce MX 440's?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/170836017154

It is curious that once I decided this might be the best fanless option for my old system, someone made an offer on these within 12 hours. I should get some commission!

I was a bit soured by the lack of a DVI port on these and the guy wanted $10 for shipping to Canada, which is double actual cost (yet shipping is free within the USA).

I should be able to eventually find one of these for under $20, BFG Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/290765431855
It appears to be keyed for 2x/4x/8x. Will it work on a 2x board? Any idea which two-slot heatsinks can be attached, or do I need to fab one on my own? I guess I have given in to aftermarket heatsink temptations.

feipoa wrote:

I should be able to eventually find one of these for under $20, BFG Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/290765431855
It appears to be keyed for 2x/4x/8x. Will it work on a 2x board? Any idea which two-slot heatsinks can be attached, or do I need to fab one on my own? I guess I have given in to aftermarket heatsink temptations.

That is a single slot card, if the airflow is good there is no need for aftermarket or a modded block. Should work in most boards.

GeForce 6 cards are hit and miss with AGP 3.3v even if they are keyed for it. Sometimes they are just keyed incorrectly for their actual compatibility.

I don't think it would be possible to adequately cool a 6600GT in a single slot. The passive versions usually have 2 heatsinks (front+back) linked by heatpipe. Also, few aftermarket coolers are compatible with the AGP edition because of the offset GPU.

feipoa wrote:

I should be able to eventually find one of these for under $20, BFG Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/290765431855
It appears to be keyed for 2x/4x/8x. Will it work on a 2x board? Any idea which two-slot heatsinks can be attached, or do I need to fab one on my own? I guess I have given in to aftermarket heatsink temptations.

I don't think you're going to be able to go fanless with that even if it does work at 3.3v. I have an AOpen Aelous 6600GT AGP and it gets pretty hot under heavy load even with a fan. It isn't notched for 3.3v operation, though, so I couldn't help you there.

What about leaving the fan on, not plugging anything into the adjacent slot, and turning down the voltage on the GPU fan to make it less noisy? This should also increase fan lifetime.

Is it also possible to turn down the GPU and/or memory clock on these to reduce heat build-up? If so, this might make a passive heatsink viable. I was unable to find a fanless non-GT 6600. There does seem to be a GeForce 7600 AGP which is fanless, but the cost is way out of budget.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/140608896470
http://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/Hardware/2D-3D/c … et_731180_1.htm

The 7600 is less attractive than the 6600 because it lacks AGP 2x keying and Win9x drivers.

I have a 6600GT that ran for an unknown period of time with no fan because the bearing seized. It may have been like that for over a year. The card still works. I doubt it did any 3D gaming during that time though.

I have it set up with a 7v 60mm fan and that seems ok during gaming.

I am still not sure about 3.3v AGP compatibility because I can't seem to find any reports either way in web searches. I suspect that the NVIDIA HSI / BR02 bridge may be 0.8/1.5v only though.

Well if you are just wanting something that works then go ahead with the 6600gt and mod a 1U copper server cooler for passive. You can use nvflash to get the rom from the card and use nbitor to edit the clocks that you want then flash the card. If you can live with the noise and spare two molex connectors I know that a Quadro FX4000 agp will work but no 3.3v key.

http://www.bjorn3d.com/2004/11/gigabyte-gefor … h/#.UFrEaIiNUSU

swaaye wrote:

I have a 6600GT... I am still not sure about 3.3v AGP compatibility because I can't seem to find any reports either way in web searches. I suspect that the NVIDIA HSI / BR02 bridge may be 0.8/1.5v only though.

I ended up testing a 6600GT in a 440BX board, which is of course 2x/3.3v only, and it worked. I installed the drivers in WinXP without any issue, however I did not test any 3D apps. I only plugged it in long enough to install the drivers and open a few windows. I'm not sure if it is long term stable, but at least the heatsink did not feel hot. Wiki mentions that some 6600 cards will function in 3.3 V slots.

GPU-Z listed the GPU temperature as 51.0 C and VDDC as 1.300 V. Is that temp. a bit on the warm side? The voltage also seems way off from 3.3 V. I wonder how precise GPU-Z is with reading these sensors...

robertmo, nice find - Gigabyte GeForce 6800, single slot passive heatsink with DVI and VGA. 4x/8x only, but a fair trade-off.

feipoa wrote:

What about leaving the fan on, not plugging anything into the adjacent slot, and turning down the voltage on the GPU fan to make […]
Show full quote

What about leaving the fan on, not plugging anything into the adjacent slot, and turning down the voltage on the GPU fan to make it less noisy? This should also increase fan lifetime.

Is it also possible to turn down the GPU and/or memory clock on these to reduce heat build-up? If so, this might make a passive heatsink viable. I was unable to find a fanless non-GT 6600. There does seem to be a GeForce 7600 AGP which is fanless, but the cost is way out of budget.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/140608896470
http://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/Hardware/2D-3D/c … et_731180_1.htm

The 7600 is less attractive than the 6600 because it lacks AGP 2x keying and Win9x drivers.

I have 2 fanless 7600 AGP's and they overheat quite easily. I ended up putting a slow moving 8cm casefan onto the heatsink on both of the cards and they have been working flawless for a couple years now.
I wouldn't recommend running the passive 7600 AGP's without good airflow

Edit:Both cards do take up a lot of space now though, like 2 extra PCI slots 😵