VOGONS


Voodoo 2 SLI cooling situation.

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First post, by Baoran

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I'm bit worried about how to make it work without overheating the voodoo 2 cards.
Situation would pretty much be this in a tower case.
ISA sound card at the bottom of the case for dos (only ISA slot on the motherboard)
Empty pci slot above the ISA sound card.
Voodoo 2 card above that empty slot.
PCI sound card for windows above the voodoo 2 card. (not installed yet)
Another Voodoo 2 card above the PCI sound card.
2 Slot video card at the top in the AGP slot. (hasn't arrived yet so I have temporary single slot passively cooled card currently in the agp slot)

Cooling?

The psu at the top of the case seems to sucking bit of air from the outside to the inside the case...
I ordered 2 good fans for the case 92mm fan for the back of the case above the cards that I would put suck hot air from inside the case to outside and 80mm case that would suck air to inside the case at the front of the case. These fans have not arrived yet but should come within next week.
Is this enough cooling for the voodoo 2 cards? I feel like they will be tightly packet inside the case when I put the PCI sound card in between them.
Is there anything I can do to improve the situation?

Reply 1 of 34, by Mr. horse

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Voodoo2 cards don't really get that hot.
Most your need is some stick on heat sinks and fan's.

No sir I don't like it!

Reply 2 of 34, by SW-SSG

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Baoran wrote:

The psu at the top of the case seems to sucking bit of air from the outside to the inside the case...

Fan's most definitely installed backwards. It's normally the opposite, unless this is one of those OEM PCs (Gateway, eMachines IIRC?) that use a plastic shroud to guide the PSU fan exhaust toward the CPU heatsink.

Reply 3 of 34, by Baoran

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SW-SSG wrote:
Baoran wrote:

The psu at the top of the case seems to sucking bit of air from the outside to the inside the case...

Fan's most definitely installed backwards. It's normally the opposite, unless this is one of those OEM PCs (Gateway, eMachines IIRC?) that use a plastic shroud to guide the PSU fan exhaust toward the CPU heatsink.

It is a brand new seasonic power supply. I could be mistaken about that because I just used my hand and felt a breeze on my hand next to the psu, but I didn't feel the breeze outside the case next to the psu.
I think I might have felt the breeze coming from the cpu cooler instead of the psu inside the case, so it was probably my mistake.

Reply 4 of 34, by Baoran

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Mr. horse wrote:

Voodoo2 cards don't really get that hot.
Most your need is some stick on heat sinks and fan's.

I just watched recently Phil's video on youtube where he measured 85C surface temperature on the voodoo 2 card chip even on open test bench. That is one thing that made me worried. He only used one card in open test bench after all.

Reply 5 of 34, by doaks80

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In my case 2 x 140mm side-panel mounted fans blowing directly onto the expansion slot area, with the V2s right in the middle. High-airflow Corsair near-silent models, if that doesn't keep them cool nothing will. I do the same with the V5 except I also load that one up with heatsinks on the rear of the dies and on memory chips, it gets much hotter and I don't trust the stock V5 fans.

k6-3+ 400 / s3 virge DX+voodoo1 / awe32(32mb)
via c3 866 / s3 savage4+voodoo2 sli / audigy1+awe64(8mb)
athlon xp 3200+ / voodoo5 5500 / diamond mx300
pentium4 3400 / geforce fx5950U / audigy2 ZS
core2duo E8500 / radeon HD5850 / x-fi titanium

Reply 6 of 34, by Baoran

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doaks80 wrote:

In my case 2 x 140mm side-panel mounted fans blowing directly onto the expansion slot area, with the V2s right in the middle. High-airflow Corsair near-silent models, if that doesn't keep them cool nothing will. I do the same with the V5 except I also load that one up with heatsinks on the rear of the dies and on memory chips, it gets much hotter and I don't trust the stock V5 fans.

In my case there are some air holes in both of the side panels, but unfortunately there is no place to attach any fans to.

holes2.jpg

Reply 7 of 34, by doaks80

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Baoran wrote:
doaks80 wrote:

In my case 2 x 140mm side-panel mounted fans blowing directly onto the expansion slot area, with the V2s right in the middle. High-airflow Corsair near-silent models, if that doesn't keep them cool nothing will. I do the same with the V5 except I also load that one up with heatsinks on the rear of the dies and on memory chips, it gets much hotter and I don't trust the stock V5 fans.

In my case there are some air holes in both of the side panels, but unfortunately there is no place to attach any fans to.

holes2.jpg

I bought cases specifically for retro build with this capability, see this post for a pic with one fan and the V2s:
What retro activity did you get up to today?

It was the only new/modern case I could find for sale that was barely sufficient for retro computing: minimum 3 drive bays, 2 horizontal 140mm side panel fans, forward facing USB ports on the front, full-ATX, etc. I wish it had one or two floppy drive bays, but good luck finding all that today.

k6-3+ 400 / s3 virge DX+voodoo1 / awe32(32mb)
via c3 866 / s3 savage4+voodoo2 sli / audigy1+awe64(8mb)
athlon xp 3200+ / voodoo5 5500 / diamond mx300
pentium4 3400 / geforce fx5950U / audigy2 ZS
core2duo E8500 / radeon HD5850 / x-fi titanium

Reply 8 of 34, by Baoran

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I was even looking into something like zalman fb123, but I couldn't find them in stock anywhere.
Anyone has any ideas? Would small heatsinks on chips in those tight spaces between cards matter much?

Reply 9 of 34, by doaks80

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Baoran wrote:

I was even looking into something like zalman fb123, but I couldn't find them in stock anywhere.
Anyone has any ideas? Would small heatsinks on chips in those tight spaces between cards matter much?

That would probably do it. The other option is to get one of those kits on eBay for about $5 that allows you to link 2-3 80mm fans and insert them into a PCI and blow them directly onto the face of the card. But they take 2 slots and not really suitable for 2 cards, but I use them both for a 5950U and a V5-5500, mainly in case the actualy GPU fans die one day.

k6-3+ 400 / s3 virge DX+voodoo1 / awe32(32mb)
via c3 866 / s3 savage4+voodoo2 sli / audigy1+awe64(8mb)
athlon xp 3200+ / voodoo5 5500 / diamond mx300
pentium4 3400 / geforce fx5950U / audigy2 ZS
core2duo E8500 / radeon HD5850 / x-fi titanium

Reply 10 of 34, by Mr. horse

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Baoran wrote:
Mr. horse wrote:

Voodoo2 cards don't really get that hot.
Most your need is some stick on heat sinks and fan's.

I just watched recently Phil's video on youtube where he measured 85C surface temperature on the voodoo 2 card chip even on open test bench. That is one thing that made me worried. He only used one card in open test bench after all.

Open air is not the same as in a case. Wile 85c is hot most GPUs can take upwards of 80c fine.
Id have to take a look at the specks of the voodoo2 chips, but I recall they were rated between 70c and 80c.

No sir I don't like it!

Reply 11 of 34, by Baoran

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This is probably a stupid idea because it would prevent access to the pc in the future but for a moment I was even considering getting as big fan as possible and trying to glue one side off it to the bottom of the tower case 😜

Reply 12 of 34, by Mr. horse

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Don't over think it, all you need is some sick on heat sinks if you case has fans and OK air flow. Not many people even have more then one case fan back in the 90s, let alone stick on heat sinks on their voodoo2s.
I believe the voodoo2 chips are somewhere around 25 to 30mm. I could be off but I think they are 27mm chips. Anyone with a voodoo2 handy want to tell me if I'm right?

Last edited by Mr. horse on 2019-01-03, 03:59. Edited 1 time in total.

No sir I don't like it!

Reply 13 of 34, by Baoran

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Mr. horse wrote:

Don't over think it, all you need is some sick on heat sinks if you case has fans and OK air flow. Not many people even have more then one case fan back in the 90s, let alone stick on heat sinks on their voodoo2s.
I believe the voodoo2 chips are somewhere around 25 to 30mm. I could be off but I think they are 27mm chips. Anyone with a voodoo2 handy want to tell me if I'm right?

Would it matter if the hearsinks would be bit bigger than the chips themselves? I saw some nice looking heatsinks online that were 40mm x 40mm x 11mm

Edit: I think I am just bit worried about them falling off at some point on top of the next card below the voodoo 2 card.

Reply 14 of 34, by Mr. horse

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As long as it fits it will be ok. Smaller or bigger is ok. The more surface area the better however.
And no they will not fall off if you install them right, if you get the ones with the 3m thermal tape your likely pull the chip off the PCB if you tried to take the heat sink off. Its some really strong stuff.

No sir I don't like it!

Reply 15 of 34, by Baoran

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Mr. horse wrote:

As long as it fits it will be ok. Smaller or bigger is ok. The more surface area the better however.
And no they will not fall off if you install them right, if you get the ones with the 3m thermal tape your likely pull the chip off the PCB if you tried to take the heat sink off. Its some really strong stuff.

I was actually thinking arctic silver thermal adhesive, but perhaps that 3m thermal tape might be easier to find perhaps?

Reply 16 of 34, by Mr. horse

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Just about everything in the link I posted has 3m thermal tape preinstalled.

If not this is the stuff you want.

No sir I don't like it!

Reply 18 of 34, by chinny22

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For mounting a fan I use cable ties and hang them off the holes in the corner from the card above

Side-After.jpg

Alot of people simply mount a fan to a PCI bracket and bend to the required angle. The bonus is you can screw it in a shared spot as a populated PCI slot if needed.
I cant find a good picture but found this guide where he does a bit extra with grills but this isnt needed.
http://home.itcow.com/wp-gl/articles-archive/ … ke-a-pci-cooler

Also just found this when looking for an example of the picture above. Didn't know these even existed to just now
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-print-models/gadg … rd-fan-mounting

Reply 19 of 34, by PARKE

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Baoran wrote:

This is probably a stupid idea because it would prevent access to the pc in the future but for a moment I was even considering getting as big fan as possible and trying to glue one side off it to the bottom of the tower case 😜

That is what I did but I used Velcro - one strip glued on the bottom of the case + one strip glued to the fan.

side22a.jpg