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[Knezzen]

Hi!

The loudest part in my MDD by far is the stock fan on my Apple OEM GeForce4Ti card, so now I want to replace it.

I need some advice on a good fan replacement. Have anyone fitted passive cooling to the OEM 4600 card?
Would be the ideal thing to do I guess. The issue I see is that the card is too long for any heatpipe to reach the other side.

Any advice on what fan and perhaps passive cooler to use?

EDIT:
Might something like this work?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VGA-Acc-Cooler-Arctic-Acc-S3/272439491619

[GaryN]

That little tiny heatsink fan is normally very quiet. If yours is "The loudest part in your MDD by far" it's telling you that it's about to fail.
I know this because it happened to me and I was actually able to find and buy somebody's last-one-in-stock heatsink and fan replacement assembly.
If you're willing to chance replacing the stock heatsink on a hard-to-find 4Ti card, you can certainly cut off the 4-odd inches on the end of the card that don't do anything but reach the rear mounting slot…

[Knezzen]

I think that the fan control is somewhat broken as well because the fan spins to full for no apparent reason. Or the thermal paste is really crappy.
Either way I think it's a good idea to switch to some more efficient and quieter cooling when I'm messing around with it either way.

[GaryN]

I think that the fan control is somewhat broken as well because the fan spins to full for no apparent reason. Or the thermal paste is really crappy.

Well there's a rather important piece of missing information. Of course it's loud.

[MacOS Plus]

  I don't have any suggestions for a completely different alternate replacement, however I'm going to use this thread to help the community get matching fans for the original.

  Someone on eBay recently posted a large quantity of correctly matching original generic heatsink/fan combos for these cards.  The only thing you would have to change on them is the plug.  (You could also remove and re-solder the entire cable from the fan itself so you'd have no visible wire patches.)  The bid price is for two pieces, and at only $11.00 US plus shipping it's an absolute no-brainer.  I bought two packs of two (four fans total) but there's 53 two-packs still available.  (Why they come in factory-sealed packs of two I have no idea.)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/311574316455?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

  Even if you don't need the heatsink you can still extract the fan and transfer just that.  These generic heatsinks come with a blank silver badge plate (with protective blue film), and because they are exactly the same layout you could unscrew and transfer over the original nVidia badge plate for autheticity's sake.

  In the case of my own card the fan is still working and quiet, but I can tell it's getting stiff in the bearing.  I tried to detach the fan only but found one screw to be completely jammed, so finding these heatsinks complete was a god-send.  I haven't switched it over yet but I'm posting a comparison photo for your reference:



  Get them while you can even if you don't need them yet - you might never get another chance to find these brand-new.  All owners of these collectable cards should own a spare fan.

  BTW, are the original heatsinks just thermal-pasted on?  I don't want to risk tearing the chip of removing it.  Has anyone tried using a heat gun to break the bond with the paste on these cards?

[Bolle]

No Apple OEM card but I am running a passive Zalmann on my 4600Ti in my Sawtooth like so:



You can run those passive even under load but the backside part with the heatpipe is only going to fit on non-OEM cards.
You could try using only the front part and mount a silent fan to it but I am not totally sure right now if it still fits inside a MDD then - it sure would in the older G4s.