Vid Card Fan Question
 

Hi all. My issue is that I want my GPU fan at 100% at all times. I use Rivatuner to set it at 100% direct control. Works fine. Until heat gets to 60C them it reverts back to auto control and I can't change it back to direct until temp is below 60. Temp on auto gets up to 79 C, in UT3, because fan throttles back to less than 40%. Having no stability probs or vid probs. I just want the fan at 100% at all freakin times. Is there any way to do this? Thanks in advance.

System:

Dell XPS 410
Xp Pro SP3
Core 2 Duo @ 2.13 GHz
nVidia GF 8600 GTS, 256 MB
2 GB DDR 2
320 HDD - 120 GB HDD
Etc.

Yes, there is an easy way. Take the card out, and take fan off. Unplug the tail that hooks to the card header that is thermally controlled. Look under the fan and see if the sticker over the bearing says 12v rated. If not then tell us what voltage it's rated for, you also have a simple 5v and 7v option. We'll go with 12v for now. Take the tail plug off, either by pushing in the pins in the plug so the leads slip out, or cut it off. Strip the wires back about a centimeter if you cut it.

Now you have options.

You can solder a plug to the power connector of the card, where the PCI-E plugs in. On the backside of the PCB where the plug is, you have a 12v/ground source. That's all you need. Get a 2-pole plug of any sort from radio shack, solder it to the plug, and attach the other end to the fan tail red and black (red=pos black=ground). Now when you plug in the fan and turn the machine on, the fan is at 100% 24/7, and it's all on the card so no messing with wires everywhere. You can even hot-glue the plug down to the PCB so it doesn't get messy or look bad, just don't glue it to a heatsink.

The other option is to get a pass-through molex connector or a terminated one. If you do any hardware work, you should have a few laying around from antec case fans, etc. Hook red/red and black/black and make sure red goes to the yellow 12v lead and plug that into a spare molex on the PSU. Same result with 12v power continuous, but a little more messy.

Use a solder gun for any connections, such as wire/wire or wire/PCB. If wire/wire, use heatshrink wrap from radioshack etc to tidy it up. You can use a lighter with the flame about an inch from the wrap to shrink it, instead of a heat gun. Don't overlap to the wire insulation or you may burn it and have to redo the joint ;)

Done deal, and not a shitty job either.

EDIT: Also, if you have a tach lead on the fan (3 wires total), the yellow or blue one is tach, and not needed unless you want to leave it in the stock plug and plug it back in for monitoring purposes.