project "repair gfx cooler"

So i got a little bit upset while playing starcraft and it happens that i hit my computer sometimes.. now this time, the bigger fan of my graphic card broke off. I decided to either try to repair it or if it doesn't work just buy a new one.

The card itself:
Palit/xPertvision Radeon
AMD 4870 Sonic Dual
1 GB gddr5




I bought it in March 2009.
Now don't think i don't have enough money to afford a new card because I certainly
do but not everything is about new and shiny. I've had this card for long time now
and i simply didn't wanna get rid of it yet. I know now, why it took me 2 weeks do
properly decide, which card i am going to buy, it costed € 223,-- that time.

So here is, what i did, to replace the fan:

1) Unscrew everything and take off the overlay, the coolers:



Check this out! If you are wondering, why the heck the heatpipes are twisted
and dented it's because, the heatpipe was pressing against the board and i had to
use pliers in order to undent it. Took me 3 months to realize, why my PC would freeze that often as it did..
Now actually i thought, it was because of that jet of a flame, that happened when i tried putting in the 1394 into USB.. but no :)

what the f*ck over 9000 parts?!


and they dont even fit, because my model is a speshful one T_T


After a rather unsuscessful search for the vram i decided to take of the
stock heatpipe on the left:



The thing is, the arctic cooler i bought, is regularly built a bit higher then the stock coolers so you need to add those arctic cooling supply pipes onto your chip devices.
I placed em around for a couple of times but came to the conclusion that i have to do it by feeling and what i feel good with, since the build of the board differs greatly from any other 4870. so after some experimenting this is what came out of it:



Then you put everything together, what happend was, that I screwed a bit too much :D so the chip was pushed out a little bit and also after finishing i realised i forgot to take off the termaltape inside (from the cooler) and also i didnt put in those rubber bands to counter the pressure of those screws outside:




But as we say, Ende gut, alles gut:




actual comparison in size:


Well, that's it. If it didn't work, i'd just have bought a GTX460 by Zotac, which is the strongest one in this product group. Still, mine is a bit better, also it has a turbo mode, which i never actually used or tried, yet and also is got higher MHz than most of the top cards aka 2011 ones.

Temps: 43°C @ 29% fanspeed
That thing is incredibly quiet, can't hear a thing.
GG hf, thanks for you time.

mladN