Repairing

a

Geforce 6600GT

In June 2006, I bought a Geforce 6600 GT from Club3D. I had planned to get a 6800GT, but they were not available (anymore), so I went for a 6600GT instead.

The Geforce 6600GT is still an excellent videocard. However, the cooling fan on my Geforce from Club3D was not so good. After barely 5 months the little fan started to make an awful lot of noise, and 5 times out of 10 all those weird, green lines appeared on the monitor when I switched on my PC. Either Club3D uses bad-quality fans or I was just unlucky, but whatever the cause, the videocard was no longer usable.

I took the videocard back to the store where I had bought it, but after three (3!!!) months, the card was still not repaired! Since such amateuristic behaviour from people that are supposed to be professionals is unacceptable, I demanded my card back and repaired it myself. Extremely bad service. I recommend --not-- going there. This is one computerstore that will not be seeing me again.

Anyway, I removed the original fan and cooling body and replaced it by a brand new "VF-700 AlCu" fan from Zalman. As stated in the explanation on Zalman's website, I also had to install a separate HSI heatsink, since the original cooling body also cooled the card's HSI (which stands for "High Speed Interconnect"). I also installed the RAM chip cooling fins that came with the VF-700, although there were none on the card originally.

In case you happen to have an AGP version of a Geforce 6600GT and a defective cooling fan, then perhaps you will find the following pictures useful. With a bit of modding, Zalman's VF-700 fits perfectly.

[The box] -- [The card] -- [The old fan]

[The RAM heatsinks] -- [RAM heatsinks again] -- [RAM heatsinks, 3rd time]

[First rearview] -- [Second rearview] -- [Topview]