GPU fan is acting up

Hey everyone.
Was cleaning my GPU today and managed to snap off two of the fan blades. Great job, me.
The card is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX series, looks like this. https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/...T_Black/4.html

So now I'm trying to figure out where to hunt down a replacement fan to fix this mess.
Would the entire heatsink from a different 7870, like a Sapphire model, actually fit?
Basically, strip mine my old one, slap on some fresh thermal paste, and just swap in the Sapphire heatsink?

Just looking for the cheapest way out of this hole...

You did a great job cleaning things up after you snapped those fan blades on that 80mm unit 🙂

Options

Getting a Blower style fan specifically for that card isn't super expensive, but they can be hard to find...

Will the heatsink fit? Well, you won't know until you take it off and check. If it's still on the card, just see if the screw holes line up...

A little DIY... pull out that current fan—I think it's held by three screws on the side—and try swapping in a small blower fan from an old card and gluing it to the outer shroud... or just buy an 80-90mm fan and mount it to the outside casing so it blows through the opening... just make sure you check how many pins the connector needs

Make sure you get a high-performance fan capable of hitting 5000 RPM, and you'll need a solid way to mount it securely

You could also look into Accelero coolers to see which specific model fits your setup best

I've heard some people actually slap a CPU cooler on their GPU to get insane results... though mounting that thing properly is a total headache

If you don't care about how it looks, just grab some case fans, zip-tie them right onto the card, and... voilà. 😉
It’s pretty much as simple as it gets, but it actually works. I've done it myself.

I tried hacking together a DIY cooling setup once using two 120mm fans held on by zip ties. I plugged them straight into the motherboard and they spun just fine. But after a few minutes, my GPU started running insanely hot and the whole system would just crash.
I set aside about $67 to actually fix this properly, so now I’m stuck not knowing what to buy.
Buying from eBay is an option, but waiting forever for shipping sucks.

Would that cooler actually work for my setup?

You definitely should. Even though that cooler is older than your GPU, I’ve seen people successfully pair them up with the GTX 1050 Ti online.

Can a Noctua NH-D15 actually handle the heat on my GPU?
It doesn't seem too pricey, and I've got some spare fans lying around the house that I could mount onto the cooler for extra cooling.

Christian Mendoza60 said:Can a Noctua NH-D15 actually handle the heat on my GPU?
It doesn't seem too pricey, and I've got some spare fans lying around the house that I could mount onto the cooler for extra cooling.

Sure it can. Those Noctua NH-D15 coolers (I used an older version once, the Noctua NH-D15 is a bit better) are basically built for quasi-passive cooling. Your best bet is to just zip-tie two 120mm fans directly to it. Back when I was running a GTX 285, I rigged up one 140mm and two 120mm fans, and it performed way better than the stock cooler—and that card runs much hotter than yours ever will.

With the Noctua NH-D15 on a GTX 660, you might get away with almost no fans if your Corsair Airflow case is decent, or maybe just one 120mm fan spinning at minimum speed.

Otherwise, the alternative is to just rip the plastic shroud and the current fan off your existing setup and slap one or two fans directly onto the radiator. Honestly, that'd probably work better than what you have now with that plastic shroud choking your airflow.

I'll probably just grab the Noctua NH-D15 since the price actually makes sense.
Even my current GTX 660 with that Tahiti chip isn't exactly running ice cold.
I'm going to slap those Noctua NH-D15 fans on there; I've already got them sitting in a drawer.
I tried stripping off the shroud earlier, but this card uses an aluminum casing instead of plastic, so those Noctua NH-D15 fans wouldn't have been able to cool the stock heatsink anyway.

Christian Mendoza60 said:I'll probably just grab the Noctua NH-D15 since the price actually makes sense.
Even my current GTX 660 with that Tahiti chip isn't exactly running ice cold.
I'm going to slap those Noctua NH-D15 fans on there; I've already got them sitting in a drawer.
I tried stripping off the shroud earlier, but this card uses an aluminum casing instead of plastic, so those Noctua NH-D15 fans wouldn't have been able to cool the stock heatsink anyway.

I used an S1 cooler on a GTX 285 that pulled about 200W, and adding two 120mm fans made a massive difference. Later, I moved it to a GTX 260, which has power draw similar to your GTX 660, and it ran practically passively—no throttling in most games.

The GTX 260 pulls 110W, while the GTX 285 is around 200 (likely more if you overclock it slightly). Yours falls somewhere in the middle.

If that GTX 660 has a Tahiti chip, is it actually a GTX 770? That's a solid card.

That’s the GTX 770 Black Edition

That stock cooler she’s rocking isn't exactly cutting it. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the manufacturers intended for people to swap in an aftermarket cooler immediately; there's just no sense in pairing a top-tier GTX 660 with a cheap, flimsy plastic blower

To be honest, this cooler has been absolute garbage since the day I unboxed it.
It sounds like a jet engine and temperatures were hitting 80 to 90 degrees while gaming.
I’m actually kind of glad I trashed the stock fan because now I can finally grab a decent cooler, overclock it a bit, and hopefully squeeze a few more years out of it.
What do you guys think—is this card still worth saving?

It isn't built for modern AAA titles (though it still puts up a fight). If you're sticking to older games or anything that isn't particularly graphics-heavy, the card is still perfectly fine enough

Honestly, I don't need anything fancy.
I just want to be able to run some indie titles or maybe something like Call of Duty. And look, I'm not chasing top-tier graphics—if I can get decent performance on medium settings, I'm good.

Kimberly Gomez34 said:It isn't built for modern AAA titles (though it still puts up a fight). If you're sticking to older games or anything that isn't particularly graphics-heavy, the card is still perfectly fine enough

Pretty close, actually—it might even outpace a GTX 1050 Ti in some spots. It can definitely handle newer games if you know what you're doing.😁

CLICK

Alright folks, everything finally arrived. Just gotta get it all mounted now. I'll post the temps once it's up and running if anyone actually cares. 👍

Christian Mendoza60 said:Alright folks, everything finally arrived. Just gotta get it all mounted now. I'll post the temps once it's up and running if anyone actually cares. 👍

Those fans are loud as hell. I actually ended up returning mine and swapping them out. Honestly, I don't know how sensitive you are to noise, so it might be fine for you. 🍿