I like to run my hardware flat out. My GeForce is overclocked from 120 Core/166 Memory to 155 Core/ 206 Memory. Of course, things get a little HOT at these speeds. And HOT often means UNSTABLE.
Enter the tiny
heat sinks! I searched high and low for heat sinks that would be
the right size to whack on my ram modules, and I was almost out of options for
purchasing them in Aus, when I stumbled across these beauties at Jaycar
Electronics. Without hesitation I snapped up 16 total (enough for each side
of each ram chip). As they came in two different heights I got 8 of each height,
so I could put the shallower heat sinks on the more depth critical side of the
GeForce.
The next problem was how to affix said
heat sinks to said GeForce. I received
all many of suggestions ranging from thermal tape (my favourite) to superglue
and thermal grease. I decided to go with thermal tape, but I was again in a quandary.
I couldn't for the life of me find any in Australia. Finally I tracked down an
importer for Berquist thermal tape and managed to get him to send me a sample
pack, which as it turns out was just enough to do the job. I have since found an
online store in QLD selling thermal tape. You can check them out here.
Now you may wonder how all this turned out. Well, basically I never intended to get any more speed out of the GeForce, I simply wanted to cool it down some more. If I don't direct fan over over the heat sinks they get VERY warm to the touch. However my new ducted 120mm fan (see my Case Mods section) keeps them nice and cool to the touch. Mission accomplished.
Here are some lurvely pics for you to click on. Make sure you go 'oooh, ahhh' out loud when you look at them. Especially if non computer type people are around. That way they'll think your cool and L33t and stuff.
The ram sinks were good, and easy, but I knew the real heat issue with these first generation GeForces was with the GPU itself.
Enter
the spare CuMine HSF :) Pictured on the left is the heat sink with the fan
removed. It's one of those Intel ones with the fan sitting inside the sink. I
don't actually think it's a real CuMine one, it's sure different to the one that
came on my CuMine, and it didn't fit properly on my friends 600e, hence it's
spareness. In any case, it should be good enough for a GPU, after I take to it
with the Dremel of course :)
In both pics you can see where I have taken to the heat sink with the grinding
tools on the Dremel. On top of the sink I had to make room to drop the metal
split pins through that hole the sink to the GeForce. In the right hand pic you
can see the bottom of the sink (lapped) which shows the two smaller holes where
the split pins pop through, as well as various ground away sections which would
otherwise have been resting on other componentry on the GeForce card (bad mm-kay).
Also, this pic shows how much of the GPU actually touched the sink before I
lapped it (the GPU).
Now
that the heat sink was lapped, drilled, ground and generally ready to go I was
finished, right? Nope. GPUs are notoriously curved. Mine was positively bowl
shaped! On the left you can see a pic of the GPU AFTER I had already been
lapping it for about an hour! The pic is a bit poor, but you can make out the
writing in the middle, still on the silver top layer of the GPU, whilst the
outer half is lapped down to copper!! In the background is the new heat sink
I will be using, in the foreground is the pathetic excuse for a heat sink that
comes with the GeForce. I lapped this sink then stuck wet/dry sand paper on it
and used it to lap the GPU, about all it's good for now. On the right you can
see the centre of the GPU SLOWLY wearing down as it becomes flat. I gave up
shortly after. There is only so long you can lap a GPU and I was getting worried
the edges would get TOO worn down. In any case, this is a LOT flatter than it
was and I didn't need to use much thermal grease to fill the gap.
The final step was attaching a thermistor. Naturally I didn't
want to stick it in-between the GPU and heat sink and this would negate the 
hours
of lapping I endured, so I attached it on the bottom of the sink as close as
possible to the GPU as I could. The pic on the left shows how thermal grease is
an excellent indicator of the contact your chip is making the heat sink. As you
know, I never got the GPU perfectly flat (and yes I do feel like less of a man
because of it) and that 'hollow' section is visible in the grease.
The pic below shows the whole ensemble ready to be plugged back into my case, note the fan is now powered via a motherboard 3 pin fan header. Not only was this easier than rewiring the CuMine HSF to plug into the GeForce's fan header, but rumour has it that it also provides you card with more stability as it no longer has to draw the juice for the fan through the AGP slot. Just an added bonus I guess.
Oh and yes, I did get it to run faster! Core up from 155 to 160, memory up from 206 to 209. I didn't have temp readings before, so I can't say what it did for it, but considering it gets as hot at 50C whilst gaming AFTER doing these mods, I hate to think how hot it got before.
I was interested to see how the Asus GeForce 6600 pure handled an AGP slot that was running over spec, plus a lot of people were saying it couldn't be done with an stability. So I tried it!
As they say, a picture tells 1000 words:
In this pic (click to enlarge) you can see the AGP bus is running at 103 Mhz!!! The GeForce was overclocked from 120 Core/166 Memory to 140 Core/200 Memory for stability (it normally runs at 150/206).
You'll also notice sidebanding was disabled. Don't ask me how, I didn't mean it and I'd prefer to have it enabled but have been up able to with my computer :( If you know how to enable it with the GeForce, please let me know! UPDATE: A new bios has been released for the Asus GeForces to enable side banding. It really only made a bee's dick of improvement, oh well.
I tested this config with multiple runs of 3DMark2000 and Q3:Arena demos. In case you're interested, I did some benchmarking and discovered that under the same conditions, the increase from 66Mhz to 103Mhz on the AGP bus made for a HUGE 0.23% performance increase. So, in summary, don't increase your AGP bus speed unless you have to, but if you are going to, a GeForce seems to have NO problems taking you there.