I run Speedfan on this computer because it sits in an open ended cubby hole in my desk. My interest in fans is not #1 on my list of hobbies, but it is nice to see when the box needs a dusting out.

Just recently, I noticed that the GPU temperature was rising too quickly, and an inspection showed that the fan was turning, but dust was preventing a decent airflow. Unfortunately, the build up of dust was not just around the heatsink fins. The GPU fan was not exactly spinning freely, but it was still spinning. That was last week, and since then, the fan has completely crapped out.

Nothing ever goes wrong when stores are open, and I felt obliged to rig something up from my parts box in a bid to preserve my venerable N6600. I now have an 80mm ex PSU fan blowing a good deal of air through one of those ‘horn’ things that you see sometimes on side mounted case fans, It is working reasonably well, holding the temperature at 66° C pretty much with whatever I am doing, and the airflow across the video card is way better than the original fan.

I have a dilemma though. Is 66° C acceptable or should I track down a replacement GPU fan assembly? Something similar to what I have got will cost me in the region of $25 after taxes, and I am not sure that it would do a better job than what I have rigged up? The heatsink is cool over its entirety and there shouldn’t be any hotspots even though the airflow is now directional. 

I would like some input on this because searches on the Internet have not been useful. A test of fancy GPU heatsinks revealed that GPU’s run cooler with the case open, but that does little for the airflow across hard drives et al, and they are running at 32° C even though I have moved them up in the case to make way for my new fan assembly.