Asus GeForce GPU (VGA) cooler upgrade
Few years ago I purchased this Asus GeForce 210 Silent VGA card and it was nicely fitting with my Intel motherboard without jamming any of my PCI slots or SATA ports. However I had to replace my Intel motherboard with an Asrock motherboard because, my old Intel motherboard wasn’t supporting 8GB of ram.
Everything was fitting nicely without any issue until I try to reach the SATA 3 port to connect one of my DVD drives. I had to use all of my 4 SATA ports because I was using 2 x SATA hard drives and 2 x SATA DVD drives. Asus GeForce 210 Silent was having a very big heatsink (factory fitted) and it was jamming a PCI slot and a SATA port.
To go over this, I decided to swap my Asus GeForce 210’s heatsink with my old NVidia 8400GT’s cooler which was having a nice and flat cooler with a cooling fan. So this is how I converted my big Asus GeForce 210 to a flat and nicely fitting VGA card.
The issue and the fix
Figures:
1. Originally Asus GeForce 210 was having a very big heatsink and it was completely blocking one of my PCI slots and the SATA 3 port.
2. My VGA card is sitting nicely by clearing extra spaces after the rebuilding process.
Removing cooling fan connector from the old card
The very first step I took is trying to remove cooling fan connector from the old VGA card I had. This is not a very important step because you can easily solder cooling fan wires to the VGA card. But I wanted to do a clean and nice work, save both of time and VGA card from the future maintenance I will be doing.
Figures:
1. Front side of the NVidia card and its fan connector before I start the removal process.
2. Back side of the NVidia card before starting my de-soldering process.
3. Front side of the card after removing the fan connector (white arrow is focusing the +12 side).
4. Back side of the NVidia GPU after completing the removal process.
Tip: This will be very hard for you to remove if you don’t have the right tools. If the VGA card isn’t working, you don’t have to worry about the circuit board. However, you have to be careful to not to melt the fan connector because of heat generated by the soldering iron.
Hint: I was using a normal 40w (Goot) soldering iron and a normal de-soldering sucker to remove those parts. But I strongly recommend you to use a good hot air gun. Just try to melt lead at the back side and try to suck melted lead with the sucker.
Preparing the Asus VGA card
My Asus GeForce 210 Silent was designed to use a cooling fan too. So, most of the stuffs are already done by the manufacturer; there were 2 factory made holes for the cooling fan connector. However I had to remove lead (Pb) from the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) to insert fan connector.
Figures:
1. Both positive and negative holes are filled with lead and there are 4 jumpers to complete the circuit with SMD (Surface Mount Device) resistors.
2. Back side of the fan connector holes.
3. Front side of the Asus PCB after removing lead.
4. Back side of the board after removing lead from all the 2 holes.
Tip: This won’t be a very hard process however you must be very careful to not to damage any device or circuit path because It may completely kill your VGA. Remove the original heatsink from the PCB board to make your work easy.
Hint: Try to melt lead from the back side or from the front side and try to suck melted lead from the opposite side. Just don’t heat too much or don’t apply too much pressure with the soldering iron because those tiny holes will be damage very easily.
** You can easily identify the +12v side from the white arrow which is focusing the +12v hole. However I used a multimeter and correctly identified the 0v before I do any mistake.
Soldering resistors and the fan connector
After clearing PCB holes, the final step you need to do on your Asus GeForce 210 is soldering SMD resistors and the cooling fan connector to the PCB. The hardest part for me was soldering SMD using a soldering iron and lead wires.
Figures:
1. Cleared PCB holes before complete soldering.
2. Fan connector pins after a good soldering job
3. 3 x ½w SMD resistors are soldered with the soldering iron and lead wires.
Tip: You have to be very careful when you are soldering SMD resistors. If you heat them up too much, they will get damaged and will result an open circuit. Short circuit is okay in this situation
Hint: You can place your SMD resistors with a tweezer and solder them very easily. 2 x ½w resistors will be completely enough to run that small fan; however I ended up with 3 x ½w resistors because, they were heating up.
Preparing the cooler
After completing the soldering process, my next step was preparing my old cooling fan and its heatsink to fit the VGA card nicely and properly without shorting any SMDs that the Asus has already mounted.
Figures:
1. Back side of the dirty VGA cooler just after removing it from the old VGA card.
2. After dissembling the old cooler to several parts for cleaning.
3. Reassembled cooler’s front side of the cooler after a good cleaning job.
4. Back side of the cooler after the cleaning process.
5. A Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) mask (black) is attached to the cooler to avoid short circuits.
6. Since this cooler has only 2 clips, some supports are added to seat the GPU properly.
Tip: You can wash the aluminum heatsink with water or alcohol but, simply wipe your cooling fan’s dust with a soft paint brush or something. Be careful to not to damage cooling fan mechanism or its blades.
Hint: You’ll have to look for SMDs on your VGA card and place that rubber supports at the correct place to not to sit your supports on the PCB (not SMDs). Make sure that the supports are in a good shape (not too short or too high) and your heatsink is making a good contact with the GPU. It’s important to apply some good thermal paste between the GPU and the heatsink for the heat dispersion.
The finished VGA card
Everything is finished and VGA card is ready to test
Here is my Asus GeForce 210 with the upgraded cooler. Everything is nice and clean and I’m having a very light flat VGA card now.
The average temperature of this VGA before upgrade the cooler was 46c and after the upgrade process, it dropped by 4c (about 42c). It’s nearly 3 months for the upgraded Asus GeForce 210 now and it still works fine.
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:end:
Previous threads:
1. Laptop batteries rebuild - Re-cell a laptop battery.
2. Save baby Squirrels - My experience.
3. Saving a baby squirrel.
----
exit;
Few years ago I purchased this Asus GeForce 210 Silent VGA card and it was nicely fitting with my Intel motherboard without jamming any of my PCI slots or SATA ports. However I had to replace my Intel motherboard with an Asrock motherboard because, my old Intel motherboard wasn’t supporting 8GB of ram.
Everything was fitting nicely without any issue until I try to reach the SATA 3 port to connect one of my DVD drives. I had to use all of my 4 SATA ports because I was using 2 x SATA hard drives and 2 x SATA DVD drives. Asus GeForce 210 Silent was having a very big heatsink (factory fitted) and it was jamming a PCI slot and a SATA port.
To go over this, I decided to swap my Asus GeForce 210’s heatsink with my old NVidia 8400GT’s cooler which was having a nice and flat cooler with a cooling fan. So this is how I converted my big Asus GeForce 210 to a flat and nicely fitting VGA card.
The issue and the fix
Figures:
1. Originally Asus GeForce 210 was having a very big heatsink and it was completely blocking one of my PCI slots and the SATA 3 port.
2. My VGA card is sitting nicely by clearing extra spaces after the rebuilding process.
Removing cooling fan connector from the old card
The very first step I took is trying to remove cooling fan connector from the old VGA card I had. This is not a very important step because you can easily solder cooling fan wires to the VGA card. But I wanted to do a clean and nice work, save both of time and VGA card from the future maintenance I will be doing.
Figures:
1. Front side of the NVidia card and its fan connector before I start the removal process.
2. Back side of the NVidia card before starting my de-soldering process.
3. Front side of the card after removing the fan connector (white arrow is focusing the +12 side).
4. Back side of the NVidia GPU after completing the removal process.
Tip: This will be very hard for you to remove if you don’t have the right tools. If the VGA card isn’t working, you don’t have to worry about the circuit board. However, you have to be careful to not to melt the fan connector because of heat generated by the soldering iron.
Hint: I was using a normal 40w (Goot) soldering iron and a normal de-soldering sucker to remove those parts. But I strongly recommend you to use a good hot air gun. Just try to melt lead at the back side and try to suck melted lead with the sucker.
Preparing the Asus VGA card
My Asus GeForce 210 Silent was designed to use a cooling fan too. So, most of the stuffs are already done by the manufacturer; there were 2 factory made holes for the cooling fan connector. However I had to remove lead (Pb) from the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) to insert fan connector.
Figures:
1. Both positive and negative holes are filled with lead and there are 4 jumpers to complete the circuit with SMD (Surface Mount Device) resistors.
2. Back side of the fan connector holes.
3. Front side of the Asus PCB after removing lead.
4. Back side of the board after removing lead from all the 2 holes.
Tip: This won’t be a very hard process however you must be very careful to not to damage any device or circuit path because It may completely kill your VGA. Remove the original heatsink from the PCB board to make your work easy.
Hint: Try to melt lead from the back side or from the front side and try to suck melted lead from the opposite side. Just don’t heat too much or don’t apply too much pressure with the soldering iron because those tiny holes will be damage very easily.
** You can easily identify the +12v side from the white arrow which is focusing the +12v hole. However I used a multimeter and correctly identified the 0v before I do any mistake.
Soldering resistors and the fan connector
After clearing PCB holes, the final step you need to do on your Asus GeForce 210 is soldering SMD resistors and the cooling fan connector to the PCB. The hardest part for me was soldering SMD using a soldering iron and lead wires.
Figures:
1. Cleared PCB holes before complete soldering.
2. Fan connector pins after a good soldering job
3. 3 x ½w SMD resistors are soldered with the soldering iron and lead wires.
Tip: You have to be very careful when you are soldering SMD resistors. If you heat them up too much, they will get damaged and will result an open circuit. Short circuit is okay in this situation
Hint: You can place your SMD resistors with a tweezer and solder them very easily. 2 x ½w resistors will be completely enough to run that small fan; however I ended up with 3 x ½w resistors because, they were heating up.
Preparing the cooler
After completing the soldering process, my next step was preparing my old cooling fan and its heatsink to fit the VGA card nicely and properly without shorting any SMDs that the Asus has already mounted.
Figures:
1. Back side of the dirty VGA cooler just after removing it from the old VGA card.
2. After dissembling the old cooler to several parts for cleaning.
3. Reassembled cooler’s front side of the cooler after a good cleaning job.
4. Back side of the cooler after the cleaning process.
5. A Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) mask (black) is attached to the cooler to avoid short circuits.
6. Since this cooler has only 2 clips, some supports are added to seat the GPU properly.
Tip: You can wash the aluminum heatsink with water or alcohol but, simply wipe your cooling fan’s dust with a soft paint brush or something. Be careful to not to damage cooling fan mechanism or its blades.
Hint: You’ll have to look for SMDs on your VGA card and place that rubber supports at the correct place to not to sit your supports on the PCB (not SMDs). Make sure that the supports are in a good shape (not too short or too high) and your heatsink is making a good contact with the GPU. It’s important to apply some good thermal paste between the GPU and the heatsink for the heat dispersion.
The finished VGA card
Everything is finished and VGA card is ready to test
Here is my Asus GeForce 210 with the upgraded cooler. Everything is nice and clean and I’m having a very light flat VGA card now.
The average temperature of this VGA before upgrade the cooler was 46c and after the upgrade process, it dropped by 4c (about 42c). It’s nearly 3 months for the upgraded Asus GeForce 210 now and it still works fine.
-----
:end:
Previous threads:
1. Laptop batteries rebuild - Re-cell a laptop battery.
2. Save baby Squirrels - My experience.
3. Saving a baby squirrel.
----
exit;
Last edited:
