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     The video cards of yester-year are still found in many systems spanning the globe. When the owners of these systems spend more time doing homework or netsurfing and cranking out email, upgrading the video card to a modern day pixel-pumping bandit is probably not on the priority list. The card still works fine and could probably chug its way through some of today's entertainment titles. While the card may be a little old, they still function properly to put an image on the screen, there is an electromechanical device which is very prone to failure.

     Sooner or later, whether third party or factory installed, all fans fail. Video card and motherboard chipset fans lead the pack mostly because of their small size. As dirt collects on the blades and finds its way into the motor housing, the already low power motor has a much more difficult time rotating. Eventually, the fan fails because the motor burns itself out. So, while it may seem second nature to replace a fan because its not spinning, it's also a good idea to do it for safety reasons too. There is a chance (although a small one) that the coils in the fan can short out because they are still being energized with voltage and the brushes or contacts aren't moving. A short on a motherboard can cause any number of unstable conditions, and could even start a fire.

     For the owners of these Aged Yet Functional video cards, a heat-pipe cooler could be a two-fold answer. Offering a very efficient cooling solution while eliminating the need for a fan. Aero Cool has a kit they call the VM-101 which is pictured above next to our test subject - the GeForce4 Ti4200. The installation instructions are very clear, and depending on your particular video card - you'll only need one Philips Head screwdriver to put the whole contraption together.

     The cooler took about 15 minutes to install from beginning to end, and that includes the time it took to get the factory cooler removed. The instructions break installation down to 12 steps and the best part was that no one single step required me to play any kind of balancing act while I mated or prepared pieces. The block fits very snug to the GPU by way of a very ingenious  spring-arm system. The heat pipes are held in place by a sandwich-action created by the heat sink (thermal transfer block) and a top plate, which is all bolted together.

     The job is complete when the shielding plate is installed. The whole contraption may take up more space than a compact fan and heatsink, but it requires no power-source and there are no moving parts - and no noise. Once its installed you can literally just forget about it.

     The AeroCool VM-101 performed flawlessly on the GeForce4 Ti4200. The card was installed and nVidia Detonator v61.77 drivers were used with no changes made to the cards clock settings. A few sample benchmarks were ran with 3DMark 2003 as well as the mandatory game play with titles such as: Battlefield 1942 and Command and Conquer Generals. While it may be totally possible to squeeze a few more frames per second out of this card by Overclocking it, the performance of the card was only rated based upon stability. I didn't notice any artifacts and none of my games dumped me to the desktop. I'll call the AeroCool VM-101 installation and performance a success.
 

*** AeroCool rates the VM-101 capable of cooling the nVidia 5900 and the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro.