Nvidia Tesla Blower Duct

thingiverse

Hello all! For any of you out there whom may have an interest in using old Nvidia datacenter GPU's in your desktop, but don't have a cooling solution that is either effective or quiet enough for your needs, this may be of use to you. If you don't know what I am talking about or are confused as to why anyone would ever want to use old sever GPU's in their pc, then I would like to direct you to [this forum thread](https://forum.level1techs.com/t/gaming-on-my-tesla-more-likely-than-you-think/171185), but to briefly explain it, you can get rather powerful graphics cards with lots of vram for very cheap, with the only downside being that they don't have built in fans, rather relying on the built-in chassis fans of the sever they are installed in for cooling. This duct is designed to bolt onto back of the card using existing mounting threads and have the blower fan slot in tool-less. The fan used is a blower from a Dell Optiplex. The fan is used in various models, and is made by different manufacturers, but searching "optiplex 9010 fan" should get you the right result. A picture of the one I used is provided for comparison as the duct was designed for this specific fan and will not fit others. It should also be noted that this fan uses a proprietary connector and pinout, so an adapter or re-pinning of the connector will be necessary to use in a standard pc. The cable is quite short so you will likely need an extension cable regardless. Removing each pin can be done with a push-pin, paperclip, or similarly fine-tipped tool to depress the metal tabs that retain each receptacle and pulling the wire simultaneously. Be careful to only press as hard as needed, otherwise the tab will be bent out of shape and will need to bent upwards to allow it to lock into place when reinserted. Pictures are given above showing before and after re-pinning, with the order of the re-pinned connector being blue, white/yellow, red, black (white and yellow are used interchangeably on these fans). This configuration should fit on motherboard fan headers (just be sure to make certain the order of the pins are correct first), but inserting into extension cable with enclosed housings will require cutting off the blank fifth pin on the housing, and likely the retaining clip as well. For further clarification on how how to rearrange the pins, please refer to online resources. Just to temper expectations the fan will not be dead-silent; at minimum speed with PWM the fan is still spinning in excess of 1k RPM (you could probably get it lower with dc control if your motherboard supports it), so it will be audible at idle, though still far quieter than solutions using 40mm axial fans. As for compatible GPU's, this duct was designed for a Tesla M40, but should be compatible with the K80, M60, M40, P40, P100, and V100. Essentially any card that uses that same shroud design as the M40 along with the 3 mounting threads and a single EPS 8-pin on the back. Printing-wise this part was designed to be printed with the fan insert face-down, though supports will still be necessary. I had good results with tree supports (Cura) and found support interface to be a must in order for the supports to release and leave a decent surface finish on the inside. Hope this helps!