Can anyone help me identify what this heatsink fan connector does?

[ViciousRaptor]

I am currently in the process of replacing an Nvidia Tesla M40's passive heatsink with a dual fan MSI 1080Ti one; the purpose of this mod is to keep the temperature of the GPU at a reasonable level without making my workstation the loudest appliance in the neighborhood. The heatsink came with these 3 connectors, two of which I'm assuming are mini-4 pin molex GPU fan ones, which I'm gonna extend to my fan hub via an adapter. My question is, what does this two-pin connector (circled in red) actually do? Do I need to have it plugged in for the fans to work properly?






I also found out that the GPU, despite not having any fan connectors on the board, actually does have a two pin socket that fits that connector perfectly (circled in green), although it's positioned in such a way that the cable won't be able to reach it once installed. In case I do need it, can it be plugged in there via an extension of sorts or is that one a different thing?



Thanks in advance for any help or replies!

[mariushm]

Considering it's just two wires, probably goes to some led on the plastic making a logo glow, or something like that.

[PDifolco]

3 minutes ago, ViciousRaptor said:

I am currently in the process of replacing an Nvidia Tesla M40's passive heatsink with a dual fan MSI 1080Ti one; the purpose of this mod is to keep the temperature of the GPU at a reasonable level without making my workstation the loudest appliance in the neighborhood. The heatsink came with these 3 connectors, two of which I'm assuming are mini-4 pin molex GPU fan ones, which I'm gonna extend to my fan hub via an adapter. My question is, what does this two-pin connector (circled in red) actually do? Do I need to have it plugged in for the fans to work properly?






I also found out that the GPU, despite not having any fan connectors on the board, actually does have a two pin socket that fits that connector perfectly (circled in green), although it's positioned in such a way that the cable won't be able to reach it once installed. In case I do need it, can it be plugged in there via an extension of sorts or is that one a different thing?



Thanks in advance for any help or replies!

Rather check where the cable does originate from, may be a fan header or some useless gadget...

 

[Poinkachu]

Most likely that's for Logoand/or flair  illumination

 

 

 

[Needfuldoer]

I'm not sure that heatsink is going to adequately cool the power stages on that card. Every spot on the passive heatsink that has a thermal pad on it needs additional cooling.

 

Do you have the budget to replace the card with something else? I know Tesla M40s are cheap, but they're cheap for a reason. A 12 GB 3060 would run circles around it.

[ViciousRaptor]

Thank you all for your replies!

 

25 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Considering it's just two wires, probably goes to some led on the plastic making a logo glow, or something like that.

 

20 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Most likely that's for Logoand/or flair  illumination

That seems like the most likely scenario. Many thanks!
 

7 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

I'm not sure that heatsink is going to adequately cool the power stages on that card. Every spot on the passive heatsink that has a thermal pad on it needs additional cooling.

 

Do you have the budget to replace the card with something else? I know Tesla M40s are cheap, but they're cheap for a reason. A 12 GB 3060 would run circles around it.

Thanks for your concern! I am planning on keeping the metal backplate with all of its thermal pads on the GPU, as well as placing M.2 low profile heatsinks and thermal pads on the ones on the front, underneath the GPU heatsink itself (already checked for clearance).

As for the GPU itself, I am using this one on my Proxmox workstation via passthrough to run several gaming VMs for my friends and family at the same time, and as such my use case requires me to have access to Nvidia's vGPU drivers which are only available on enterprise-grade cards to the best of my knowledge.

[Dabombinable]

@ViciousRaptor

I'd have gone for a founders edition cooler, mainly the one from the 980ti:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-gtx-980-ti.c2724

Same GPU (just cut down) and the same PCB.
 

My Inno3D GTX 1070 actually has effectively the same solution you are attempting from the factory - reference PCB with a cooler designed by them attatched. As soon as the fan providing most of the air over the memory started failing I started to see artifacts and the card locked up. Misarranging the fans on the heatsink has the same effect, so I wouldn't recommend it.

[Thaldor]

It's most likely for the shroud lights. The one 4-pin connector alone is for RGB on the logo and the 4-pin connector with the thicker cables (close to the 2-pin connector) is for the fans.