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Is 100 percent the maximum SAFE speed for the fan to run at? Or if I set it to higher than normal, does it cause huge wear and tear and/or burn out the fan?

yeah. 100% basically means its max speed. you wont burn anything out. however, its up to you as it may make a lot more noise, depending on the cooler. personally, i dont care, and id set it to 100% anyway.

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RivaTuner doesn't seem to be up to date for the latest Nvidia drivers, so I get an error message about that. It does seem to run fine though, so I'm not sure what to make of the complaint. Could it cause a problem?

well youre only chaning fan speeds. i would be cautious about overclocking, but other than that it should be fine.

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EDIT: Also, my new PC case has a fan speed controller on the front panel. I didn't have the right connector to make it control the GPU, which is why I'm using RivaTuner. But I can control the case fans and the CPU fan. But what speeds should I be using? Can a fan speed controller set the fans to run TOO fast? For example, my CPU fan is an 120mm fan. What kind of RPM should that be using? The speed controller seems to say it's normally at 1600RPM. Just ONE touch of the "increase speed" button causes it to increase to 2300RPM. Is that speed safe? it seems a bit high. ;;
It certainly improves the system temperatures though... What setting should I be using? Or how do I find out?

again, youre fine. if you put it over its limit, it would most likely burn out in a very short time. and those speeds seem normal for a 120mm anyway.

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(Weird... it seems that after it went up to 2300 it then slowly decreased back to the original 1600RPM. Maybe there's meant to be something you press to lock it at the higher speed...)

that is something that bothers me as well. i think there must be something else controlling it. for example, i try putting my fan speeds to 100% on speedfan, and they go back to their automatic ones after about two or three seconds. nothing in the BIOS about it for me, but do you have any auto fan speed control in your BIOS? turning it off should give you full control.

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One thing I do wonder... Why does the speed controller only give me 1200rpm max for my case fans, but 2300rpm for the CPU fan? Surely it can't magically detect that they're different? I don't see how... That said, they're all 120mm fans, so I wonder what the difference IS.

depends. firstly, if the case fans are sleeve bearing, then they wont work well when upright, hence the reason i never recommend them. if theyre ball bearing, and youve had them for a long time, then the bearings could be wearing out.

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This makes me curious though. If a fan speed controller can't make the fan go over it's limit, then how WOULD you do that? Not that I want to. Noooo sir.

not sure. no ones ever asked me that. i dont think they would sell controllers that 'overdrive' them, if you will, because the limit is the limit, after which it would surely burn out. in fact, putting in more voltage on a motor than it can handle can sometimes result in slower speeds...when i was younger i played with electronics and tried that with a little motor...yeah, some childhood huh

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As for the case fans, I know bugger all about what bearings they use. The companies who send out the cases never tell you any useful information like that. In fact, I didn't even know the case was going to show up with a built in 120mm case fan and the fan controller unit. For the price, I'd only expected the case and the huge 400mm fan.

alright then, a simple way to test whether they are sleeve or ball bearing - remove the fan from its grille, but keep it plugged in. turn the computer on and open up speedfan. orient the fan horizontally and vertically. do you notice any significant change in the rpm while on auto speeds and 100% speeds?

unless there is a model number on the sticker, then i dont think there is much youll find out.

theres a checkbox under, or near the cpu load meters. its on the first screen you see, you cant miss it.

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What exactly do you mean by GPU cooler? The 8800GTX comes with a great big cooling unit by default. It's a heatsink on the processor, linked to a really BIG heatsink by a heatpipe. There's a fan that blows air over the heatsinks.

what comes with the GPU is its stock cooler, which is usually more than enough. however, you can, if you want, get a better GPU cooler. Here are neweggs video card coolers.

i havent played crysis, but my point stands for every game really - im more than happy with 800x600 in FPS games. maybe on some id go as high as 1024x768, but thats about it. i dont really see much of a point in going for higher resolutions unless you have large screens.

well there doesnt seem to be a giant heatsink on most cards using stock coolers anyway. i think its just different material, different shapes, and more powerful (and larger) fans.

id assume there are categories for what coolers are compatible with what, but for the most part, they should be compatible with a wide range of cards. i guess youd need to look at each product.

uhhhh, probably with some welding, but i wouldnt be too sure on that...besides, youre going on about space issues with a heatsink and fan, but a massive heatsink on another heatsink is no problem for you?

by the way, i think those massive heatsinks are called passive coolers.

shite, that is big. however, if you have a small fan, about 80mm or so, you can hot-glue it to the back of your card right where the processor is, and it will help cool a lot...as long as you hot glue in a way that it allows gaps for air to leave from the sides. a member here did that but i dont know where the thread went.

yeah the hot glue doesnt conduct electricity. also, the bigger the fan, the bigger its hub. this is a problem, because placing the fan smack over the processor wont do anything, so youll need to offset it to the left or right on larger fans. the smaller the better (but not too small of course - im talking fan sizes like the stock ones on CPU's 10 years ago.

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What I'm not super happy about is having a really hot glue gun on my card.

And for that matter... What stops the card from MELTING the glue. I don't know how hot the glue's melting point is.

you have the PCB in the way of the processor, so its not going to damage the processor. also, youre not applying the hot glue right underneath the processor. youre applying it in the four corners where the fan would be. and i dont know what the melting point of hot glue is, but it should sustain high temps, especially when there is a fan near it (the fan would also end up cooling the glue).

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I've actually managed to overclock the GTX now. Not too far, not far enough to heat it up more noticably. I find myself wondering why anyone bothers. It doesnt seem to make much difference.

well thats the problem. you did a very tiny overclock. of course youre not going to notice much, if anything. tiny overclocks are simply going to give you, probably half a second shorter loading times or something. the sweet stuff is in the higher overclocks.

that is a significant overclock on the core speed. however, im confused with what you aid there, and then what you said in the next paragraph...did the overclock work or not? because with those numbers, it should have had a noticeable change.

would be easier if you had some kind of benchmarking software. do you know of any, or should i suggest some for you?

what was already on the pc? the game or the benchmarking software you were talking about?

well thats a good enough improvement. you got more frames per second, even if they were only 3 or 4, and overall, its a good improvement. if your heat is holding out fine, then id say you did a good job.