About to order a NF7-S. Got a few questions before hand.

[Hanzou]

I have heard that the northbridge fan can be a little loud so I thoguh about replacing it with this Zalman ZM-NB47J NORTHBRIDGE COOLER. Is the fan really that loud and how much cooler will this Zalman keep it?

Also, I am looking into getting some rounded IDE cables but am not sure if they are really worth the money. I guess they keep the clutter down a bit which is nice. Any reason to stay away from the generic brand ones?

Last question, I like how my old A7N8X deluxe had that Q-fan thing that would lower the RPM of the CPu fan. It really keplt it a lot quieter for the winter when my room is cold anyway. I do not think that the NF7 has a feature like this but is there software that would let me do this instead of having to buy a fan controller?

Thank you.

 

[SickBeast]

1. No.

2. Rounded IDE cables are a waste of money. They apparently can cause data corruption.

3. I don't think software exists to control fan speed on motherboards which do not support the feature within the BIOS.

 

[kd2777]

I have heard a lot of complains about the northbridge on these, but mine has been just fine. I was all ready to replace it when I bought it, but after I set it up, it wasn't bad. I've had mine for almost a year and the stock unit is still on it.

KD

 

[Elcs]

My NF7-S has been running my T'Bred B 1700+ at 200x11 and then my Moblie Barton 2500+ at 200x11.5 since it came out of the box in May 03.

I havent had a single problem with the northbridge.

I dont use rounded cables.

I dont know. My fans dont have RPM sensing and are powered directly from the PSU.

My dads machine has been running the T'Bred B above at 166xWhatever to get around 2ghz and has been running that solid since he fried my really old Palomino 1800+ and my EPoX 8KHA+ which was about 6 months ago I guess and he uses an NF7-S.

Just make sure you get a Rev 2.0. It'd be quite hard not to get a 2.0 but make sure you do.

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
1. No.

2. Rounded IDE cables are a waste of money. They apparently can cause data corruption.

3. I don't think software exists to control fan speed on motherboards which do not support the feature within the BIOS.

me never liked rounded cables either, but then again Im kinda paranoid


D

 

[ROcHE]

I had problem with my northbridge fan. Nothing a drop of oil couldnt take care of.

 

[dennisjai215]

my northbridge was whining once.. then i punched it.. and VOILA it works fine now =D

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: dennisjai215
my northbridge was whining once.. then i punched it.. and VOILA it works fine now =D

I had my v-card whine for a while, punched it and it stopped... working


D

 

[dennisjai215]

Originally posted by: ZL1

Originally posted by: dennisjai215
my northbridge was whining once.. then i punched it.. and VOILA it works fine now =D

I had my v-card whine for a while, punched it and it stopped... working


D

hahahaha thats too bad.. i kick my comp alot cause my 4 year 40 gig hd whines once in a while
but i guess im lucky that nothing broke =D

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: dennisjai215

Originally posted by: ZL1

Originally posted by: dennisjai215
my northbridge was whining once.. then i punched it.. and VOILA it works fine now =D

I had my v-card whine for a while, punched it and it stopped... working


D

hahahaha thats too bad.. i kick my comp alot cause my 4 year 40 gig hd whines once in a while
but i guess im lucky that nothing broke =D

nah it was ok, it was a tnt2 card running in a p4 machine
I really needed to upgrade and this made me go and buy a new card


D

 

[KnickNut3]

No problem with rounded IDE cables here <knocks on wood>

 

[waitman]

1. Mine is loud as hell especially on bootup. Been meaning to replace it.

2. using rounded cables for the last 5 or 6 months no problems, so far knocks on wood also!

 

[Azsen]

Data corruption with rounded IDE cables?! Can you go into more detail please?

Edit: Nevermind, I did a bit of reading and it seems the rounded IDE cables that are longer than the specified IDE length can cause data corruption. It seems to be okay if the cables are kept to the same length as the IDE spec, the ground wires are mixed properly and the cable is slightly shielded.

 

[FrustratedUser]

My northbridge fan is crapping out. It's noisy as hell on start up. Tried to oil it and it lasted for a few days.
I need a new fan.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: KnickNut3
No problem with rounded IDE cables here <knocks on wood>

Same here, in either of my systems. <knocks on head>

Data corruption with rounded IDE cables?! ?! Are you sure? Can you go into more detail please?

Some poorly made cables can introduce noise into the wires - they used to be made as just a mess of wires packed into a tube. That put all the cables right next to each other, introducing electrical noise. Nowadays they use twisted pairs, which is used in network cables to reduce noise; some also use braided shielding. I don't know if it works as well in IDE cables though. Mine (bought at SVC.com) seem to be working just fine.


Anyone with loud/dying fans - one quick fix is to remove the fan itself, take the label off the back to expose the bearing, and put a drop of 3-in-1 oil into it, and tape it closed.
Motherboard (and videocard) companies often use crappy sleeve bearing fans on their chipsets, which tend to die fairly quickly. Generic PSU's also come with junky fans that'll start groaning after only a few months. Some companies can make decent sleeve bearing fans - Panaflo has their "hydrowave" sleeve bearing fans, which are really quite good. And there are always good old ball bearing fans.

 

[Elcs]

The biggest problem I have with my NF7-S'es is that they are Socket A

I wish I could take them across to the A64 line.

 

[Megatomic]

The fan on my new NF7-S R2 was loud right out of the box. I bought a Zalman NB47J the next day. No more noise. I never used the stock cooler on my old NF7-S R2 either, I bought it used and it came with a Zalman NB32J.

And I've never had any problem with rounded cables. I think most people had problems with them back in the "old days" when we had to round them ourselves. If you buy them factory rounded they should be fine.

 

[ponyo]

The fan on northbridge is very whiney. I'm not silentPC user by any means and don't mind little noise but that fan is annoying. But I still haven't replaced it so I guess it's not annoying enough.

 

[Trey22]

I'll be replacing my NB fan just because it seems to not spin up all the time. I'm sure the Zalman unit will keep it a few degrees cooler after applying some Arctic Silver.

I've used all kinds of rounded cables and have never had a problem with them... not really sure how to tell the generic from the high quality ones, probably by making sure they are shielded.

You would need to hook up the HSF to a fan controller and disable some settings in the BIOS to keep the system from shutting down (due to the mobo not seeing a HSF).

 

[Hanzou]

I decided not to buy rounded cables right now. Maybe I will buy them at a later time when I get some cable braiding for my tangle of wires. I decided to get the Zalman passive heatsink for the northbridge. I ahve seen people who say that it cools better then the stck fan. It was only $10 canadian so I may as well give it a shot, will keep the noise of the system down a bit.