Anyone know which chipset HSF fits on KT7?

[Scrounger]

Got a chipset fan in one of my systems howling. It's on an Abit KT7 and when I pulled the Abit sticker off there is no hole for oiling as I have found on some fans. I had a blue orb laying around but I found that the holes on it are on a 55 mm diameter circle while the mounting holes on the motherboard are on a 60 mm diameter circle. Anyone know if there are any coolers out there that will work to replace the chipset cooler?

I don't want to use epoxy and find out a few months down the road that I need to replace it again. I'd probably pull the north bridge off the board trying to remove it.

I posted this as a reply in another thread but didn't seem to get much action, so here it is with it's very own topic.

 

[cookieman]

Hi!

I know very well the KT7 board. I used to own one but now I have a KT7A.
I think it would be a very good idea to remove the small HSF altogether from the NorthBridge. The HS is very small and the fan on can get very noisy in very short time. I used an old pentium's HSF on the NorthBridge. I cut a little from the corners (it got almoust hexagonal) to fit between the condensators on the MB and installed it instead of the old one. Also when you remove that one you'll notice how little silicon paste is between the chip and the HSF (poor job Abit !!!). Put more paste to improve the cooling of the chip whatever HSF you put back on it .

To remove the HSF you can try to force the 2 white tabs out of their place or on the MB's other side push them a little to pop out. The 2 white tabs are the only things keeping the HSF on the NB. But be carefull whatever you do to not harm the MB. It's better if you get the whole MB outside the case for the mod.

If you want to install anoter HSF you must improvise something to keep the new HSF in good contact with the NB. I used some some 3-4mm thick steel wire and with the 2 white tabs I managed to put the pentium fan on the NB. I superglued the 2 white tabs to the MB so they don't come off (because of the increased weight of HS). The 50mm fan from the pentium's HS it was more quiet and i guess it's gona last much more than the small fan.

Remember, whatever you do be very gentle to the MB.

Or

If you remove the poor little FAN from the HSF it it possible that the hole is on the otherside and not the upper side of the fan You can oil there if you want but I would replace the whole thing if I were you. There must be one hole, you know

Cheers,

 

[Scrounger]

Thanks for the idea, cookieman. You know, I hadn't even thought about the do-it-yourself gig. I do have a collection of obsolete parts (mostly heat sinks that the fans went bad on) but I might be able to cobble something together. Of course if it takes much more than half an hour I feel I would be better off buying something for $10 or $15 US. My time is valuable.

There was only a tiny dollop of zinc oxide thermal paste on the stock Abit job. I guess it is better than nothing but why even bother? A lot of people say that the NB chip isn't very flat anyway and I'd had to get in there to lap it. For now I just unplugged the fan because I was starting to hear it in other rooms of the house. The system seems to be stable enough, but I think I'd like to replace it with something.

 

[FlowerMan]

I put a Global Win FA420 on my bro's KT7E. Affixed with Arctic Alumina Thermal Epoxy.

 

[Jhhnn]

Might check out the Zalman passive chipset sink from 2cooltek. Do it once and never again- dead silent, too....

 

[Scrounger]

Yeah if I'm gonna epoxy anything on a motherboard I think it would be either heat sink only (like the aforementioned zalman) or something with a common fan screwed onto it so that if it the fan goes I can just pull one out of the junk drawer and be done with it.

Besides, if this thing is running fine with that pathetic little stock heat sink and no fan, a good heat sink like the Zalman should do nicely.

 

[cookieman]

Hi!

One thing I noticed with my setup. Despite the fact that the HS on the NB is huge compared to the old little one and the Fan is also larger
the HS is pretty warm to the touch. I would not run this whitout a FAN, but that's just me.

Cheers,

 

[Jen]

could try just replaceing the fan. i used a generic amd heatsink and drilled some holes in the heatsink to line up with holes for motherboard. then used nylon screws to hold it down


Jen

 

[FlowerMan]

Like this?

 

[GeekSupportCom]

ROFL that's insane.

question about applying AS2 on chipset/vid. should we cover the whole chip or just the majority of the chip? I got some ASII coming and wanna use it on anything i can.

my gf3 card (Gainward) came with it's own thermal paste--a lot more generous than abit's rain-drop. I read that ASII will not be as effective because these pastes have gotten into the little "holes" of the hs, is there any way to remove them from the hole so ASII can work at max eff?

if you say to "lap" them, what tools do you use to do this?