Hi everyone, thank for checking this out.
I have a 7NIL1 Rev1 I purchased about 6mos ago. I realize that this is hardly an enthusiast board being mATX and all, but the price is right and the stability is there.
I ended up replacing the northbridge active cooler with a Zalman passive heatsink a week ago, as a bearing went in the fan and it was making plenty of noise. When I removed the fan from the northbridge, I noticed that there wasn't any thermal compound at all! No paste or pad! The fan and (ridiculously inadequate) heatsink sat directly against the chip!
I'm just wondering if my early board is unique in this aspect, or (gasp) if all Chaintech boards are like this. With the decent amount of heat the nForce2 puts out, I find Chaintechs solution and application to be grossly inadequate.
On the flipside, the Zalman passive heatsink is a wonderful solution, and of very high quality. Highly recommended especially for the $6 I invested. A great step to take in making your PC noise free (or as close to noise free as possible). Also, the current BIOS update for this board makes the BIOS and Windows 2000 recognize the Northbridge as an nForce Ultra 400 controller. Nice free upgrade there (or misreading of the chip).
Thanks for the great forum everyone.
-Evan-
I have a 7NIL1 Rev1 I purchased about 6mos ago. I realize that this is hardly an enthusiast board being mATX and all, but the price is right and the stability is there.
I ended up replacing the northbridge active cooler with a Zalman passive heatsink a week ago, as a bearing went in the fan and it was making plenty of noise. When I removed the fan from the northbridge, I noticed that there wasn't any thermal compound at all! No paste or pad! The fan and (ridiculously inadequate) heatsink sat directly against the chip!
I'm just wondering if my early board is unique in this aspect, or (gasp) if all Chaintech boards are like this. With the decent amount of heat the nForce2 puts out, I find Chaintechs solution and application to be grossly inadequate.
On the flipside, the Zalman passive heatsink is a wonderful solution, and of very high quality. Highly recommended especially for the $6 I invested. A great step to take in making your PC noise free (or as close to noise free as possible). Also, the current BIOS update for this board makes the BIOS and Windows 2000 recognize the Northbridge as an nForce Ultra 400 controller. Nice free upgrade there (or misreading of the chip).
Thanks for the great forum everyone.
-Evan-
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