how important is northbridge fan?

[lozina]

I've got an Epox 8KHA+ motherboard, and the fan over the heatsink started making some annoying noise so I tried to clean it out but it actually didnt help. I used an air compressor to blow off clods of dust and I was sure it would sound great but alas, it wasn't the dust. So can I just do without this fan? It's got a heatsink on it... at least for a week until a new fan gets delivered

 

[Todd33]

I bought a passive northbridge heatsink, seems to work fine.

 

[Davegod]

probably be fine if you just unplug it until the new one gets delivered, aslong as not overclocking blah blah (though you might prefer to go for a passive NB 'sink like those Zalman jobs anyway).

 

[Cerb]

The fan on the Northbridge is very important. It is a great weakpoint in many motherboards, as they would be better off with a larger, passive heatsink. If you have aome air going over it from the CPU HSF, you're probably OK, but I can't say a NB32j or NB47j woud be a bad buy.

 

[InlineFive]

NB32J all the way.

 

[Jhhnn]

The fan is a marketing gimmick, like racing stripes on a Pinto. I figure the chintzy hsf's used for the purpose are probably cheaper than a decent sink... Look around, you'll notice that many boards with that same NB chip have no fan, many don't even have much of a heatsink, either. The Zalmans are inexpensive, and work great. Never fuss with it again. the worst part is removing the board to mount the new sink, after that, it's all good...

 

[Anubis]

i have teh same mobo and my fan stopped spinning liek 6 months ago, comp was still fine, but yes it did die compleatly on tusday because the mobo blew a capasitor , thoes 2 arnt related tho

 

[Nucleus111]

I used on of the Zalmans to replace a failing fan on an Asus A7V133 and the temp went down about 1-2 deg. On Zalmans site though they highly discourage using these sinks on any chipset with integrated graphics. Has anyone tried before and what were the results?

 

[Big Lar]

IMHO, If you are running games/ overclocking/ or doind intensive graphics, then you need to cool the NB. If not, take your chances at a BSOD.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Big Lar
IMHO, If you are running games/ overclocking/ or doind intensive graphics, then you need to cool the NB. If not, take your chances at a BSOD.

was running my Xp1700+ @ 1.7GHz for a long time when my fan didnt work, no BSODs for me

 

[Jhhnn]

Here's a link to an Asus IGP board- no fan on the NB heatsink... Yeh, it's big, so are the zalmans...

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-483&depa=1

 

[bootoo]

I'm with biglar on this; overclocking, use a fan. And passive s/bridge cooling so you won't get messed up issues there.

 

[jeece]

Meh, even on an overclocked system, if there's good airflow around/through it, a passive northbridge cooler should work fine IMHO. Temps may rise higher than with active, of course, but not by much.

 

[Dman877]

The fan on my nf7 has been unplugged from day one and it's been running fine for 2 years now. It has been oc'd but never for long periods of time.

 

[jhurst]

1000's of people use the Asus P4P800 and it doesn't have a NB fan. Just a regular heatsink. And people OC the hell outta those boards. I have an IC7 with a fan....and am seriously considering switching to the Zalman heatsink. I just don't want to have to spend money and time on something that won't help out my performance. I'm just too lazy for that :beer:

 

[lozina]

great, thanks for all your replies, i decided to order the zalman heatsink and will install that (doh gotta strip out the mobo again!). now if only my video card didnt have a small fan on it then my system would be nearly silent!

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: lozina
great, thanks for all your replies, i decided to order the zalman heatsink and will install that (doh gotta strip out the mobo again!). now if only my video card didnt have a small fan on it then my system would be nearly silent!

Just buy a Zalman heatpipe or something similar while you're at it!

 

[saxophonoia]

Yeah it's not that crucial really to have it. I just kept the stock heatsink on my a7n8x-deluxe and took a stock amd fan, used doublestick and put it on the heatsink. You can't see the double stick and it actually looks pretty decent.