How important is the Motherboard fan?

[krackato]

My motherboard fan started making a horrible scratching noise. I took it off and obviously the noise was gone and I was wondering if I have to replace it. Obviously I know it's the prudent thing to do and I'm currently using another rig while I find out the answer. It's not the money, but if I can save time and reduce the noise in my computer by removing the fan, that'd be awesome.

Anyway, the processor is an Athlon 1ghz if that helps.

thanks,
Krackato

 

[MDE]

I have a KT266a board that the northbridge fan died on and I just took it off. It's perfectly stable without the fan and the tiny little heatsink that Epox used, and barely gets warm.

 

[krackato]

Bump. Anyone else?

 

[HGC]

I was tired of the fan noise, so I put on a Zalman northbridge heatsink just to be safe. Costs $6.00 and it's easy to just glue it on.

http://www.siliconacoustics.com/zmnb32js.html

 

[krackato]

Thanks HGC. That's awesome. I'm going to see if I can get it at Frys without having to pay $5 shipping, but even $11 is cheap for peace of mind.

 

[jrphoenix]

Originally posted by: MDE
I have a KT266a board that the northbridge fan died on and I just took it off. It's perfectly stable without the fan and the tiny little heatsink that Epox used, and barely gets warm.

Same here... I have an epox KT266a and my little fan died. I dind't take it off, just left it there. My system runs completely stable so it must not get that hot?

 

[JulesMaximus]

Did you just take the fan off or did you take the heatsink off with it? If you took the heatsink off it might not be good idea to run it like that.

I have a Gigabyte motherboard with an Athlon XP 2800+ and the fan died within a week of installing it in my system. Never had a problem with it though. I just left it on there. It isn't spinning so it isn't making any noise.