MSI K8N Neo4 Ultra Northbridge Fan

[amol]

could be, i'm looking for PASSIVE cooling to get of the noise altogether

 

[Painman]

Hey Amol, I ordered that stuff I was talking about in the other thread... should get here Fri or Sat via USPS Priority. What vid card to you have? Does its cooler overhang the stock NB unit significantly?

 

[amol]

its a BB ATi X800XT

the cooler is NOT over the NB fan . . . a little bit off to the side

 

[Painman]

Originally posted by: Amol
its a BB ATi X800XT

the cooler is NOT over the NB fan . . . a little bit off to the side

Good, I looked at a pic... if I can get an NB32J + fan to fit w/my setup, you'll be able to get the NB47J on yours I'm quite sure.

 

[snapgt]

Have any of you looked at the Gigabyte GA-K8N ULTRA-9 nForce4 Ultra board? They seem to use a passive cooling solution for the chipset. I'm wondering if heat is an issue, but I have not found any reviews that address this.

-snap-

 

[amol]

Originally posted by: Painman

Originally posted by: Amol
its a BB ATi X800XT

the cooler is NOT over the NB fan . . . a little bit off to the side

Good, I looked at a pic... if I can get an NB32J + fan to fit w/my setup, you'll be able to get the NB47J on yours I'm quite sure.

all right, i'll take your advice

you're accountable if it doesnt work JK JK

now to find a store that also sells panaflos and zalman cpu heatsinks along with the NB47J so i can get good shipping price

 

[Angry Kid]

My NB fan started out quiet, but lately has started to sound like a Dust Buster®.

I've done what a few others have mentioned - I attached a Zalman FanMate2 (and :laugh: @ fanboi) in-line. Cranking the speed down from 7,300 rpm (!!!) to ~4,000 rpm made it virtually inaudible and once I replaced my side panel, I couldn't hear it at all.

Under full gaming load, my chip temp only rose 2°C @ 4,000 rpm, maxing out at around 42°.

That said, I've ordered a Vantec CCB-A1C for when the inevitable fan-death occurs. :roll:

 

[Toley]

I also bought a MSI k8n Diamond and I'm very dissapointed it doesn't show the chipset temperature in SpeedFan. It's a very noisy fan and it's getting noisier all the time. Is there any word from MSI yet how they are to resolve this problem? No BIOS update? There must be a temperature sensor underneath the nforce 4 chipset because some other motherboards have the ability to monitor it

(e.g. DFI lanparty, I would buy that one next time, it's cheaper as well and has loads of options - including 3 fan speed controllers - why the hell doesn't MSI connect those fan connectors to the I/O chip, but just two????).

So is there any progress or should I return this motherboard? Thanks

 

[bbtaco]

How are you reading the northbridge temp? I have a Neo4-F and the temp doesn't show in core center.

 

[Toley]

I can't read temps of the northbridge (nforce4) either. I there any way of doing this with this board?

Is there some piece of hardware available (PCI card or something) that enables you to read temps and speeds in SpeedFan? And to change speeds?

Otherwise I 'll get the DFI lanparty...

 

[J0hnny]

The noise from that fan reminds me of the delta days when everyone was putting 7000 RPM fans on their CPUs!

 

[Auz]

On my MSI k8n neo4 platinum (non-sli), I replaced my stock hsf with a zalman nb47j and some as5. I had to remove two of the fins to allow for a capacitor on the video card (XFX geforce 6600 GT), but it fit better than I thougth it would (certainly better than with that ATI card). Also, when I removed the old stock cooler, I took the standoff, the [] square sticker+padding that goes around the core, and applied it to my zalman. It seems to serve two purposes, stopping electrical contact between the hsf and the exposed resistors, and stopping asymmetrical pressure from damaging the chip. I haven't heard much about this, is everyone else using the replacements without the standoff?
Here are some pics of the fit:

http://www.bl0w.net/images/auz/zalmannb-overview.jpg

http://www.bl0w.net/images/auz/zalmannb-closeup.jpg
You can just make out in this pic the black capacitor that I had to make room for.

http://www.bl0w.net/images/auz/zalmannb-topview.jpg

http://www.bl0w.net/images/auz/zalmannb-sidefan.jpg
With a fan.

I took temp reading with the stock HSF, but the fan being where it is, pretty much rules out any meaningful numbers as you have to measure from the edge - it was 32 deg C.

http://www.bl0w.net/images/auz/zalmannb-nofan.jpg

With passive cooling only (except whatever draft is coming from the video cooler- which isnt much), at 100% load, it gets up to 45.1 C max (as measured with my thermocouple from the center of the heatsink)

http://www.bl0w.net/images/auz/zalmannb-fan.jpg

With a small 40MM fan placed on the side and running on the slowest speed that a zalman fanmate 2 controler will allow, I get about 34C.

A small fan does make a large difference from my tests. With the fan controler I cannot even hear it. However, I would think that either of these temperatures are acceptable. It is not overly hot to the touch with either setup - and I cannot imaging this being worse cooling than that tiny stock hsf.

-auz