NF7-S owners: Anyone replace the NB fan with a passive HS?

[MichaelD]

Like this one?

It's been awhile since I've had a mobo w/an active chipset cooler. It's been my experience that after about 6-9 months of 24/7 operation, they get dry and squeaky.

I also know that essentially any mobo manfufactuer puts zero effort and even less T.I.M. b/t the chipset cooler and the HS. I saw this most recently on my 8RDA+. There was a TINY piece of pink TIM on there and it was barely making contact with the HS!!! After replacing the TIM w/AS3, I could OC much higher and the HS got hot instead of just warm.

So, after that bigass story.

Have you replaced the active chipset cooler w/something like a Zalman?

 

[Megatomic]

Yes, I used the older Zalman NB heatsink. The gold one. It works great.

 

[MichaelD]

Hi pal. The old, gold one has no mounting holes/tabs. I assume you epoxied it on there? AS Epoxy or facsimile?

 

[Megatomic]

The gold one I have has the same rails on the bottom that the new blue one does. It mounts the same way from what I can tell.

I have this one.

And I used Antec Reference as the thermal interface compound. It's a good combination, my board is very stable.

 

[hytek369]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Hi pal. The old, gold one has no mounting holes/tabs. I assume you epoxied it on there? AS Epoxy or facsimile?

you can use thermal tape too

 

[JustStarting]

mine's passive, but it has water flowing through it??

 

[screw3d]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
The gold one I have has the same rails on the bottom that the new blue one does. It mounts the same way from what I can tell.

I have this one.

And I used Antec Reference as the thermal interface compound. It's a good combination, my board is very stable.

Sweet. I have 2 of the same thing after peeling them off my old 8RDA+. I'll be doing that at the next opportunity

 

[Insane3D]

Here's what I did to mine..

Northbridge and southbridge passive cooling...

Northbridge close-up...

The heatsink is only $5 here.

How's it going Michael? I see we had a MichaelD imposter floating around...

 

[MichaelD]

Hey guys, thanks for all the how-to and linkage. :beer:

The Zalman is a nice looking HS, it would work well.

Insane3D --> :Q CRAP, you're in Swiftech-pinned-heatsink heaven! That's a lot of work there, bud! The NB is held on w/pins, right? It's gotta be...that thing is heavy. I don't know about that one...a LITTLE big (it IS a Socket A/370 HS! :Q)

I have long thought about putting a passive HS on the MCP-T as well. The one on my current 8RDA+ gets HOT as heck! But...I don't have any stability problems....

I could get two of the Zalmans and put one on the NB with the pins, so I could take it off. The second would have to be expoxied on there.

MEGATOMIC: What's the diff b/t the Zalman you have and this Zalman?

Thoughts?

ps
Oh yeah, my little imposter...I pissed him off, apparently, and he took it upon himself to be creative. MichaelD: often imitated, never duplicated. See sig.

 

[Jeff7]

*sniff* I feel left out now...no one's ever tried to impersonate me.


Anyway, you can also use a nice socket 7 heatsink, if you have any lying around, or if a local PC shop has any to be junked. Or maybe they'll charge like a dollar for it if even that. That'd be a lot lighter than that huge, though highly effective, CPC 30370 (Swiftech?) heatsink.

I still have the stock chipset heatsink on my NF7-S; it's just got some ASII on the bottom of it now. It still isn't making any horrible sounds. I know that some companies will use crappy sleeve bearing fans; some try a little harder, and use crappy ball bearing fans, but a few of them get some decent ball bearing fans. The board I have seems to have a decent ball bearing fan on it that still runs fine. Maybe I just got a bad batch.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
*sniff* I feel left out now...no one's ever tried to impersonate me.


Anyway, you can also use a nice socket 7 heatsink, if you have any lying around, or if a local PC shop has any to be junked. Or maybe they'll charge like a dollar for it if even that. That'd be a lot lighter than that huge, though highly effective, CPC 30370 (Swiftech?) heatsink.

I still have the stock chipset heatsink on my NF7-S; it's just got some ASII on the bottom of it now. It still isn't making any horrible sounds. I know that some companies will use crappy sleeve bearing fans; some try a little harder, and use crappy ball bearing fans, but a few of them get some decent ball bearing fans. The board I have seems to have a decent ball bearing fan on it that still runs fine. Maybe I just got a bad batch.

Hi. Jeff7 here. I think MichaelD sucks Donkey Bags. j/k Heh, feel better now, Jeff?

You know, I still have an Abit KT133-Raid. It's chipset fan was still working, albiet grinding a little last time I fired up the board, which was some time ago.

I have seen chipset fans last for years and I've seen them die in two months.

I just don't think I want to take that chance. Now, my Epox came with a passive HS, so I just slathered some AS3 on there and life is good.

That Swiftech is too massive for me. I will be using a SLK-900A on the board...don't think that NB HS would fit with it on there.

Good idea on the Socket7 HS. I don't have any around...I'd have to find a PC shop somewhere that would have them...don't want to pay $5 shipping for a $1 HS.

*edit*

Oh, I found out the diff b/t those two Zalman passives. The newer, blue one weighs 54g, the older gold one weighs 36g. Big diff. For an extra $1, I'd go with the bigger one. ONe thing that chafes my crack though; why do BOTH of them have rectangular bases? When's the last freakin' time you saw a rectangular NB?

In any case, I'm sure it would work better than say, the "sunflower shaped" HS that came with my 8RDA+ and better than the NB fan on the Abit, which probably is barely touching the core anyway!

 

[MegaWorks]

no I don't need to change the NB heatsink, I don't overclock the NB chipset it won't have a big diffrence in performance maybe 300 more points in 3dmark2001se big deal

------------------------------------------------------
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred B 1700+ @ 2.3GHZ (1.75v) 400FSB = 3200+
Abit NF7-S V.2 (nforce 2 400U)
Corsair TwinX XMS 3200LL 512MB @ 2-3-2-6 (2.6v)
Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
Antec TrueBlue 480W
Thermalright SLK-947U with 92mm Vantec Tornado @2600RPM
Maxtor 91531U3 15GB
2x Western Digital WD400BB 40GB serials
Antec PlusView 1000AMG
Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks THX 550 5.1

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
no I don't need to change the NB heatsink, I don't overclock the NB chipset it won't have a big diffrence in performance maybe 300 more points in 3dmark2001se big deal

------------------------------------------------------
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred B 1700+ @ 2.3GHZ (1.75v) 400FSB = 3200+
Abit NF7-S V.2 (nforce 2 400U)
Corsair TwinX XMS 3200LL 512MB @ 2-3-2-6 (2.6v)
Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
Antec TrueBlue 480W
Thermalright SLK-947U with 92mm Vantec Tornado @2600RPM
Maxtor 91531U3 15GB
2x Western Digital WD400BB 40GB serials
Antec PlusView 1000AMG
Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks THX 550 5.1

Um, hate to break it to you, N00B, but judging by YOUR SIG, you ARE overclocking.

Guess what controlls your FSB?

*think*
*wait*
*how do you keep an idiot in suspense?*
*you're not derailur, are you?*
*wait some more...*

[dr evil]RIGHTTTTTTTTT....[/dr evil] It's your Northbridge!!! Wow, what a surprise!!! (dork)

So, you are overclocking your NB. Stay outta my thread, buttmunch.

 

[MegaWorks]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
no I don't need to change the NB heatsink, I don't overclock the NB chipset it won't have a big diffrence in performance maybe 300 more points in 3dmark2001se big deal

------------------------------------------------------
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred B 1700+ @ 2.3GHZ (1.75v) 400FSB = 3200+
Abit NF7-S V.2 (nforce 2 400U)
Corsair TwinX XMS 3200LL 512MB @ 2-3-2-6 (2.6v)
Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
Antec TrueBlue 480W
Thermalright SLK-947U with 92mm Vantec Tornado @2600RPM
Maxtor 91531U3 15GB
2x Western Digital WD400BB 40GB serials
Antec PlusView 1000AMG
Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks THX 550 5.1

Um, hate to break it to you, N00B, but judging by YOUR SIG, you ARE overclocking.

Guess what controlls your FSB?

*think*
*wait*
*how do you keep an idiot in suspense?*
*you're not derailur, are you?*
*wait some more...*

[dr evil]RIGHTTTTTTTTT....[/dr evil] It's your Northbridge!!! Wow, what a surprise!!! (dork)

So, you are overclocking your NB. Stay outta my thread, buttmunch.

hey don't call me NOOB budy I know exacly what I'm talking about. Yes look at my sig carefully and you will see that my NB chipset is at 200mhz stock, default blah blah blah....... I said that you won't see any big diffrence in performance by adding 17-33mhz to the NB chip the reason why its AMD not P4 FSB we're talking about here. Do you get it now or you want me to draw you a picture

------------------------------------------------------
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred B 1700+ @ 2.3GHZ (1.75v) 400FSB = 3200+
Abit NF7-S V.2 (nforce 2 400U)
Corsair TwinX XMS 3200LL 512MB @ 2-3-2-6 (2.6v)
Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
Antec TrueBlue 480W
Thermalright SLK-947U with 92mm Vantec Tornado @2600RPM
Maxtor 91531U3 15GB
2x Western Digital WD400BB 40GB serials
Antec PlusView 1000AMG
Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks THX 550 5.1

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: MegaWorks

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
no I don't need to change the NB heatsink, I don't overclock the NB chipset it won't have a big diffrence in performance maybe 300 more points in 3dmark2001se big deal

------------------------------------------------------
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred B 1700+ @ 2.3GHZ (1.75v) 400FSB = 3200+
Abit NF7-S V.2 (nforce 2 400U)
Corsair TwinX XMS 3200LL 512MB @ 2-3-2-6 (2.6v)
Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
Antec TrueBlue 480W
Thermalright SLK-947U with 92mm Vantec Tornado @2600RPM
Maxtor 91531U3 15GB
2x Western Digital WD400BB 40GB serials
Antec PlusView 1000AMG
Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks THX 550 5.1

Um, hate to break it to you, N00B, but judging by YOUR SIG, you ARE overclocking.

Guess what controlls your FSB?

*think*
*wait*
*how do you keep an idiot in suspense?*
*you're not derailur, are you?*
*wait some more...*

[dr evil]RIGHTTTTTTTTT....[/dr evil] It's your Northbridge!!! Wow, what a surprise!!! (dork)

So, you are overclocking your NB. Stay outta my thread, buttmunch.

hey don't call me NOOB budy I know exacly what I'm talking about. Yes look at my sig carefully and you will see that my NB chipset is at 200mhz stock, default blah blah blah....... I said that you won't see any big diffrence in performance by adding 17-33mhz to the NB chip the reason why its AMD not P4 FSB we're talking about here. Do you get it now or you want me to draw you a picture

------------------------------------------------------
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred B 1700+ @ 2.3GHZ (1.75v) 400FSB = 3200+
Abit NF7-S V.2 (nforce 2 400U)
Corsair TwinX XMS 3200LL 512MB @ 2-3-2-6 (2.6v)
Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
Antec TrueBlue 480W
Thermalright SLK-947U with 92mm Vantec Tornado @2600RPM
Maxtor 91531U3 15GB
2x Western Digital WD400BB 40GB serials
Antec PlusView 1000AMG
Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks THX 550 5.1

No, even though you have the NF2-Ultra chipset, you're still at 200MHz FSB with a CPU that IS NOT a native 200MHz FSB CPU. You're not doing anything different with your mobo than I'm doing with my Epox 8RDA+. Granted, you have a better mobo, but we are both doing the exact same thing.

 

[MegaWorks]

fine MichaelD you do your way and I do mine no hard feelings you're cool with that


------------------------------------------------------
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred B 1700+ @ 2.3GHZ (1.75v) 400FSB = 3200+
Abit NF7-S V.2 (nforce 2 400U)
Corsair TwinX XMS 3200LL 512MB @ 2-3-2-6 (2.6v)
Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
Antec TrueBlue 480W
Thermalright SLK-947U with 92mm Vantec Tornado @2600RPM
Maxtor 91531U3 15GB
2x Western Digital WD400BB 40GB serials
Antec PlusView 1000AMG
Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks THX 550 5.1

 

[Megatomic]

Aside from color, the big difference I see is that the pin-fins are varying heights on your model and mine are all the same heigth. The big difference I can see that making is that yours might allow for a bigger heatsink on the CPU if the NB chip was close to the CPU socket. I use an Alpha PAL 8045 on my NF7-S R2 and there are no clearance issues for me. But not all boards are created equal, some might need all the room they can get.

Aside from that, I'm guessing the performance is similar if not equal and the one you're looking at should do nicely.

 

[MichaelD]

Thanks, Megatomic. The Alpha 8045 is a big HS...good to hear that you can fit your NB HS with no issues...reassuring.

 

[beatle]

MichaelD, I followed Insane3d's lead and used the same heatsink (also with an 8045 on my CPU). I also used AS epoxy. It is a very strong bond. I also put one of the older Zalman NB heatsinks on my SB, but I would advise against that as well. While I had no problems with my video card, I could see it interfering with some, especially if you wanted to use the Zalman video card heatsink sometime.

All Electronics sells this heatsink for only a couple bucks. It has a thin base, but the fins are tall. I don't have an SLK900a or your mb, so you'd have to do some measurements to see if it would clear.

I also have one of these in a box somewhere. 20/20 hindsight tells me I would have been better off cutting that down with my dremel and epoxying that onto my SB instead, so to avoid any clearance issues.

EDIT: Both the old Zalman NB heatsink and the blue Zalman NB heatsink on my IS7 have been square. The last number of the dimensions is the height of the heatsink.

 

[MichaelD]

Thanks, beatle.

So, do you advise putting a HS on the south bridge ONLY b/c of the interference issue? I don't plan on using a Zalman on the videocard anytime soon...IMO I don't think it is a good idea to cover up the memory like that and leave no room for air circulation. But that's just MHO...no scientific data to back that up.

*shrug* The south bridge on my 8RDA+ gets blazing hot (too hot to touch!) with a 200 FSB, yet the system is stable as a rock. I just figured that a HS on it couldn't hurt...and would look simply snazzy.

 

[beatle]

Well, also if you epoxy your heatsink to it, it becomes permanent, and that throws out the possibility of an RMA. Since I was overclocking my board anyway, it was a moot point. Interference would be the only other issue.