Noisy northbridge fan on MSI K8N NEO2

[Icepick]

On my MSI K8N NEO2, I'm thinking about replacing it with some sort of passive heatsink. My goal here is to eliminate the northbridge cooling as a source of noise in the system. I'm considering buying this Zalman heatsink ( ZM-NB47J )

http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/p...code_list.asp?code=014

to mount there and maybe cut some of the fins away or bend them to make it fit under an arctic NV5 silencer. Has anyone attempted to replace this fan with a passive heatsink on any NF3 motherboard? If anyone has any other ideas of how to cool the chipset without the fan I'd like to hear from you. Thanks!

 

[Icepick]

Does anyone know where I can get a low profile chipset heatsink like the one used on the DFI LanParty motherboard. The problem is that the Zalman's won't fit without being attacked with a hacksaw.

 

[klah]

Alpha makes heatsinks in every imaginable size.

FrozenCPU sells two of the available sizes of this model: http://www.micforg.co.jp/en/cat_ze.html

http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/vid-08.html
http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/vid-09.html

How much clearance do you have for height? 20mm?

 

[Matt155]

Yeh that dam fan is noisy, what I did was remove just the fan itself, left the housing and put in 2 ramsinks I had and seems to work well. They were OCZ copper ramsink, and only could only fit 2 of them in there. I have a cross flow fan in a Coolermaster stacker case and they seem to stay cool. Thats one of the worst place for a dam north bridge fan.

 

[XxKrNxStyLeZxX]

icepik did you get this to work yet??

I'm thinking about buying the K8N Neo2, but the NB fan is the only thing holding me back. I wanna replace it with just a heatsink, and I'll have a NV5 also.

Klah, do you think that would fit the northbridge? It seems alot shorter, so it might have enough clearance for the arctic cooling NV5...

------------------

it seems that the ZM-NB47J is 37 (L) X 37 (W) X 47 (H) mm
and the Alpha Z is 35x35x9.5mm.

There a little bit difference in the lengteh and the width, would the alpha still fit the NB?

 

[Icepick]

Hey XxKrNxStyLeZxX, I didn't remove the fan yet. I think that the fan posted by Klah will fit under the NV5 silencer nicely. It looks short enough. The negative is that there are no mounting holes on that heatsink. It would have to be fastened directly to the nforce chip probably with some sort of thermal epoxy. Then it will be stuck there permanently. If you ever decide it doesn't work well enough or if you want to put something else there I don't think you'd be able to get that heatsink back off. I'm considering getting the Zalman heatsink and trimming the fins down short enough to fit under the NV5 silencer.

Or I might just sell this motherboard and buy one with a VIA chipset instead. They all have passive cooling on the chipset. Maybe the Asus A8V or the Soltek. I haven't decided yet.

Edit: I was going to point you over to the thread on silentpcreview.com but see you've already found it

 

[XxKrNxStyLeZxX]

ahh the short one doesnt have mounting holes...gahh more problems...

Well I was going to buy the Asus A8V Deluxe, but people kept telling me this motherboard was better/faster. So now I dunno what to do.

I would just cut off the top of the zalman, but I dont have any dremel or anything like that...

More confusing ...haha yeah SPCR is a good place

 

[Icepick]

This is the solution I came up with. I connected the chipset fan to a fan controller and turned down the RPMs as far as it will go. Now I can't hear it. That way, if I decide to overclock later I can just ramp the fan speed back up. I've also cot Cool n' Quiet enabled so my CPU fan is running quietly now. I just installed an Arctic Cooling NV5 silencer on the video card and it's running much quieter now. Without the NV5, the video card was by far the loudest part of the system. All those factors combined make for a nice, quiet system!

 

[Zadillo]

I'm wondering if I am doing something crazy. I have an MSI K8T Neo2 FISR, and I am using the MSI CoreCenter monitoring tool. It tells me the CPU fan speed, and gives me the RPM. But for "NB Fan Speed", it just lists 0. Did I just complete miss this, or is there something else wrong?

 

[Icepick]

Hello Zadillo. I replied to your other thread but I'll reply here too. Core Center is reporting the correct NB fan speed for you. Your North Bridge (NB) is cooled with a heatsink - not a fan. That's why it gives you zero RPM. You're lucky because you're system will run quieter with that heatsink than mine will with a fan on the chipset.

 

[Bigtomtom]

Out of curiosity, what is your cpu temp ?
I'm using 360 W [Thermaltake PurePower W0015+PFC:Thermaltake PurePower 360 W], AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+
(i got the MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R package: MSI Package )

and my CPU temp is really high which is 45 C and my sys temp is 42 C.
Other info:
CPU fan speed: 3068rpm
NB temp: N/A
NB Fan Speed: 0 rpm
AGP Voltage: 1.65V
FSB: 200 Mhz
Vcore: 1.550V
Memory Voltage: 2.55V
Anyone know what i need to do to cool my system down?
Any pointers will be really great.
Thank for the info.

 

[jjet67]

Well. You should be alright sir.
Someone reports temp above 55 when loaded. I have similar temp.
It's kinda weird since when I touch the heatsink by a finger I don't feel any hot. Is the temp by Core center overrated?
JJET