Northbridge cooling question

[Broncho]

I've got a Soyo Dragon+ with a retail XP 1800+ in it. Here lately when I turn on my system I hear this horrendous fan noise. It stops by the time I get to the desktop (Win98SE). I've openened up the case and tried it and it sounds like its the fan on the northbridge. I touched the center of the fan to manually vary the speed and the noise changed so I'm fairly sure that is it. I'm not overclocking my CPU and I'm looking for another heatsink fan. My question is, do I really need a fan on the northbridge of this system if I'm not overclocking? Also, since I'm a little tight on funds right now, will my system have any damage to it if the fan fails before I can replace it? I appreciate the help.

 

[Boonesmi]

if you dont overclock and the system gets pretty good ventilation then it should be alright without any fan (some boards with the same chipset dont come with a fan at all, just a heatsink. so active cooling isnt a requirement)

personally i would go out and buy a blue orb or something similar and use it in place of your current setup on the northbridge... get some arctic silver epox to glue it on

 

[Broncho]

Thanks for the help. That was pretty much what I figured, but I wasn't sure about what type of fan to get. I had been looking at the vga/chipset coolers on Newegg. I'll give the Blue/Crystal orb a look tomorrow. Thanks again for the help.

 

[Jeff7]

Also check out this place. They're also qutie good; cheap shipping too. They have a few options for chipset cooling and they also have AS epoxy, as well as cheaper Arctic Alumina epoxy.

 

[jkd]

If you do decide on using the thermaltake blue orb, I can attest to its efficiency. I've got two of 'em in my system -- on the northbridge and on the GPU.

It is important to note, however, that it isn't a one-piece HSF. But it cools well. I live in a very tropical area in Asia and the summer heat is unbearable. Ever since I installed the Blue Orb instead of the ordinary green heatsink on my ASUS A7A266, my system would no longer slow down during hot weather.

 

[Broncho]

Thanks for the help everyone, I really appreciate it. Boonesmi, thanks for confirming what I already thought. Its nice to be told that you were thinking correctly. Jeff7, thanks for the link. They look like a pretty good place.jkd, it is good to know how well the blue orb works as I live in Texas and it can get rather hot here as well. I usually can't afford the electric bills to keep my place as cool as I would like or as cool as the computer would like it. Looks like I've got some choices to make and some stuff to buy. Thanks again everyone!!