Rattling northbridge fan on a Soyo Dragon- solved!

[ddave]

I know the title did not indicate that the Soyo Dragon I was talking about was based on the P4 CPU. I was wondering if any of you people out there using the soyo dragon board (it doesn't matter whether its AMD or Intel CPU) are getting a rattling sound from the Northbridge fan.

I have a Soyo Dragon Ultra and the little fan rattles like crazy. I've seen this exact problem on an AMD based system as well. I am trying to figure out if its a common problem or its just me and the other system I used.

By the way, does the northbridge get hot enough that I actually need the fan? Again, this is based on a P4.

Thanks guys.

 

[Quad]

is the actually fan rattling? like vibrating? or is it just making an irritating whirring noise?

 

[ddave]

is the actually fan rattling? like vibrating? or is it just making an irritating whirring noise?

I opened up the case and felt the fan, there seem to be some play on two corners. The other two corners have screws so they didnt have any play. When the fan is running, it does not appear to be vibrating. It just makes the irritating whirring noise. Whirr whirr whirr... Even the case fans and the CPU fan is quiter and those are twice the size of this little fan.

 

[Quad]

hmm
usually the whirr whirr noise indicates that the lube in the fan is wearing away...
this happened to me, to the point where the fan stopped spinning completely

the solution is to unscrew the fan, peel back the sticker slightly, add a few drops of motor oil to the fan. in my case, after peeling back the sticker i had a little opening in the center. i had no motor oil....only some really old baby oil. so i dropped some of that in there, manually spun the fan around a few times to spread the oil, and now my fan is working fine. =)

 

[plex24]

It's a defective fan! You should return and get new one. I have dragon ultra and the fan is not that noisy.

 

[ddave]

Thanks for the input guys.

I'll try adding a little oil on the fan and see how that goes.

Is it possible to upgrade the fan instead? Does anyone know if the fan is a standard size so I can go to a store and get a replacement. I really hate doing board mods.

 

[Uclagamer_99]

had the same problem on my gigabyte amd 761 mobo...its definitely the fan that is dying out...if you read some of these posts these mobo fans seem to have a high failure rate

 

[gaidin123]

<< Thanks for the input guys.

I'll try adding a little oil on the fan and see how that goes.

Is it possible to upgrade the fan instead? Does anyone know if the fan is a standard size so I can go to a store and get a replacement. I really hate doing board mods. >>



You can look into getting the Zalman northbridge heatsink. Check space concerns before ordering but basically it's a "monster" northbridge heatsink with no fan. I have had the northbridge fan go out on an Abit KT7. I think those tiny fans are just crappy quality or else many mobo manufacturers use the NB fan to cut costs.

You can also try removing the northbridge fan and seeing if your system remains stable. My Epox 8kha+ board's heatsink got pretty hot to the touch after removing the fan and overclocking the FSB a good bit so I put on the Zalman one.

Gaidin

 

[ddave]

Cool cool. Im getting ideas.

Has anyone tried to use one of those little coolers (HSF combo) from thermaltake (or something similar)? I think they're suppose to be vga chip cooler but will they also work for the northbridge?

 

[Quad]

it's usually best to go out and buy a chipset cooler, because the hsf that comes with the board is usually really crappy. the crystal orb from thermaltake should be alright. but read a few reviews of chipset coolers and see which one is best for you (in terms of price/performance).

 

[Wind]

U can also replace the NB fan w/ a TT blue ORB.

 

[ddave]

I figured out why the fan was making a lot of noise.

The fan itself is just screwed onto the heatsink. No holes for the screw to hold on to so the fan had a tendency to move a bit When it would spin at full speed, it would vibrate a little (but no noise). The little fan however vibrated enough that it would rub against the HSF of the CPU. The OEM HSF for the P4 is pretty large. When it rubbed against the HSF the noise occured. I ended up moving the fan away from the HSF a bit and the noise went away.

I know it sounds very simple but when you look at the fan and HSF, there appears to be a lot of clearance between the two. Even when the fan was on and thats why I never suspected it was a contact issue.

Hope this helps someone.

Thanks to everyone that helped me out. Really appreciated it.