Replacing a fan ?

rc23

Member
Aug 26, 2001
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The fan on my Asus A7m266 mobo is failing. Often the fan won't spin when i power-up. it will sometimes start spinning if I give it a little push or spray of canned air. This fan is not the main CPU fan, but a single fan placed on my graphics controler chip.

Do i need any special type of fan to replace this or will any same size case fan be OK ?

Pic of the A7m266 board showing the fan
http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20010314/images/amd_asusboard.jpg


**Edit**
For an article with this pic go to this URL:
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20010314/amd760-04.html
 

rc23

Member
Aug 26, 2001
62
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It's a fan for my AMD761 northbridge chip on my motherboard. the 761 chip is part of the AMD 760 chipset that my motherboard uses. The board is about 2 years old so I guess it's kinda old tech.

Sorry about the pic, I linked to a photo of my mobo I found on Tom's Hardware. I guess they don't allow outside access to .jpg files. I didn't realize this cause the picture was still in my browser's cache.

To the pic put a <space> infront of the URL and try to access the picture again
or go to http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20010314/amd760-04.html and see the article where I got the picture.
 

Rotax

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
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This is why I really don't want a active cooled chipset. =\ Those lil fans seem to die so easy. My old GF2 had probs too...it just happens w/ time w/ any fan I spose, just the littler ones seem to go faster. I'd definatley go for the Zalman heatsink tho, get rid of the fan all together, no doubt what I'll do if I ever have probs w/ mine.
 

HiTek21

Diamond Member
Jul 4, 2002
4,391
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The north bridge fan on my Abit mobo started to make a whining sound and would have a hard time spinning up. I finally took it off and put a drop of oil on the fan motor shaft and it runs fine now. I'm not sure if thats whats wrong with yours but you an give it a shot.
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
33
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Go for the Zalman. It's a bit of a pain to get positioned right, but cools great and it will be a non-permanent (unless you use the adhesive it comes with), one-time installation. I initially used one on my GF4, and while I had to ghetto-rig the attachment mechanism, it cools great, and have put it on a couple mobos. IMO, it's easily worth its $11 cost (at newegg).
 

rc23

Member
Aug 26, 2001
62
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0
Thanks for the suggestion on adding a passive heat sink. Infact I believe ASUS replaced the 40mm fan on the a7m266 boards with a heatsink on later board revisions.

Drove out to 3 PC stores in my area today. Not one had a 40mm fan with the small power connecter. :frown: