Why are Nforce4 chipset fans noisy?

[gate1975mlm]

It seems like alot of people here are saying that the chipset fan on there Nforce4 board is to noisy! So is there any Nforce4 board that does not have a noisy fan? And are they hard to replace? I am getting very close to buying a Nforce4 board but I also want a pretty silent system. What should I do?

 

[kparms82]

Well, I've had my board for 1 1/2 years, and I am not good at cleaning my case out at all. I recently took the side off and there was a colony of dust bunnies in there =). Me not cleaning out the case periodicly + no carpet in the room = lots o' dust. The noise does go away after a little bit though...I have the same board in another comp in a different room thats 2 years old, and it doesn't make any sound at all. Dust situation is much better in other comp. So I think its just the dust thats causing mine to make noise.

 

[Icepick]

It's the same problem with the nforce3 boards and some of the VIA K8T-890 boards. They use very small fans to keep the chipset cool. These fans typically spin at 4000-7000 RPMs. When you get small fans spinning that fast they're going to be noisy no matter what. I'm hearing more and more of people replacing the fan with a Zalman heatsink with good results. Here's a link to a thread where someone modified a DFI nforce4 board in that way.
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?p=156430#156430
There's a thread in this forum where someone replaced the chipset fan on an Asus nforce4 board too.

It's a matter of preference really. Some people don't mind the noise and others can't stand it. Personally, I found the noise from my nforce3 chipset fan intolerable and use an external fan controller to keep the RPMs low enough so I can't hear it. With the RPMs cranked down the chipset fan is inaudible over the 6800GT w/NV5 Silencer.

 

[JerryT87]

My DFI Ultra-D chipset fan is not noisy at all. Of course that may change when I get a new case with 120mm fans instead of the 80's I have now.

 

[Slaimus]

NF3/NF4 required the chipset to be placed near the AGP/PCIe slot. There is very little height clearance, so a good heatsink will not fit. The way that is compensated for is by using a high RPM fan.

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

The Chaintec NForce4 board used a passive cooler on the chipset, but a reviewer tried to do a very high overclock and burned up the chip. I'm not sure if Chaintec is continuing with a passive cooler or not.

I personally much prefer the passive cooler, and it looks like the KT-890 chipset draws less power and therefore most of the mobo's with that chipset are using a passive cooler.

I think the NF4 draws quite a bit of power, and as mentioned above, the placement in many mobos is right near the PCIe slot, so a low profile heatsink with a fan is required (or at least easier).

-D'oh

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

Actually all the K8T890 boards but the ASUS use passive cooling on the northbridge, with no cooling on the SB. The sad part is ASUS probably chose to use that noisy thing only for aesthetic reasons.

There are a few nForce4 boards were the video card doesn't interfere with the chipset cooling (EPoX, ECS, ABIT, ASUS, BIOSTAR). But if you replace the default cooling with something fan-less, you must use a very good one and make sure the case is very well cooled, at least if you plan to overclock.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

There is a lengthy thread covering a lot of options here.
I just replaced the fan with a 4cm fan, with stellar results. No need to takeout the mobo like with the Zalman option, no clearance issues, and my temps dropped - a lot. Took $10 and 10 min.