Disconnecting the NB fan from my NF7 - is it safe ?

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efi_k
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2004 2:35 am

Disconnecting the NB fan from my NF7 - is it safe ?

Post by efi_k » Sun Oct 31, 2004 2:46 am

Hi,

My rig consists of :

AMD Athlon 2500 @ 139*11 and 1.55v (Underclocked and undervolted)
Abit NF7 v2
Compucase 6A19 ( = Antec 3700amb) + HEC 300 AR-T (Thermal control)
Thermaltake volcano 9 @ 2100 rpm
120mm exhaust and 90mm Zalman intake both @ 5V
DVD rom + Segate 7200.7 120gb..running XP MCE 2005

of course the most distrubing noise left was that awful 40mm northbridge fan..So thinking that I'm running at low FSB (139) anyway, I can simply disconnect it at leave it with the aluminum metal it has and the leftover of the Volcano 9 cooling...

After doing so my temps, in a quite hot mid-day are:
CPU : 48c Idle, 50c Load (MCE2005 Live TV)
Case: 32c Idle, 34c Load

What do you think, is it safe to continue running it like that with the NB fan disconnected ? The system is perfectly stable, so what can be other sign that I'm not doing a good thing here ?

Thanks !

ChucuSCAD
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Post by ChucuSCAD » Sun Oct 31, 2004 5:11 am

I would suggest replacing the heatsink with one of these:

http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/vid-17.html

That would be my preference. However I know some people simply unplug the fan and go about their business.

chucuSCAD

Tigr
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Post by Tigr » Sun Oct 31, 2004 9:01 am

I will second that. Replace the northbridge heatsink with the Zalman. It's a very simple procedure, the heatsink is held in place by a couple of plastic retainers. A 10 second operation.

efi_k
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2004 2:35 am

Post by efi_k » Sun Oct 31, 2004 9:11 am

Thanks for the replies.
Yes, I know about the Zalman heatsinks - it's just that I don't want to take my rig apart again and mess with removing the HSF..

What I tried now was to take the system back to the original clock, but still with 1.55 Vcore. the cpu/mobo temps didn't really changed.
I guess I have good airflow in my system but it is also led me to think about Abit's design : I there was really any danger, a NB fan can also just quit working, so why isn't there any BIOS monitoring temp for the chipset just like there is for the CPU ?

Of course I can spend (..yet another..) 10 bucks for the Zalman heatsink, but then maybe this HSF is just more of a cool-feature then really doing something ? How much airflow a tiny 40mm fan can generate ?

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