My motherboard fan is by far the loudest thing in my box
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My motherboard fan is by far the loudest thing in my box
It seems my computer has been getting louder lately. Finally, I opened it up to see who was the culprit. By far, it's the fan right on the motherboard. The motherboard I have is the MSI K8N Neo4-F, which I believe I got a recommendation on from this forum.
Anyway I can replace or make this fan quieter?
Thanks.
-dmp
Anyway I can replace or make this fan quieter?
Thanks.
-dmp
Last edited by dpowers on Sat Jan 07, 2006 8:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
get one of these: Zalman NB47J
If the heatsink is to high maybe the 32mm ZM-NB32K or the 25mm Revoltec Northbridge Freezer will fit.
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Well, I installed the Zalman. I had to cut out a few fins, and it fit in there. It is a dream having my PC this quiet. It is now virtually silent. The only thing remaining is to gauge the temperature, which has been creeping up and currently sits at 32C system temp, 28C cpu temp according to MSI's CoreCenter utility. If it stays here, I think I'm good!
My stock Northbridge cooler is at 52C right now so I'm pretty sure yours at 41C is just finedpowers wrote:Update: During gaming, mobo gets as high as 41C. I touched the Zalman with my fingers and it was just slightly warm to the touch though, so I'm guessing that's a good sign.
I will defintely be switching it this week. It sounds like a siren when it ramps up during gaming, I shit you not.
As nice as NF4 is otherwise the chipset fans are a major pain. DFI and MSI especially crowd the chip a bit so any big vidcard is an obstruction. Abit had the spiffy AN8 heatpiped board....and discontinued it. The ECS KN1 has a lot of space around their chip,and a nice sized sink,despite a loud fan. They even add a throwaway fan in a duct near the CPU. Coolmax has a chipset cooler with heatpipes that even minus its fan is bound to be more effective than the basic Zalmans,and this board gives the clearance for it.
My main point is that anyone wanting NF4 AND quiet should bear in mind the chipset fan noise issues and that some otherwise good boards don't give many options.
Unless the case really crowds everything it is ALWAYS possible to make a bracket to mount an 80mm or 120 at very low rpm in a good position to blow on whatever sink. Wander through any good hardware store and there are a lot of brackets of various size and shape. How you position and aim such a mid-case fan will likely also help cool a vid card,HDD's,or the CPU.
My main point is that anyone wanting NF4 AND quiet should bear in mind the chipset fan noise issues and that some otherwise good boards don't give many options.
Unless the case really crowds everything it is ALWAYS possible to make a bracket to mount an 80mm or 120 at very low rpm in a good position to blow on whatever sink. Wander through any good hardware store and there are a lot of brackets of various size and shape. How you position and aim such a mid-case fan will likely also help cool a vid card,HDD's,or the CPU.