Noisy northbridge fan on A7V266-E, VIA KT266A Chipset

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mitchua
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Mitchua

Does anyone have any experience replacing this little fan? Is it needed?
Can I just unplug it? :-)

Thanks,
Mitchua
 
The noisiest fan in my computer is the northbridge fan on my Asus A7V266-E.
Think I should just buy a VGA heatsink and glue it on there instead?

--Mitchua
Click to expand...

If the CPU heatsink is exhausting down towards it, you can likely use
a passive 'sink. Asus now often uses a silver aluminum passive
'sink... I don't know where you might find one of those but one of
these might work:
http://www.svcompucycle.com/zanoco.html


Dave
 
You should open a new thread asking about replacing the fan to see is
someone who owns that motherboard has already done that and recorded any
temperature change. I don't recall where, but I remember reading some
test lab's comment that the fan was a worthless gesture and that a
heatsink was sufficient (as long as the chip didn't also include onboard
video). Since I often wander over to http://www.tomshardware.com, I
suspect that's where I read it. You see articles like
http://snurl.com/28fm where 12 of 24 motherboards had a fan on the
chipset (but several of those where fans were used were within a vendor
which used a chipset fan on all their models).

It would've been better to state which chipset for which you were
considering removing the fan rather than the motherboard. Not nice to
make helpers make a longer trip by having to go to Asus to find your
motherboard to see what chipset it uses to then head off to the chipset
maker's web site to look up the specs. According to
http://snurl.com/28fn, yours used the VIA KT266A chipset. Asus has a
bad link to VIA but eventually I got to http://snurl.com/28fo. No
technical specs there. I eventually hit the same dead link that Asus
had when trying to find more detailed info on their chipset. I gave up
and went back to Tom's Hardware site and did a search on KT266A. Of the
matches, and of those that I checked, like http://snurl.com/28fv, 6 of 8
motherboards with the KT266A had fans. The fact that any had no fan
indicates that it is not required.

However, even those with fans should already have a heatsink on the
chip. You should have just a fan. Or maybe you meant that you would
put on a *bigger* heat sink. Since the original heat sink is already
glued on, you might have problems getting the old one off. I've heard
of some folks using a hair dryer but a heat gun would more narrowly
focus the heated airflow. Be sure to run a fan across the motherboard
to prevent overheating nearby components or the board itself. I've also
heard of folks using dental floss to saw through the glue.
 
Mitchua said:
Does anyone have any experience replacing this little fan? Is it needed?
Can I just unplug it? :-)

Thanks,
Mitchua
Click to expand...

I recently removed the fan, lubricated it, and re-installed it on the exact
same mobo. Was squeaky, now is quiet. Never tried removing it and
monitoring temperatures though.

Boff
 
Boff said:
I recently removed the fan, lubricated it, and re-installed it on the exact
same mobo. Was squeaky, now is quiet. Never tried removing it and
monitoring temperatures though.
Click to expand...
Mine was squeaky so I called up Asus. They mailed me a new one with no
questions asked. Guess it's a well documented prob.

I'm still trying to figure out if it's needed at all.

--Mitchua
 
Mitchua said:
Mine was squeaky so I called up Asus. They mailed me a new one with
no questions asked. Guess it's a well documented prob.

I'm still trying to figure out if it's needed at all.

--Mitchua
Click to expand...

Northbridge fans fail quite often. In most cases, if you're running the
board at stock speeds and voltages, the passive heatsink is enough.
 
S.Heenan said:
Northbridge fans fail quite often. In most cases, if you're running the
board at stock speeds and voltages, the passive heatsink is enough.
Click to expand...

I'm running my A7V266-E with the northbridge fan disconnected. It has
an XP1700 with a Zalman flower heatsink plus large fan (which also
covers the northbridge). I also tried a dab of WD40 applied with a
Q-tip under the label on the centre of the fan. This worked for a few
months, but the noise returned.
I've just noticed that my local electronics shop (Maplin) are selling
a northbridge heatsink which looks about the right size. I may try it
myself.
 
If you look at the actual northbridge heatsink on there, it's just a piece
of folded metal with a fan in the middle. I bet you'd be fine to remove the
fan component and just make sure your Zalman fan blows on it.

As for me, I undervolted the stock northbridge fan using my case temperature
controls and now it's much more quiet but still pretty cool to the touch.

--MItchua
 
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