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Gargoyle
10 Mar 2005, 6:51am
My northbridge fan failed on my main rig, so I swapped out the heatsink/fan with a Tt Crystal Orb I had laying around. After a few hours, the fan started lifting upwards off its base. It still spins and cools adequetly, but it makes a horrible noise. It totally defeats the purpose of the nice and quiet Reserator I just installed.

Problem is... I attached the Crystal Orb with thermal epoxy. I don't think there are any removal methods out there that could make me feel comfortable when risking ripping my northbridge off my board.

So far the only good solution I've thought of is taking the fan assembly out of another Crystal Orb and putting it in mine, but I'd have to buy a Crystal Orb for that. I could maybe rig a ghetto solution of some kind, but I don't want to cut a whole in the side of the case to mount a fan to blow over the northbridge. Can anybody else think of a solution? I don't think the orb can cool the northbridge without the fan, there just aren't very many fins on it.

Here are a couple of pics. The blurry one is more head-on, but the other one is, well, less blurry.
madmat
10 Mar 2005, 3:11pm
If you look around you can find blue orbs for like $5.00 and the fans from them will fit the c. orb just fine, it doesn't spin as fast and it's a little quieter but I don't see that as a downside.
Gargoyle
10 Mar 2005, 4:05pm
Sounds like a plan to me :thumbsup:
Gargoyle
11 Apr 2005, 2:43pm
Well, I finally got around to fixing the problem. I forgot that I bought a golden orb on a whim a couple years ago. Having no use for it, it just sat around. Turns out the fans are swappable :). The golden orb fan is about twice the size, and my northbridge temps have dropped 3 degrees C :D
muddocktor
11 Apr 2005, 3:04pm
Finally a good use for a gorb. ;D ;D
Gargoyle
11 Apr 2005, 3:43pm
Heh, no kidding ;D. I think my original plan was to mount that thing on a video card, but that'd be a lot of effort for marginal (if any) gains.

Although it does remind me of the old Icrontic Ghetto Hardware article where they strapped a Dragon Orb to a TNT2 with duct tape.
Maybe I'll still do it, to pay tribute. There is a TNT2 in IC_11... :D
Gargoyle
2 Jun 2005, 3:21pm
Finally a good use for a gorb. ;D ;D

Oh no, the return of the GORB! (http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2435&p=5)
GrayFox
2 Jun 2005, 5:09pm
ha bet its louder then my zalman and much worse for cooling.
Gargoyle
2 Jun 2005, 5:15pm
That's what I'm thinking. There are a lot more (and thinner) fins on the Zalman, so I don't see how this can compete. Sure, it's got name recognition, but not the good kind :D