Broke my chipset cooling fan!!!

sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
edited November 2005 in Hardware
Well I just installed a new Arctic Silencer in my PC. I turned it on, and noticed the clear plastic casing of the Silencer was touching on my small 40mm chipset fan. So I, being very stupid, took the fan out and proceded to sand off a millimeter or two from the top of it with an electric belt sander. All was going well until I just completely broke the fan into 2 pieces. It will not work anymore.

So.. my question:

Do I really need a chipset cooling fan? I can buy a new one (link) but is it worth $10??? The chipset DOES have a nice little heatsink on it (fan sits on top), so is that enough?? I SURE don't want to fry my chipset and have a dead motherboard, so I would be willing to pay the $10 to fix my idiodic mistake. Please give me some input. Thanks
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Comments

  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    I've run three motherboards with dead chipset fans for months, but I eventually replace them with bigger passive heatsinks or new heatsink/fan combos. Just keep an eye on the temperatures with motherboard monitor (or something like it), to make sure they don't skyrocket, and you should be fine.
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited October 2005
    My NF3 250GB 754 board has the identical chipset as your board, and I've run it passively for almost a year with no issues. It does get rather hot though.

    But at the same time, that particular sink was designed for passive operation, and I can not guarantee that yours will hold up in the long term, as it is designed for a fan. I don't think you need to rush out and get one tomorrow, but it would be wise to look into one. You could even ghetto rig a case fan to get a bit of airflow over the sink, which would be a good short-term solution if you are worried at all..
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    get a heat sink or fan...you don't want to let that heat sit on the chip, it will shorten it's life....
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    I agree replace it as soon as possible
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited October 2005
    Okay I'll get it replaced, but:

    I'll still have the same problem- My Arctic Silencer will rub up against the chipset fan. What do I do about that? :scratch:
  • GrayFoxGrayFox /dev/urandom Member
    edited October 2005
    pilotwings119 wrote:
    Okay I'll get it replaced, but:

    I'll still have the same problem- My Arctic Silencer will rub up against the chipset fan. What do I do about that? :scratch:
    Sand the silencer. ;)

    edit: Btw your goina want something like this.
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835109116
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited October 2005
    I don't want a huge heatsink in there. I guess when I replace the fan, I'll just have to mutilate the Arctic Silencer. I guess its mine forever now, because nobody's going to buy a cut up item if I ever want to sell it.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited October 2005
    you should be able to just cut a notch in your artic silencer so you don't have to butcher it too bad. i saw an article on it a while back....try google.

    on a side note, the chipset placement of this nf3ultra-d board is pathetic. it is the main reason why i haven't purchased an artic silencer for my x800xl. i mean the stock cooler on my video card almost touches the chipset fan as it is now. :wtf:
  • EMTEMT Seattle, WA Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    Does the chipset have a heatsink, even a small one? If so I wouldn't worry about it (replacing the fan).
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited October 2005
    You should see just how close my x850 comes to the chipset fan on my NF4 Ultra-D. It is literally a millimeter or two. I agree, the placement was rather poor. :eek:
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    Just get something like one of these passive heatsinks, and you won't have to worry about a fan failing again. If any of the fins of these heatsinks are in the way, just cut them off (so long as you don't need to cut off too many).
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    I haven't used active chipset coolers in years. The advice you're getting on passive heatsinks is good.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited October 2005
    i would agree on the passive heatsink thing for your board if you were still using your stock x800pro cooler. the fact remains that you would need to cut it down to a level where it won't be beneficial anymore in order to fit with your artic silencer.

    passive heatsinks work b/c they have a lot of surface are in which to dissipate heat. you would either have to cut a really big chunk out of you artic silencer or shave down the passive cooler to a point were it becomes useless. i mean you only have about 20mm to work with if you don't want to hack up your artic silencer too bad.

    best bet is to just replace the 40mm fan and then dremel a small notch into your silencer for clearence. i have also heard of people using the vantec iceberg vga coolers as a substitute, but it requires a little bit of modding to the heatsink. check dfi-street forums for exact details on how to make the vantec iceberg fit.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835110102

    or

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835110103
  • tmh88tmh88 Pittsburgh / Athens, OH
    edited October 2005
    As long as your not doing any intense stuff like gaming, it should be fine to use for now, but still replace it as soon as you can. keep an eye on the temps

    :cheers:
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited October 2005
    okay I already ordered a new 40mm fan off eBay. I think I'll try to dremel it when it gets here. Hopefully I can get that to work.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited October 2005
    no---don't try to dremel the fan---you will just ruin it like the last one.

    you have to dremel a notch in the plastic shroud or your artic silencer so the fan can fit.
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    How can you possibly alter the fan to make it fit? Maybe I don't have a very good mental image of your scenario, but if the fan is too tall, it's going to either stay too tall, or be broke after you shorten it. Unless we're talking about a corner of the housing that's not in the area the blades actually spin.
  • GrayFoxGrayFox /dev/urandom Member
    edited October 2005
    ryko wrote:
    no---don't try to dremel the fan---you will just ruin it like the last one.

    you have to dremel a notch in the plastic shroud or your artic silencer so the fan can fit.
    Lmfao hes joking.
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    GrayFox wrote:
    Lmfao hes joking.
    I wouldn't put it past him. I think he's a serial fan murderer. :wtf:
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited October 2005
    what I do with my fans is MY business!! ;D It's my fan and I'll murder it if I want.

    I don't know what I'll do.... If I switch the polarities around, will the fan spin the opposite way? If so, I can turn it upside down and the arctic silencer can rest on the fan guards that are built in.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2005
    pilotwings119 wrote:
    ...If I switch the polarities around, will the fan spin the opposite way?...
    Possibly, but at the loss of a great deal of efficiency. The fan blades are pitched at an angle designed to work well in one direction only.

    You'd be better off going with a passive heat sink small enough to clear your arctic silencer, then rig up a duct from a case fan to cool it down. FWIW, you can put me down as being with those who think the fan is unnecessary to begin with, provided you have good overall case cooling.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited October 2005
    okay I fixed it today. I found an old 40mm fan in one of the millions of computers laying around my house, and I figured out a way to make it work! First, I used my master electrician skills (hah) and converted the fan from 12v molex to 12v 3-pin fan connector. Then, I hot-glued the fan, at an angle, onto the edge of the Arctic Silencer plastic casing. I plugged it in, and voila! It works! :)

    10012862om.th.jpg

    10012878yl.th.jpg
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2005
    Pilotwings, that is a very creative solution, I'd say it beats using the belt sander, anyway. Did you take any before and after temp readings?
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited October 2005
    well... my motherboard doesn't read the Chipset temps. It only shows chipset fan speed. So I really don't know how the temps changed..
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited October 2005
    pilotwings119 wrote:
    well... my motherboard doesn't read the Chipset temps. It only shows chipset fan speed. So I really don't know how the temps changed..

    Great creative solution there Pilotwings. That should do the trick. I'm not familiar with your specific board, but the DFI NF4 series boards do display the chipset temperature. You may be able to get it displayed with MBM5. There are some threads over at dfi-street.com to get MBM5 working with that board. Might be worth looking into, just to ensure your chipset temp is in check. Did you increase the chipset voltage at all? or is it still at default?
  • rykoryko new york
    edited October 2005
    yes, lemonlime is correct. MBM5 will read nf3ultra chipset temps. all you need to do is go here and download the newest data archive.

    http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6798

    all directions are found at this link, but you basically replace the data folder in your MBM5 programs folder with the one you download. make sure to NOT run the MBM5 config wizard and you will be fine.

    on a side note, after i installed MBM5 and this very data archive, MBM5 and all other apps stoped reporting my cpu fan speed. all i got was zeros even though i could see my fan spinning. i have since un-installed MBM5 and now my other monitoring apps can see cpu fan rpm. everything else worked fine though. let me know if you have a similar glitch.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited October 2005
    oh okay - i'll download that right now. Thanks!
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited October 2005
    untitled3mo.jpg

    okay.. I even re-installed it once already, and I'm getting 0's on a few things. What should I do? BTW, I did use the updated Data and copied it into the folder.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited October 2005
    you need to install atitool to get gpu temps. and you don't have a yellow (rpm) wire on your chipset fan so you won't get a reading there. and i am guessing you don't have another fan (80mm exhaust) hooked up to the mobo's aux fan connector.

    so it looks normal...
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited October 2005
    oh okay - yeah I do use atitool for temps - I think its very accurate.

    Yes the chipset fan is very old haha that would explain it.
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