SM31 Down but Back up

GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 LifeAkron, PA Icrontian
edited February 2006 in Folding@Home
SM31 had a slight CPU fan failure. IT was down for 2 days, I had to pick up a new fan today. ITs back and going strong.:thumbup

Comments

  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Good catch... thanks for the update.... oh, and you're fired. J/K :D
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Ah, man, all you had to was ask! You didn't have to spend your own money. You should have said something. I've been trying for three years to unload spare fans to the SMx parts locker!
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    lol! do you have any good chip set fans? the one on SMx 33 is a little dead! I kind of improvised with a 120MM fan blowing right on it :)

    It looks so funny!
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Yes Sledge, shoot me a PM. I'll cook up something for you. Let me guess, it's an Abit board?
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Sledgehammer70 wrote:
    lol! do you have any good chip set fans? the one on SMx 33 is a little dead! I kind of improvised with a 120MM fan blowing right on it :)

    It looks so funny!

    You probably don't need one. I've run several boards (while overclocked) with nothing but the teency weency heatsink on them after the fan has died.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Or, just slap on a larger heatsink and run in well-cooled, passive mode. The only computer of mine that has an active northbridge sink is my space heater D820, No. 4 (signature). All the rest have oversized passive sinks.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    It’s an old ASUS board I think! it has one of those thin heat sinks that are passive cooled. I could almost take 4 Graphic Card ram sinks and keep it cool! I touch the top to see how hot it was actually getting. it was actually getting pretty warm.. That is when I decided to use my 120MM fan method. I haven't had problems with the PC in any case. But just want to make sure SMx33 stays up and running for a long time to come..

    I was surprised that out of my stock pile of old PC parts I don’t have any dead MOBO’s with something that would work….
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Do you have any Arctic Silver adhesive? If yes, just find a large heatsink and affix it directly to the northbridge with the adhesive. Be careful to keep the adhesive off of EVERYTHING except the top of the chip. If the motherboard has mounting holes on the periphery of the heatsink, you can also use a clip spring and cable ties for anchoring. Pull the spring clip (old style clip from P3/early Athlon) across the sink, one cable each through the slotted ends of the clip, secured underneath the motherboard at each end of the clip by another cable tie.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    that is the problem! the mobo has no holes around the northbridge chip! and there isn't much room around the actual chip to be able to mount a heat sink that is bigger than the chip. I had one that would almost do it but I don't really want to bust our the dremel tool if I don't have to!
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Sometimes that's the case - no room for a larger sink. You've got a PM.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2006
    I've been having the worst luck with CPU fans lately. Two upcoming rigs have an 80mm case fan wire-tied to the heat sink... :rolleyes:

    Thanks for going above and beyond the call of duty, Gnome. :respect:
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Sledgehammer70 wrote:
    It’s an old ASUS board I think! it has one of those thin heat sinks that are passive cooled. I could almost take 4 Graphic Card ram sinks and keep it cool! I touch the top to see how hot it was actually getting. it was actually getting pretty warm..

    What temp does it read in Motherboard Monitor? IC_11 ran without a working northbridge fan for several months. I just took off the dead fan so air could get to the HS more easily. It felt warm, but nowhere near as warm as some passively-cooled GPU HS's I've had the misfortune of branding myself on. The temperature only ranged from the upper 20's*C to mid 30's*C.

    I bought a replacement Zalman passive northbridge sink for the board, but after it had been running stably for so long, I decided not to mess with it. If you do decide to replace it, a Zalman unit would be my recommendation.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    A lot of the older motherboard models AMD K7, Intel P3, were bedecked with actively cooled chipset heatsinks. The main reasons these were there was to present the board in appearance as a notch above the competition. It was to give the impression of high performance, distinguishing it from white-box motherboards. It also was to give the impression the board had overclocking abilities. Most of those boards only needed the northbridge under extreme overclocking, when the sink would be hot, and not just "warm".

    It's still that way to some extent. But, there are a lot of boards out today with serious northbridge sinks that really need them. My P5DW2 would crackle like Southern fried green tomatoes (delicious!) if there weren't a fan on the sink. At default processor speed though, it would be safe to run fanless. I added the fan for overclocking. Later, after I'm sure the board is not an RMA candidate, I may go to my usual practice of installing an oversized, passive heatsink...if there is space available.
Sign In or Register to comment.