Old school assistance required - young un's beware, Socket A content within!

[Knoxville]

Cast your minds back to 2006 old timers. Italy had just won the world cup. North Korea thought it was cool to play with Nukes and Sandi Thom still wanted to be a punk rocker, with flowers in her hair.

Back then I was, as I'm sure were many other people, running a Socket A AMD set up with an Abit NF7-S motherboard and a graphics card that's probably now geriatric compared to what you'd find in a tablet these days. Anyway, that's entirely too much attempted comedic nostalgia. My question is this...

Will an Abit NF7-S POST without a Northbridge fan connected?

This afternoon I've been attempting to cobble together something to sit under my stereo and store my MP3 collection from old bits and pieces, more as something to do than anything else. Having had the spare socket A MSI board I had blow a capacitor in my face earlier the aged NF7 is now my only option. I think I mothballed it because the Northbridge fan gave up the ghost and it refuses to POST now without one but my memory being what it is, that may not have been the issue in the first place and I could be placing blame on the lack of a fan when it's something more serious. Anyone that can help solve this conundrum shall be gifted with showers of praise and adulation on my part and a great many geek points

[Bluecube]

The fans on the north bridge chips were there for a reason as they got very hot certainly hot enough to cause boot issues.

[[GSV]Trig]

Yes it will, had many a board based on the NF7 and after a while the fans clog up and make all manor of noise, I always just pulled the damned things..

[Knoxville]

Cheers Trig, had a feeling that was the case but the way it's been powering up (or not to be more accurate) was similar to the way it would attempt to start if the CPU fan was disconnected so I thought it worth checking before I consign this collection of old components to the scrap heap. If it's more serious than a lack of fan it's probably going to be more trouble than it's worth. Would you like the shower of adulation now sir? I forget your stand point on water sports

[Zak33]

It'll work for a short time Knoxxy so that aint your problem.

I've prolly got a spare Duron somewhere.. you want me to dig it out?

PM me if so

[Pob255]

Hey quit bashing the socket A they where great, heck I'm still running a socket A athlon XP 2400+ with a geforce 6200le at work, it's not the fastest of things to boot up but it still works well, granted it's not the fastest of things to boot up but it still works well.

[Knoxville]

Not bashing Socket A dude, not at all. I'm trying to fettle a system together based on it and I used to love my old Shuttle SN42G in ways it's probably inappropriate for a young man to love PCB and Aluminium... More bashing myself for being old and being in a situation where the only parts I have lying around are well, getting on a bit

Zak, PM on it's way shortly

[The Gunslinger]

I would say it will probably post, but I'd not risk running it too much longer asfterwards, they were a bit sensitive to heat on some boards

[timread]

I had an NF7-S 2.0 back in the mid noughties. The NB fan died after a few years and I slapped a Zalman NB47J passive heatsink on it, which did the trick. So yes, you can definitely run one without that NB fan connected, as long as you keep it cool. They did run pretty hot IIRC.

Unfortunately that probably just tells you there's some other problem with the board

For a further trip down memory lane, my previous board before the NF7-S was an Epox 8RDA+... so many motherboard companies that aren't with us any more

[scaryjim]

If you can't sort something out with Zakky I've got a heap of old hardware that I'm planning on shifting soon, including about 4 or 5 socket A CPUs I got in a job lot and never managed to find motherboards for. I've also got a lovely XP 2600+ system sitting around doing nothing...

[shaithis]

Epox 8RDA+... so many motherboard companies that aren't with us any more

I had the same board and it fused itself to my lovely Enermax PSU

Never seen such a mess before, or since! I guess there is a reason why some of them aren't with us any more...

[[GSV]Trig]

I've got some Socket A stuff, some DDR, IDE hard drives, also some Socket 754 chips, ddr2, 775 chips, ddr3, gpu's

Sure we can build you a machine..

No grooming required...

[[GSV]Trig]

Ooof, lets have a double post there shall we...

[Biscuit]

My dad also has a load of old Socket A stuff int he attic, half of which will be mine. I can also have a dig about see whats there.

[Max Tractor]

I replaced the fan/s on mt nf7/s with the blue passive zalman, the stock like most other small chipset fan got noisy over time, and yes what a great board, my barton xp2500@2.5 was a joy to use and tinker with

[Knoxville]

Barton, that takes me back, I remember having a stupidly clockable xp1700+ JIUHB something or other, hours and hours of tinkering with watercooling in a case smaller than my head!

Thanks for the kind offers chaps I took the plunge and with a little financial backing, took BlackDwarfs Shuttle in F/S off his hands so that'll handle jukebox duty very very nicely indeed for minimum outlay. Might take a bit of the grooming off your hands though Trig

Makes me wonder what some of us could put together on a shoestring though, I bet more than one of us has got a damn near complete PC sat around in old boxes, or spares that could build one for the less than the price of a spindle of DVDR's.