Northbridge Fan on Abit IC7 is it needed?

[cxs410]

O.k., my fan on my IC7 is making me insane it is soo loud, clacks, whines and various other noises, if i just unplug it... will it be ok or will it burn up.. I am no overclocking and I have very good cooling inside the computer.

thx
-Chris

[Firelord]

Might be ok but you could grab a thermalright NB-1 northbridge cooler with fan from tekheads for aa fiver iirc

[BenW]

or a zalman heatsink with not fan

[Phalanx]

you need to think "why did they put a fan on the northbridge in the first place?"

[BenW]

you need to think "why did they put a fan on the northbridge in the first place?"

because its designed to be overclocked without the northbridge being a heat problem!

[mahoodlum]

But sometimes it's purely on there because it's "fashionable"
Little fan like that shouldn't be too noisy - How big is it?

[LWA]

I always find that the little fans always make more noise than the big ones, albeit more whinny and irratating!

[0iD]

Mine fell off about 6 months ago on my work PC. Never bothered to put it back on & it still runs 24/7 overclocked to the max without a problem.

(P4 3.2 @ 3.56MHz, 1gb Corsair XMS PC3200, IC7)

[LeeumH]

The Abit NB sinks are crap tbh. My NF7-S one grates against it's metal housing, for overclocking your FSB get yourself a waterblock/ sink with fan. If not one of those Zalman passive sinks are great.

[nichomach]

I'd add that the NB fans on the IC7-G are known to be wonky; Abit will swap them for P&P only, but I found the best way was to just replace with a Zalman heatsink. The machine in question runs 24/7 without issue, but it's not OC'ed.