A8N-SLI Deluxe Chipset Fan Replacement

[RufusKing]

Hello...

My A8N-SLI Deluxe chipset fan is pretty screwed... its gone from being noisy to running at half speed and my chipset is starting to get warmer then I care to run it at, especially as all my work usually stresses the system to its limits, sometimes in 16 hour runs, so having a dodgy chipset fan is not good at all, and whats more so, its no good at all when you have deadlines and a pile of work that you can only do on your main system.

A lot of forums people have been reporting the same problems with this model of MoBo and many different suggestion replacements for it have been mentioned. However, you guys on this forum always seem to know more then anyone else everytime I have needed to know anything. So...

What should I replace my chipset fan with? And what do people deem a good temp. range for it to run at?

Some people have suggested heatsinks like the Zalman NB47J, but with so much system stress is it a good idea to go fanless? The less noise the better though.

Thankyou in advance for you advice as ever. Need to get something ordered as soon as possible!

-Leonard Burton

[dodgybob]

How about a zalman nb47j and a zalman fan bracket (like used on their old 6000 series flower cpu coolers) with a 120mm fan hovering above it? That should ensure that it gets good air flow and at the same time is quiet. I'm considering getting that board soon and having looked at a lot of forum posts on the problem it seems like a good solution. There did seem to be concerns about the nb47j on it's own temperature wise which is why i suggest the fan.

Also if your graphics card isn't overhanging it and in the way how about one of these swiftech coolers?

Hmm out of stock there, try here.

That should keep it very cool. I don't know just how noisey the fan is but that can be replaced.

[directhex]

people called me mad when i said "i don't want a fan on my northbridge, the noisy crappy fans only fail after a week".

i feel at this point i must say "buahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha"

[dodgybob]

people called me mad when i said "i don't want a fan on my northbridge, the noisy crappy fans only fail after a week".

i feel at this point i must say "buahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha"

I agree with you there

Trouble is that the nforce 4 really needs an active solution on it as it runs quite hot so it's all about making sure you can come up with a configuration with quiet fans. It's one reason i'm avoiding the dfi ultra-d even though i'd really like one as the graphics card overhangs the chipset cooler and makes it difficult to replace it with anything quiet without a fair bit of modding. At least with the asus as long as you don't have something like an artic silencer on your graphics card you have more room for manoeuver.

If you want a quiet graphics card too, I think i saw some pictures on the silentpcreview forums where a cu700 gpu cooler would fit with an nb47j. Mind you depends on the size of the graphics card. But if that fits with a cu700 it should fit with a swiftech which is a much meatier heatsink and has the bonus that you can have a quiet 40mm fan on top.

Edit: On the anandtech forums, people were taking off the chipset fan and its shroud (which seems to do nothing but impede air flow) to be replaced with a 10mm high 40mm fan. They seemed to get lower temps and it was quieter. Might be the quickest fix if you're in a hurry.

[NightWolf]

I would look at the Vantec CCB-A1C or the Thermaltake Crystal Orb both are very good and cheap coolers...

[RufusKing]

Thanks for your help so far guys, but unfortunatley my gfx card overhangs the chipset. I have about 2cm clearance in height, and about 3.5cm in width, and same in length for any kind of replacement... meaning unless I am wrong, none of the suggestions so far are going to fit...

Any ideas based on those measurements now I've had a chance to get my system open?

Cheers.

-Leonard

[dodgybob]

Seriously look at replacing the fan on the heatsink with a 40mm one. Have a look at this forum thread where many people did that option successfully. From the comments there i think a 40mm would fit as long as it was 10mm high.

What graphics card and cooler have you got with that kind of overhang?

[OV3RCL0C3R]

I would look at the Vantec CCB-A1C or the Thermaltake Crystal Orb both are very good and cheap coolers...

I would recommend the vantec. I have one of those and they are dead silent and keep the chipset very very cool

[Sparko]

Good to see this has happened to somebody else. I have being playing/tuning with my rig. And YESTERDAY I got it all set up nice, running smooth, fast, Excellent. Today my chipset fan broke. So I bought a nice Swiftech MCX159-A AMD Chipset Heatsink and Fan..
Will this sort my problems out? Only time will tell

[arthurleung]

NF4-D can be modded easily
I modded with a GPU heatsink and its running at 41'C with a 700rpm 8cm fan blowing on it. All SATA ports are in use. Bad thing is I ran out of USB2.0 port (which 4 was blocked by the heatsink.

[dpriest]

Hi,

I was about to buy the A8N-SLI Deluxe board for a new system, after hearing that even the new heatpipes used on the Premium and A8N32-SLI boards suffer from overheating...

Has a newer chipset cooler solution some on the market for the older Deluxe, or is it better just to go for one of the newer boards, and direct a fan on the heatpipe? The mags seem to rate the older Deluxe as having the most value for the money.... (crikey, as if that matters, duh!)

[Thorsson]

I've used the Zalman on its own successfully, but the newer fans supplied by Asus also seem OK. With both I could only hit 40C by raising the ambient temperature to high levels, otherwise it stayed in the high 30s whatever I threw at it.

[dpriest]

Thanks Thorsson,

I take it by "newer fans" you're referring to the fan that initially comes on the Deluxe board, which has been updated?

Cheers!

[Thorsson]

Yes the "revision" fan. The original fan was pants.

[PenguinJim]

(Almost) interestingly, I have one of those eVGA nForce4s that came free with a 7800GT, and the single 7800GT goes exactly over my northbridge fan. But this is one of those SLI boards with the method of SLI being to include 3 graphics card slots - one in the middle for a single card, and two each side of the middle one for SLI. Saves having to mess around with jumpers for enabling SLI. So I could replace the current fan on my Northbridge fairly easily - all I have to do is buy another 7800GT and run them in SLI, freeing up the centre slot graphics card slot, and stopping any cards from overhanging the NB chipset.. Straightforward... but reeeally expensive!

[manwithnoname]

(Almost) interestingly, I have one of those eVGA nForce4s that came free with a 7800GT, and the single 7800GT goes exactly over my northbridge fan. But this is one of those SLI boards with the method of SLI being to include 3 graphics card slots - one in the middle for a single card, and two each side of the middle one for SLI. Saves having to mess around with jumpers for enabling SLI. So I could replace the current fan on my Northbridge fairly easily - all I have to do is buy another 7800GT and run them in SLI, freeing up the centre slot graphics card slot, and stopping any cards from overhanging the NB chipset.. Straightforward... but reeeally expensive!

Have you tried putting a single card in one of the SLI slots? From what I have read it would be connected to 8 PCIe lanes (instead of 16- which does not appear to have much impact on performance with current cards) if it runs ok you could change the chipset fan ...err if you need to change it .