Mainboard Cooler, Oh god help me :/

[acidrainy]

Okay, perhaps the thread title is a little over-dramatic.

I'm actually looking for a replacement northbridge cooler for my nfs-7.
Thing is, Every couple of months, I've noticed that the fans die on me. Either they become more noisier than concord as it reaches mach one or it spins off and explodes. I've been interested in getting a "Zalman Silent Motherboard Northbridge Heatsink" but I'm not sure if it will cope with the heat. My system runs at 200fsb, default core voltage. Could anyone confirm as to whether this cooler is adequate enough, or will I have to resort to the never ending resupply of northbridge fans?

Cheers

[Howard]

Tear off (carefully) that crappy little fan and stick a blue Zalman passive heatsink on. I did. Doesn't affect it in any way

[Tak]

A passive heatsink should be fine for running at stock, some case airflow is recommended however.

[Dark Horse]

As the NB is fairly close to the cpu socket as long as there is airflow from the cpu it should be fine

[Byatt]

I've replaced these in two different systems with the zalman heatsink and it's been fine in both cases (one running at 205Mhz FSB)

[cj2mrhat]

passive cooling is fine for any nforce 2 board - the zalman heatsink is perfect. I've had several nf7-s v2 boards all with failing whiney nb fans after a couple of months - in the end I ran the pc with the original heatsink still mounted but the fan disconnected -its been fine ever since and the nb temps are the same! Just make sure you have decent case, processor and graphics cooling.

I'm running an overclocked xp 2500 mobile @ 2.2ghz (1.625v) with a 400fsb btw.

[acidrainy]

Excellent stuff, the cooler I was talking about is that blue passive Zalman one.

[oralpain]

I use the copper vantec iceberq coolers (CCB-A1C) on almost all of my motherboards. It' a similar design to the stock NF7-S heatsink, but its made of copper, has a much smoother/more level base and I havent had any of the fans fail on the vantect ones (my oldest is about 4 years old, fan works fine). They are also inexpensive and low profile enough not to get in the way of video card when used on some NF3/NF4 boards.

I have also used the Zalman passive heatsinks and they worked fine (far too tall for my recent motherboards though).

[oshta]

Ive got a blue zalman thing on a Abit AT7 max2. work fine, reading temps of about 45idle. Although it gets quite hot under load, 75+, then i get scared and close MBM!
- But thats with a fairly low airflow system, if you put a fan anywhere near it, you'd have no problems.

Also have also used a stock athlon cooler (minus fan) with the fins flared out like the flower coolers, and then cable tied on though the mounting holes.

I dont suppose the NFS-7 puts out any more heat. So it should be fine.
- I'll let you know if i get one. (depending on how good i am at swaping bust caps)


Daniel

[Kagato]

Sold my NF7-S off awhile back so I'm not sure it'd fit, but I've used Thermaltakes NB1 (copper) on a few boards and it works wonders. Had to replace the stock fan they use as it's a bit on the noisy side.

[m0cea]

I had the basic Zalman on an Abit NFS-7 with no issues at all

[philyau]

I had the basic Zalman on an Abit NFS-7 with no issues at all

I had the same thing too for my nf7s-v2, before i sold it. worked alright, no problems.

phil

[ZoZo]

Personally, I have an Abit IC7-G and the northbridge cooler was just too noisy. I didn't think twice and simply unplugged it. Didn't prevent me from going from 2,8Ghz to 3,5Ghz stable for more than a year, and still running
Of course I made sure my case was well ventilated.

[narrowscope]

From what the other people said above, I suppose it's okay to use a passive solution like Zalman's blue cooler (http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/...dx=71&code=014), but a tech representative from Zalman strongly advised against using a passive cooling setup on an nForce4 chipset (I was trying to do away with the fan on my ASUS A8N-E).

[GFiSH]

I've got the passive cooler too, so much quieter and never had any problems.

[bujinkan-ka]

I had to remove my old chipset cooler with a vantec iceberg, since the A8N-SLI's chipset fan gave up on me after about four months. After that, the noise started getting on my nerves so I stuck on a different fan ( ghetto-rigged is the term) and now, i'm going to stick a large heatsink i happen to have lying about - on the northbridge - and pray that nothing bad happens.