Northbridge Heatsink/Fan Went

[johnnymk]

I asked about this a year or two ago. It's on an ABIT IS7 motherboard. It has been making noises intermittently since then. It really slowed down today and making a whiny sound. So I took it off (ruined one of the three teeny screws). It has a unique clamping arrangement so there is nothing I can think of to replace it.

I ordered a new fan from ABIT, but I am wondering how critical this fan is. Should I take a chance powering it up until I get the new fan or not?

[cheapie]

just spray water in there every once in a while to keep it cool.

[PrObLy]

For what it's worth mine crapped out a couple years ago, I unplugged it and haven't had any problems. Also on an ABIT motherboard.

[Jeffbx]

Is it the CPU fan? You certainly should replace it, but if you have an AMD proc, don't even power it up until the new fan arrives. Those things will burn up so quick your head will spin.

If it's an Intel, you can probably get away with a heatsink only for a short while, but avoid heavy processor usage.

As a side note, I read a little tip a while ago that said you can sometimes bring sticky/noisy fans back to life - on the fan itself there will be a little plug (sometime on top, sometimes on the bottom) that covers the spindle. Pop out the plug (usually under a sticker) and put a tiny bit of 3-in-1 or sewing machine oil - like a drop or less, depending on the size of the fan.

It MUST be 3-in-1 or some other oil designed to work in high temps - WD-40 won't work.

I did this successfully on a video card fan that was sticking, and it worked like a champ.

[Showtime]

The northbridge can get hot. At least put the heatsink back on and check to see how hot it gets. Maybe aim a case fan at it.

Safe thing to do is to just wait for the replacement.

[shocky123]

Make sure the heatsink is still in place, and go ahead and put some new thermal paste on it, just be sure to have _some_ airflow over it and you'll be fine, I went for a solid year or two with a heavily overclocked system that also suffered from broken Northbridge fan. The system eventually died, but not because of the northbridge hehe.

[johnnymk]

The CPU is next to the Northbridge fan and it has a gigantic Zalman fan on the Intel 2.4, so I would probably be OK, after reading these comments. Thanks

[shocky123]

Just make sure, as everyone has said, that it gets *some* airflow and you should be alright :-)

good luck