ASUS A8n SLI Deluxe Chip Fan....DEAD

[TripleDesi]

So I opened my computer up today to put in a Zip 100 MB drive (yeah, throwback from yesteryears, but I love 'em so). When I booted the machine, BIOS spits warning, "chip fan not working or speed to low".

WTF !!!

I swear I'm no butterfingers. I was very careful putting in the Zip drive. I didn't even know what chip fan was until I googled and saw a picture of motherboard with circle drawn around the chip fan. Sure enough, it's not working. With the computer open, I turned the power on. The fan moved slowly for a couple of rotations and then stopped.

Then I googled for how to replace chip fan on Asus A8N SLI Deluxe. Let's just say I'm in no mood to try. Now I'm not seeing anything untoward happening. My computer seems to be working just fine. No overheating or anything. However, I do wonder if my first video card dying had anything to do with this. If so, my new video card is going to die too :-(

So is there any program I can use to monitor temperature of various parts of my motherboard? Right now I'm using Moo0 System Monitor which is free. It only gives me CPU and Hard Disk temperature that have not gone over 30 degrees C ever. For the life of me I still don't know what the "chip" fan does. It's not the CPU fan. It's this itsy bitsy little more than an 1 inch in diameter fine that sits a couple of inches from the edge of my Graphics card. Googling told me this is a common problem with my motherboard.

Anyone in my predicament and if so what did you do?

Thanks much.

 

[ERazer]

try speedfan http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

and HW monitor http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

 

[TripleDesi]

try speedfan http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

and HW monitor http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

Thanks. Now about my question. What is the "chip fan" for? What does it help with? Reduce temperature of which chip(s)?

 

[ERazer]

Thanks. Now about my question. What is the "chip fan" for? What does it help with? Reduce temperature of which chip(s)?

looks like its nvidia nforce chip its controls storage (Udma,Sata,Raid, etc) and SLI too

check ur MB manual online

http://www.fixya.com/support/p362849-asus_a8n_sli_deluxe_motherboard/manual-10992

 

[segalaw19800]

Were is the fan mounted at.

 

[segalaw19800]

something like this http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=e1h9yUaMZAsTwIEN

 

[TripleDesi]

something like this http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=e1h9yUaMZAsTwIEN

Yes exacty. You see it horizontally across the red SATA connectors and below the dual Graphics Card slots.

I still don't quite understand what "cooling" this fan provides. It is so small, I would think it does not matter. LOL.

 

[oily_17]

Yes exacty. You see it horizontally across the red SATA connectors and below the dual Graphics Card slots.

I still don't quite understand what "cooling" this fan provides. It is so small, I would think it does not matter. LOL.

It's probably to help cool your Southbridge chip.If you have any other fan you could rig it up to blow on the chip if you like.

 

[InTeL-iNsIdE]

It's probably to help cool your Southbridge chip.If you have any other fan you could rig it up to blow on the chip if you like.

Nearly right its for the NB if I'm not mistaken

 

[oily_17]

Nearly right its for the NB if I'm not mistaken

I think those boards have the fan on the southbridge.

My A8N board just has heat sinks/pipe on the chips so any sort of fan blowing some cool air on them would be suffice I would say.

 

[InTeL-iNsIdE]

I think those boards have the fan on the southbridge.

My A8N board just has heat sinks/pipe on the chips so any sort of fan blowing some cool air on them would be suffice I would say.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=A8N-SLI+Deluxe++northbridge&meta=

I still say its the nb


And I wouldnt even imagine the fan is 100& needed tbf, it might be annoying as you are getting an error, but in all honesty unless your doing a fair bit of overclocking with the board, the heatsink without the fan blowing should be sufficient.

 

[oily_17]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=A8N-SLI+Deluxe++northbridge&meta=

I still say its the nb

I think we are both correct/wrong as the nForce4 SLI (which I think is what he has on his board) has both the north/south bridge on one chip and was not untill the nForce4 SLI x16 that they moved till separate north/south bridge chips (which is what I have on my A8N32-SLI Deluxe board).

Anyway just strap another fan on top and you should be good to go.

 

[TripleDesi]

I think we are both correct/wrong as the nForce4 SLI (which I think is what he has on his board) has both the north/south bridge on one chip and was not untill the nForce4 SLI x16 that they moved till separate north/south bridge chips (which is what I have on my A8N32-SLI Deluxe board).

Anyway just strap another fan on top and you should be good to go.

Okay I want to explore "rigging another fan and blow on it" as someone suggested. It would be best if I removed the fan and then put another fan right? Not replace the fan, just put one somewhere else but blowing air in the general direction. I could just break the fan off so it does not obstruct the air blowing from my new fan I'm thinking.

Or should I leave the broken fan alone? I'm thinking if I just get if off the motherboard, might be better. I'm good at breaking stuff without knowing, I just proved it

For now, I have turned off the annoying warning on bootup about fan speed being low so it does not stop asking me to press F1.

Thanks all, as always.

 

[cadaveca]

Those fans are prone to dying. Mine died within about 4 months, so yours lasting this long is actually pretty good.

I called up ASUS support, and they just sent me a new one, didn't even ask for a serial number, but that was many moons ago.


That chip getting hot(next to the SLi bridge), will cause system instability. Get a fan blowing over the area...should feel warm, but not HOT.

 

[TripleDesi]

Replacing that fan is hard

Those fans are prone to dying. Mine died within about 4 months, so yours lasting this long is actually pretty good.

I called up ASUS support, and they just sent me a new one, didn't even ask for a serial number, but that was many moons ago.


That chip getting hot(next to the SLi bridge), will cause system instability. Get a fan blowing over the area...should feel warm, but not HOT.

Replacing the fan requires removing the motherboard flipping it over and removing the clips at the bottom. Or somehow breaking it off and then PRESSING the new one in. The first option is not for mortals such as myself. The second is not for wimps...again...like myself. Maybe after I build a computer all by myself someday I'll have the courage. Sorry, I suck.

I'm gonna explore the "blow air from some other fan" approach. But I'm really really hoping I can just leave it alone. I'm going to Hurry Up Slowly on this one.

Thanks.

 

[cadaveca]

basically any fan over the area will do..it's that tiny black fan causing the bios stop, and that tiny fan just isn't capable of moving alot of air.

I had dual 7800GTX's in that board, and the heat they created sandwiched so close together caused the early death of that fan. If you take your finger and push the fan hub towards the board, sometimes that will get it moving again, but given your situation and willingness to pull the pc apart(or lack thereof), just toss a fan blowing over it and you should be perfectly fine.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

I have the same MOBO. I got it not too long ago, and knowing the problems with these types of HSF's, I pulled it off and replaced it with a Zalman ZM-NB47J northbridge heat sink. When you examine the HSF that is used, it's no wonder that they fail. The rotor for the fan is mounted to the hottest part of the HSF, right over the "chip". The chip is tiny in comparison to the HSF, and it does get HOT. The nice thing about the Zalman heat sink is that it is large enough that if part of it get in the way of other things like a video card, you can just cut/grind it to fit. It was scary for me to remove the HSF - it felt like I was going to break something. I think Asus uses some type of thermal adhesive. The way the Zalman is designed, I was able to rotate it and squeeze it in between my 2 9600GSO's. It does get hot to the touch, but I don't have to worry about a fan failing on me. But, if this is your main PC and this seems daunting to you, getting a fan to blow on it will work, too.

But don't "just leave it alone" - it needs air movement.

 

[TripleDesi]

I have the same MOBO. I got it not too long ago, and knowing the problems with these types of HSF's, I pulled it off and replaced it with a Zalman ZM-NB47J northbridge heat sink. When you examine the HSF that is used, it's no wonder that they fail. The rotor for the fan is mounted to the hottest part of the HSF, right over the "chip". The chip is tiny in comparison to the HSF, and it does get HOT. The nice thing about the Zalman heat sink is that it is large enough that if part of it get in the way of other things like a video card, you can just cut/grind it to fit. It was scary for me to remove the HSF - it felt like I was going to break something. I think Asus uses some type of thermal adhesive. The way the Zalman is designed, I was able to rotate it and squeeze it in between my 2 9600GSO's. It does get hot to the touch, but I don't have to worry about a fan failing on me. But, if this is your main PC and this seems daunting to you, getting a fan to blow on it will work, too.

But don't "just leave it alone" - it needs air movement.

No it is not my primary PC. Yes, I'm scared of ruining it. First my Graphics Card and now this. I'm just going to monitor it a couple of weeks and then decide.

Thanks.

 

[TripleDesi]

basically any fan over the area will do..it's that tiny black fan causing the bios stop, and that tiny fan just isn't capable of moving alot of air.

I had dual 7800GTX's in that board, and the heat they created sandwiched so close together caused the early death of that fan. If you take your finger and push the fan hub towards the board, sometimes that will get it moving again, but given your situation and willingness to pull the pc apart(or lack thereof), just toss a fan blowing over it and you should be perfectly fine.

Here are the reports of my CPUID. I think the temperatures look okay to me. Dunno how high GPU temperature can go before I start worrying. Will do some more observation and then figure out what I need to do. I was kinda hoping the consensus was going to be "don't worry too much" :-(


P.S. Thanks for the message on Chipset Cooling

 

[TripleDesi]

I have the same MOBO. I got it not too long ago, and knowing the problems with these types of HSF's, I pulled it off and replaced it with a Zalman ZM-NB47J northbridge heat sink. When you examine the HSF that is used, it's no wonder that they fail. The rotor for the fan is mounted to the hottest part of the HSF, right over the "chip". The chip is tiny in comparison to the HSF, and it does get HOT. The nice thing about the Zalman heat sink is that it is large enough that if part of it get in the way of other things like a video card, you can just cut/grind it to fit. It was scary for me to remove the HSF - it felt like I was going to break something. I think Asus uses some type of thermal adhesive. The way the Zalman is designed, I was able to rotate it and squeeze it in between my 2 9600GSO's. It does get hot to the touch, but I don't have to worry about a fan failing on me. But, if this is your main PC and this seems daunting to you, getting a fan to blow on it will work, too.

But don't "just leave it alone" - it needs air movement.

I'm beginning to find the courage to try this. Especially because I'm getting (imagining ???) a burning smell now and again when I'm sitting next to the computer (yes, yes, I turned it off already ).

So I can get the fan for $6-7 and the heatsink you mentioned from around $10-$12. Throwing my memory buy in the sink, but I have to admit this is more important.

So I understand the fan is "stuck" to the chip with some adhesive? When you said you pulled it off, did you like hold it in your fingers and slowly pull upwards but firmly? Just don't want to rip the fan along with the chip off the motherboard.

Thanks.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

Since I'd never done anything like this before, I took it slow. I tried to twist it and then I used a flat screw driver and gently pryed up on the edges that I could get to. If you have something made of plastic or wood, (like a Popsicle stick) that would be better. Pulling straight up would be the worst thing you could do. Try to work around the HSF-maybe you can find a weakly stuck area. I had the MOBO out of the case. I had to use a lot of alcohol to remove the stuff that was on the chip. Also had to carefully scrape it off. This is important - make sure the chip is clean before reassembly.

 

[oily_17]

Also, you can use a hair-dryer to heat up the adhesive/thermal paste before you try to remove the fan.

Then gently pull it upwards while slightly twisting it from side to side to loosen it from the paste.

 

[GC_PaNzerFIN]

The chipset cooling on A8N-SLI Deluxe is legendary fail. I had 4 of them (one was a twice the original size replacement from ASUS) die on me. Few completely dead A8N-SLi Deluxes as well and lots lots of issues. Last one (under this is a pic of the board responsible) killed half of my rig. :/

 

[punani]

In my former rig I have the same mobo, A8N-sli deluxe.. That exact same fan died on me also, first it started having these annoying sounds and after a while the error messages emerged. The rig is about 4 and ½ years old now and that fan hasn't moved in atleast 2 years time.

The old rig is running next to my main rig at the moment with the dead chip fan and no problemo, had a 7800gtx next to the fan for 4 years and recently swapped for a ati HD 4650. It's inside a old dusty Nexus breeze case so the ventilation isn't top notch neither.

So from my experience all you need to do is disable the warnings and carry on with happy computing like nothing happened. Still it would be wise to replace the fan with some sort of heatsink, just as a precaution.

I also remember reading about a bunch of other owners stating the same problem, and ASUS replacing that fan free of charge if you just notify them.

 

[TripleDesi]

So from my experience all you need to do is disable the warnings and carry on with happy computing like nothing happened. Still it would be wise to replace the fan with some sort of heatsink, just as a precaution.

You serious? Do you keep the computer on all the time with default Power settings (e.g. after 1 hour go to standby). Or do you occasionally start and shut it down?

I think I'm sure I can figure out how to put new heatsink and/or fan on top of the chip. My problem really is removing the non-functioning fan right now. As you say, at least my computer runs right now. If I F it up while removing the fan, that'll suck most intensely. My confidence level after hearing use ice cream stick, twisting side to side, blow hair dryer, etc. has gone down again.

I want to go back to the stone ages where we didn't have to worry about computers, cell phones, etc. etc...