Socket 939....

topgazza

topgazza

topgazza

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12 May 2004
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266
I have a perfectly good AMD Athlon 4200+ processor and an Asus A8N-E motherboard , socket 939 natch.

Trouble is the little fan on the motherboard on the NVidia 4 chip is noiser than anything else...if I disconnect it it gets red hot...if I leave it running it really is a noisy little bugger. Never noticed it before in my old rig as I had tons more stuff in it but on reflection most of the noise must have been coming from this tiny little fan

Trying to find areasonably...cheap...decnt 939 motherboard is very difficult...

Thinking I might be able to replace the Nvidia chip fan with a heat sink...

Any ideas peeps...please....
 
I had an nForce 4 and stuck a Thermalright SLi passive cooler on it. I could fit my 3870 with no problems as the heatsink is to the side of the chipset. (you can rotate it too)
 
Thanks for the quick reply. I see a lot of items refering to "northbridge" which I'm guessing is the general term for that and similar chips. Couple of Zalman non fan based coolers here....

I'll check out the Thermaright Sli one...the PC is my spare one that the wife and daughter browse the internet and do homework on...not heavily stressed at all
 
Hi topgazza,

Just thought I'd let you know how I solved the problem of my noisy Nforce4 chipset fan, (which sounded like a circular saw going through a plank of wood!).

Firstly, I sprayed a little WD40, through the straw attachment, behind the fan propellor onto the fan's spindle. Then I unplugged the chipset fan from the motherboard and reconnected it via this zalman fanmate2 fan controller to the motherboard.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=OA-000-ZA&tool=3

I slowed the chipset fan down to 6600 RPM,(use Everest or speedfan to check the speed) and now the noise has gone!! (It's been about a year and a half without any noise).

I was too scared to remove the chipset fan because I had read scare stories about how easy it was to damage the Nforce chip underneath. (Props to Monkeynut for doing so)

Just in case your wondering, I am running an overclocked Athlon64 4200+ X2 (Best £43 worth of Dual core chip I bought 3 years ago!!) at 2.772 GHz (stock 2.2Ghz) on an MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (MS-7125), day in day out, so I don't think the reduction in chipset fan speed effected the overclocking potential adversely.

Hope this helps.
 
Great advice guys...thank you...I knew this would be the place to come. Thought about a bit of WD40 as well...and I have kept the old fan just in case....man that thing spins at over 7k rpm....

Been having a little play around and decided to try fitting one of these

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SY-007-ZA&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=399

Obviously totally silent and it does get very hot so its doing its job....fitted a case fan above it on the side panel blowing onto the heatsink...not sure it needs it but just in case...it does add a noise back as they are NOT ultra quiet.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-023-AK&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=819

Mind you I did have it running off the PSU so it was flat out. Trying to plug it into one of the MB fan sockets to see if I can reduce the speed. But not convinced the onboard CHA1 control is that effective. Might as well go for one of those Zalman Fan mates and reduce the speed right down so I just have a gentle flow of air across the heatsink.

Next challenge is to replace the stock AMD 4200+ cooler...which is, I agree, a great processor..... with something reasonably budget priced but quiet. Having said that I have turned on the Asus Q Fan controller thingy in the bios and that reduces the CPU fan speed to reflect the work...its gone very quiet. As this PC only does internet and a bit of tablet work for art that might just do it.
 
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I suggest you overhaul your case cooling if you especially if intend using passive heatsinks.

In my case I have a Scythe Sflex120mm fan sucking air in from the front, a Noctua 120mm blowing out of the top (Hot air rises!), an Akasa Amber 80mm fan on the back, and two Akasa 80mm on the side blowing air onto the graphics card (probably unnecessary, but why not!). My Xygmatek HDT1283 cpu cooller is fitted with a 120mm Scythe fan. All of these fans are connected to a Zalman Fan controller in order to keep the nose down.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BB-002-ZA&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=

but I suppose one of these will be ok:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-021-AK&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=

Day to day non gaming usage, I have the fans turned down to their lowest setting, resulting in core temps of 30 and 35 respectively (at this moment). During gaming with all fans turned up high 48 and 52 approximately.

I noticed from your other posts that you were overclocking in the past, if you are still running at 2.42 GHz (220FSB x11) you definitely need to use a ram divider (as it is your RAM that is holding you back from getting 2.8-3.0GHz using your Asus board which is a better overclocking board than my MSI). By gearing down your ddr400 ram to run at ddr3 speed your increased fsb will push your ram speed back up to 400Mhz or slightly more, because without the divider you are running your ram at 440MHz and will overstress your ram if you push your fsb any higher. I am running mine at 2.772GHz (252 FSB x 11) and was only able to do that with my bog standard 3-3-3-8 Crucial memory by running a 2:3 divider (ie running at ddr3 speed) as after my FSB increase my ram is running at 396MHz (slightly underclocked, but increase in cpu speed outweighs this), the side effect of this is that my automatic memory timings were slightly improved to 2.5-3-3-7.

And maybe raise your cpuvcore to around 1.41-1.44 volts ( mine is at 1.44v), and to increase stability you could drop hypertransport down to 3 (if you need to).

Oh and if you haven't done so already get a better graphics card for this rig. I replaced a 7900gs for an 8800GT and my 3dmark06 went up from around 4000 to 10000. Saved me a shed load as I was going to upgrade to a Q6600 last year, ended up buying a 20 inch flatscreen monitor instead to enjoy the new graphics. I can now play GTA4, GRID, and at the moment I am playing DIRT2 quite comfortably, so there's still a lot of life in the old rig!!

Sorry to go somewhat offtopic but I did not want to resurrect a dead thread.

Hope this helps
 
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Wow...you bet it does. Thanks oddboy...

I have a couple of tasks to carry out now.....

The "Internet" PC seems to be running OK with the passive Nvidia4 chip with that fan blowing over it. But I like the idea of adding more fans and a controller...which is what I will now do. Oh...I have a door on the front of my PC tower...which I assume is no prblem with eitehr of those controllers ?

I have bought new "gear" for my own PC and left the Asus/AMD 4200+ in that internet system as is with just a slight tweak to CPU volts...and mem settings. Nothing more "exotic" required for now as it will not be doing anything heavy

My own machine has

AMD Phenom II x4 955 runing @3.62mhz
Giga GA MA790XT mobo
GSkill DDR3 1600 dual mem.

Shamefully I still have a 7300GT graphics card...yes...stop laughing :D...I just can't make my mind up what to go for.
 
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I was actually thinking of putting together almost the exact same rig, I would've gone for the asus 785G motherboard myself to get onboard video for when doing less demanding tasks, save £10-20, but I could not justify the expense, especially now that prices seem to be increasing, seeing that my current rig does everything/ plays everything satisfactorily.

I think I will go Socket 1366 when I need the change, better upgrade path, and I'm sorry AMD but better chips, especially with the new Gigabyte board with USB3 and SATA3, at £160, none of this £250 for a motherboard silliness!!!

But holding out till I find something my pc can't do for me....lol
 
That's kind of what I've done with the graphics...its does everything I need at the moment...I'll wait until something I really want to do forces a purchase.
 
You have an 939 4200+? Sell the thing along with your RAM (separately mind...). Socket 939 X2s and DDR RAM go for over-inflated prices on the bay. You could get a nice upgrade for free...
 
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Good tip...must be the shortage or perceived shortage of socket 939 processors....I could really find a new Mobo that was 939...

Ok time to ebay it....cheers
 
One recently released 939 motherboard is the ASRock 939A785GMH/128M.

It's based on the same 785G chipsed as some of the recent AM3 boards.

But like I said - would be cheaper to sell your existing and buy an up-to date CPU to drop a motherboard with an up-to-date socket.
 
Upgrading to a latest CPU has to be a good idea. Slight shaggy dog story...slightly off topic

My son is at Uni and his final year project is to build a virtual network on one PC using HyperV and Windows Server 2008...he spent a year at MS last year so knows the stuff inside out. However his excellent Dell Studio Hybrid...only 12 months old... will not run Hyper V, virtuliation software to create VMs as it has an Intel processor and they are not very forthcoming with compatability with HyperV..a key MS server product. AMD are slight better but only in their latest CPUsdoesn't have


Just did emergency purchase of an

AMD Athlon x2 240 2.8ghz AM3 - 2mb cache
MSI GF 615 M P33 -with integrated GeForce 6150E mATX board
4bg Kingston DDR3 1066mhz mem

A cheapo case and PSU and he says it goes like a rocket....in this case the latest type CPU was required to run the app because of the lack of VT-x technology in the CPU which slightly older CPUs don't have. Its a simple non high powered PC, very basic....but it just goes to show what keeping up with the latest technology can do, arguably more so than just pure grunt.....

So swapping ny 4200+ just makes even more sense to me....
 
Well for £65 you can get a new 9800GT for your new rig

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-109-GW&tool=3

I'm sure you could pick one up from the bay a lot cheaper, as a lot of people are upgrading to bigger and better things, leaving rich pickings for people like me who lag behind the cutting edge of graphics technology.

I picked up my 8800GT from ebay just after Christmas 2008 for £85, this was when they were selling in the shops for £150. It was a particularly nice gigabyte one with a zalman heatsink and fan which was smaller than the reference design as a bigger card with a 2 slot cooling solution would have clashed with....you guessed it ....my nforce4 chipset fan.

I am not so au fait with the ATI equivalent, because when a friend of mine had issues with an ati 3870x2 (£270 worth of Gcard at the time) playing COD4, and he sent it back to the etailer he bought it from, they could not find a fault with it, so they sent it back to him!! I realised that the quality of the ati drivers may not be as good as those of nvidia. This may not be true now, but I hear less criticism of the nvidia drivers.So I am a little bit wary of ati stuff. But I suppose if you want to take a punt then this would be a good one rated at around the 8800GTX level:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-117-PC

BTW not sure if there will be an issue with the fan controllers I mentioned and the door on your pc case, as mine doesn't have doors .....It's got Windows though!!....Sorry I just could not resist that.
 
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:)

Terrible....:D

Just remembered that the case I've used for the "internet" PC has no door...no no problem..and yes, it has Windows...

Good idea on the graphics card....one advantage of the constant releases of technology is that, usually, the "older" stuff gets cheaper and cheaper. Be it all 2nd hand. it end to lag behind as well...most do I think, the high end gamers can't wait to get the latest. Which is fair enough, I can understand that.

ATIs are very good I have to say. I use NVidia out of habit but colleagues who have ATI s all love them. These companies play catch up with each other all the time of course. For the "Internet" PC I bought a Sapphire (ATi) HD 4550 512MB DDR3 so an older card but its brilliant. Horses for courses.

I hate noisy PCs though and too much high end stuff means being creative, expensive usually, in keeping it cool and quiet.
 
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