Asus A8N-SLI chipset fan dying

Hi,

I have an Asus A8N-SLI of which the little nForce chip fan is dying. I really want to replace it but I've never replaced such a fancy looking fan. I could not find a picture of the fan I have. It seems the mobo pics on the internet use a different fan than I have. However, this one comes pretty close except that mine is different ontop:


The questions:
1) Can I let the mobo run without any fan on the chipset? If I would remove the casing the chipset should get enough air from the front fan of the case. There is a clear path from the front fan to the chipset. However, I have my doubts.

2) When I replace the fan, what fan should/could I get. I have replaced fans in the past but nothing so 'fancy' as this one. Should I get the same shape/design fan or could I replaced it with a standard black one?

Well, that's about all.

Any info and/or help would be greatly appriciated.

The chipset cooler on my A8N-E was driving me mad so i replaced it with this http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=71 . temps stay about the same but it's completely silent plus its a piece of cake to install, didnt even have to take out the mobo.

I've had my A8N SLI-Deluxe since Dec. of 2004, and I'm on my third chipset fan. They're not too hard to replace, but I would go with chrisbrown's Zalman recommendation. All three of the Asus fans I have used are extremely loud, and are set to run at high speeds, which is why I think they tend to fail. As cooling fans go, they're really pathetic and cheap. I guess it's easier to slap a cheap fan on a thin piece of metal than to build a heatsink, with or without a fan.

In thinking about how to best handle your fan issue be sure to consider your overall heat sources. Are you running SLI? How are you cooling your CPU and RAM? You said you had a clear path from your front case fan over the chipset - what are your case temps like? If you have good airflow and low case temps then I think a passive heatsink will work great. If you're running SLI with warm cards then you might want to think about a solution with a fan.

What do others think?

I have an A8N-E with a really loud fan (getting worse and worse). Since my board is still under the 3 years manufacture warranty, I sent an email out to Asus telling them about my loud fan. They are now sending me a replacement fan free of charge. I am quite please with Asus for resolving this issue with out any hassle on my part.

Hey Folks,

I also own an A8N-SLI motherboard whose fan was on its way out. Considering the replacement fans from ASUS are equally poor quality, I decided I would replace the fan with the heatpipe from the A8N-SLI Premium board.

The A8N-SLI boards have the same layout. I ordered a heatpipe from ASUS, took off the two heatsinks off my board, cleaned off the thermal material, and slapped the heatpipe (comes with pre-applied thermal material) to the board, made sure the pipe was attached to the board, put everything back in my tower and booted up - been running for a year with no problems. I play games on max settings for hours and no problems. Really quiet too. Only thing, I had to disable the Chipset Fan Fail feature in my board..........

I think the heatpipe only runs $15.00

A cheap and easy and proven solution to the noisy fan.

I urge people to try that instead of another fan, or passive heatsink because with the ASUS heatpipe, there is no worrying about whether or not a video card will fit, as the cooling solution is very low profile.

Hope that helps,

Mark

yeah dont think ill ever get a passive (heatpipe) mobo again and if i do ill be replacing it with fans. My new heat pipe motherboard runs 2x hotter then my sli delux mobo did with a broken fan. not to mention i never heard a chipset fan EVER from ANY motherboard EVER they just arent loud. dont say asus's poor quality like every other mobo maker out there doesnt use cheap crap 2 cent fans thats just dumb.

The temperature issue after changing the fan was a concern to me, but I do have good case cooling and since it is rocksolid and stable, it has worked good for me. Probably the reason why I was able to hear the fan on my board was because I ran a 120 mm stealth case fan, and everything else was fairly quiet, and I did notice when I took the fan out.

I meant to say the replacement chipset fans offered by ASUS were terrible. I did not mean to put down the other mobo manufacturers or anything.

Can you tell me how to unhook the fan. It seems to be fixed to the mobo by 2 'pins' on either side. I tried a few things but I am unable to unplug it. To me it seems I have to take out the entire motherboard to be able to remove the fan. Any help would be appriciated.