Northbridge cooling? (Averatec 3150P)

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

My wife is on the road this week, and her Averatec 3150P laptop
suddenly issued a warning message: "North Bridge FAN error. Please
check it." And the normally obnoxiously-loud fan in the thing is
suddenly eerily quiet. Uh-oh.

Since she's not here, I can't check it directly. She's teaching a
class so she can't start ripping it apart. I looked to see if there
were any utilities (e.g. Motherboard Monitor 5, etc) that monitor the
Northbridge temperature, but I'm not finding any.

According to http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20030618/averatec-
03.html the 3150P uses a KN266 (VIA VT8372) Northbridge. I can't find
specs for it on www.via.com.tw, but according to
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article33-page2.html the Via KT133 is
rated for 110 C (!!). I don't know how the laptop version compares.

I know that many Northbridge chips don't NEED a fan. Some units don't
put a fan on it at all. The Northbridge fan on my Asus A7V266E mobo
hasn't worked for ages and I haven't had any problems.

So: Is my wife's Northbridge in danger if she runs without the fan?
Is there some utility she can use (without inserting any add-on temp
probes, etc) to see how hot it's running?

Thanks!
Gary
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