Can't get answers from ASUS

I phoned Asus to get information on how to replace the AMD 761 System Controller Fan on my A7M266
motherboard. Left a message, but they never called me back. Sent an email to tech support and got
the brush off, telling me to
go back to my vendor for support. I'll never buy another Asus board.

Sherwin D.

If your refering to the northbridge chipset fan remove it and install
one of these

http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/...dx=71&code=014

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118214


--
ASUS A8V/Athlon 64 FX-55
ATI RADEON X800XT PE
1GB OCZ Gold Edition Rev3 DDR PC-3700

From: "sherwindu"
Subject: Can't get answers from ASUS
Date: 10 May 2005 06:31

I phoned Asus to get information on how to replace the AMD 761 System
Controller Fan on my A7M266
motherboard. Left a message, but they never called me back. Sent an email
to tech support and got
the brush off, telling me to
go back to my vendor for support. I'll never buy another Asus board.

Sherwin D.


Cant say I blame em much..
Your asking to replace a "System Controller Fan"
they took that to mean you either want to replace the
1) Fan Controller
2) Northbridge Fan (I am sure this is what you want)

As you didnt know wichun it is then they probably figgure you shouldnt be
mucking with it..
and to be honest.. I dont think that they actually want you to remove that.
But it's not difficult to do

sherwindu wrote:
I phoned Asus to get information on how to replace the AMD 761 System
Controller Fan on my A7M266 motherboard. Left a message, but they
never called me back. Sent an email to tech support and got the
brush off, telling me to
go back to my vendor for support. I'll never buy another Asus board.

Just remove the fan. The fan stopped working after I had done some vacuuming
inside a friend´s case.
Removed it, but of course kept the heatsink. The PC works fine without it.
It was an AMD 761 NB.

rstlne wrote:

From: "sherwindu"
Subject: Can't get answers from ASUS
Date: 10 May 2005 06:31

I phoned Asus to get information on how to replace the AMD 761 System
Controller Fan on my A7M266
motherboard. Left a message, but they never called me back. Sent an email
to tech support and got
the brush off, telling me to
go back to my vendor for support. I'll never buy another Asus board.

Sherwin D.

Cant say I blame em much..
Your asking to replace a "System Controller Fan"
they took that to mean you either want to replace the
1) Fan Controller
2) Northbridge Fan (I am sure this is what you want)

As you didnt know wichun it is then they probably figgure you shouldnt be
mucking with it..
and to be honest.. I dont think that they actually want you to remove that.
But it's not difficult to do

I have this nice illustration in my ASUS manual that identifies the location of the
fan. It is designated as the AMD761 System Controller. The fan in question sits
over this location. Never heard of a Northbridge Fan, and nothing in the manual
makes reference to it. Telling me to tear my motherboard out of the case and
send it in on an RMA is just plain stupid, just to replace a fan. A previous reply
took me to one site that wasn't even in English, and the other site a vendor that
produced zero hits when asked to search for Northbridge Fans. The other reply
to permanently remove the fan doesn't sound like a wise thing to do. I see two
Phillips screws holding down the fan, which I can easily remove, but there are
also two more plastic looking possible attaching devices on the opposite corners.
If I had a replacement fan, I would start by removing the two Phillips screws. I
saw a similar fan in Radio Shack that runs off of 12 Volts. This may work, but
Asus is not nice about telling you the voltage requirements of the fans on their
boards. Not knowing the techy name for this fan is a poor excuse for not giving
me the information I needed. I was formerly an embedded software engineer,
and know something about hardware, so I think I can handle a simple fan
replacement, once I know the specs on it.

If I had a replacement fan, I would start by removing the two Phillips
screws. I
saw a similar fan in Radio Shack that runs off of 12 Volts. This may
work, but
Asus is not nice about telling you the voltage requirements of the fans on
their
boards. Not knowing the techy name for this fan is a poor excuse for not
giving
me the information I needed. I was formerly an embedded software
engineer,
and know something about hardware, so I think I can handle a simple fan
replacement, once I know the specs on it.



Fair enough..

most pc fans will be 12v dc
DC fans will run even if they are on the wrong voltage (as long as there is
enough to start it spinning). You could burn it out but that would require
a UBER fast fan (or more to it, a really high current draw) but it's
doubtful.
You can buy a fan connector to plug into your normal connections (and many
good fans (for pc's) come with the connector so you are not forced to use
the 2 pin line.. But most fans now are 3 or 4 pin and you would have to move
pins around (needle works fine usually)

As a guess.. the 2 screw's you see will be to the fan, and the 2 plugs
(probably white & semitransparent) will hold the heatsink on.
Many users do run computers and remove those nb fans, but you wouldnt want
to do that with the stock heatsink usually. If you did remove it or turn it
off and use your pc.. if it's stable then your probably good to do. As long
as heatsinks are properly installed then fans going off (on the
bridge/ram/and most of the time for cpu/gpu) will not mean death to the
system.

sherwindu wrote:

I have this nice illustration in my ASUS manual that identifies the
location of the fan. It is designated as the AMD761 System
Controller. The fan in question sits over this location. Never
heard of a Northbridge Fan, and nothing in the manual makes reference
to it.

The AMD 761 system controller IS the northbridge.

Telling me to tear my motherboard out of the case and
send it in on an RMA is just plain stupid, just to replace a fan.

Yes


A previous reply took me to one site that wasn't even in English

Indeed it was written in english, even if the site was in Croatia.

The other reply
to permanently remove the fan doesn't sound like a wise thing to do.

That was me. You decide for yourself.


Not knowing the techy name for this fan is
a poor excuse for not giving me the information I needed. I was
formerly an embedded software engineer,
and know something about hardware, so I think I can handle a simple
fan replacement, once I know the specs on it.

Try removing the HSF altogether and go with Hawkeye's advice, then you'll
never have to worry about a broken fan anymore.

In article , sherwindu
wrote:

rstlne wrote:

From: "sherwindu"
Subject: Can't get answers from ASUS
Date: 10 May 2005 06:31

I phoned Asus to get information on how to replace the AMD 761 System
Controller Fan on my A7M266
motherboard. Left a message, but they never called me back. Sent an email
to tech support and got
the brush off, telling me to
go back to my vendor for support. I'll never buy another Asus board.

Sherwin D.

Cant say I blame em much..
Your asking to replace a "System Controller Fan"
they took that to mean you either want to replace the
1) Fan Controller
2) Northbridge Fan (I am sure this is what you want)

As you didnt know wichun it is then they probably figgure you shouldnt be
mucking with it..
and to be honest.. I dont think that they actually want you to remove that.
But it's not difficult to do

I have this nice illustration in my ASUS manual that identifies the
location of the fan. It is designated as the AMD761 System Controller.
The fan in question sits over this location. Never heard of a
Northbridge Fan, and nothing in the manual makes reference to it.
Telling me to tear my motherboard out of the case and send it in on
an RMA is just plain stupid, just to replace a fan. A previous reply
took me to one site that wasn't even in English, and the other site a
vendor that produced zero hits when asked to search for Northbridge
Fans. The other reply to permanently remove the fan doesn't sound
like a wise thing to do. I see two Phillips screws holding down the
fan, which I can easily remove, but there are also two more plastic
looking possible attaching devices on the opposite corners. If I had
a replacement fan, I would start by removing the two Phillips screws.
I saw a similar fan in Radio Shack that runs off of 12 Volts. This
may work, but Asus is not nice about telling you the voltage
requirements of the fans on their boards. Not knowing the techy name
for this fan is a poor excuse for not giving me the information I
needed. I was formerly an embedded software engineer, and know
something about hardware, so I think I can handle a simple fan
replacement, once I know the specs on it.

The word "Northbridge" appears on PDF page 37 of the AMD761 datasheet.
Also, in your motherboard manual, the fan header is labelled "NB_FAN".
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/cont...docs/24088.pdf

You are looking for a 40mm 12V brushless DC fan. Asus motherboard
Fan headers are uniformly 12V operation and have three pins. If all
you can find is a two wire fan, the wires go to +12V (red) and GND
(black). The tachometer wire is optional, and if present allows the
fan RPMs to be monitored. Without the third wire, it will read zero.
This Radio Shack fan doesn't have the three pin female connector on
the end, so "some user assembly required" :-(

http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...t%5Fid=273-240

The only exception I know of, to the use of 12V fans, is on
video cards. You may find the odd 5V fan on those, with perhaps
a different connector on it. An obvious way to know the difference,
is to check the voltage delivered to the fan header pins while the
system is powered, using a multimeter.

What you don't know, is how many "cubic feet per minute" of air
you want the fan to move. But, at this size of fan, the volume
is tiny in any case.

Dynatron 40x40x28 11.3cfm 37dBA 8700rpm tacho_wire=yes $5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811999701

Coolermaster 40x40x15 5cfm 25dBA 5000rpm tacho_wire=yes $7
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103155

Panasonic 40x40x20 6.7cfm 32dBA 7500rpm tacho_wire=no $15
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835180016

Panasonic 40x40x20 3.9cfm 23dBA 4700rpm tacho_wire=no $15
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835180015

Optional - speed adjustment for fan $7 (may help with Dynatron)
Coolermaster noise number looks good enough without speed adjustment.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118217

Have fun,
Paul

Hi Egil,
Thanks for all the help. I did find the fan on Newegg.com and ordered it. Strangely enough, the
fan has been quiet for the past week, probably because I have
left the case ajar and thereby changed the air flow conditions.
I am still upset about Asus, whose technical support is one of the worst I have ever
come across. They should make it easy to replace ANY component on their boards. I now know what NB
stands for, so that was an education. The Asus manual could have been more helpful. I should be
thankful that it was only a relatively inexpensive fan that went out, but I have lost confindence in
Asus as a company that gives good service and documentation.

Sherwin D.

Egil Solberg wrote:

sherwindu wrote:

I have this nice illustration in my ASUS manual that identifies the
location of the fan. It is designated as the AMD761 System
Controller. The fan in question sits over this location. Never
heard of a Northbridge Fan, and nothing in the manual makes reference
to it.

The AMD 761 system controller IS the northbridge.

Telling me to tear my motherboard out of the case and
send it in on an RMA is just plain stupid, just to replace a fan.

Yes

A previous reply took me to one site that wasn't even in English

Indeed it was written in english, even if the site was in Croatia.

The other reply
to permanently remove the fan doesn't sound like a wise thing to do.

That was me. You decide for yourself.

Not knowing the techy name for this fan is
a poor excuse for not giving me the information I needed. I was
formerly an embedded software engineer,
and know something about hardware, so I think I can handle a simple
fan replacement, once I know the specs on it.

Try removing the HSF altogether and go with Hawkeye's advice, then you'll
never have to worry about a broken fan anymore.

I got my replacement fan from newegg. It was larger than I imagined from the internet picture and came
with no mounting hardware. I decided to try and take off
the ARX fan, which had stopped running. After removing two phillips screws, the fan and connecting
cable came out of a black case enclosure. There were two thumb screw on this case, which after turning
did not seem to release it. I don't know what is holding the fan case to the board. Also, I can't
imagine how this cooling was supposed to work, since behind the fan was a solid piece of plastic.
Maybe this plastic was kept cool, and it inturn kept the chips cool. I'm sorry I bought an ASUS
board! Trying to find information about this fan from ARX is almost impossible. Their site is in
Chinese, and even after loading the plug in to
Adobe for this language set, it could not be read. Emails to the US office of ARX
have produced no result. How can ASUS put an unsupportable component on their
board? I refuse to rip out this board to send it to the RMA department of ASUS,
just to replace a stupid fan. This is just another instance of sending all our production
overseas. Anyone know of a good Chinese language school?

Sherwin D.

sherwindu wrote:

I phoned Asus to get information on how to replace the AMD 761 System Controller Fan on my A7M266
motherboard. Left a message, but they never called me back. Sent an email to tech support and got
the brush off, telling me to
go back to my vendor for support. I'll never buy another Asus board.

Sherwin D.