I think this may be one of the most promising ways to fix the problem
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=418
That's an interesting product. On the one hand it's nice
that they did all the work for us, but geeze(!), couldn't
they include a decent fan? Crazy how such a common failure
point is so easily ignored on products. Blame reviewers
though, they may rate noise but seldom a really good
analysis of whether the product is expected to serve it's
purpose for the life of the system or be yet another
maintenance issue.
It looks awefully big and heavy too, I almost think I'd go
with water-cooling first and I have managed to run even
highly o'c systems up till now without any *need* to do
that. At least the fan on it is a standard size, easily
enough replaced if/when necessary.
The problem is its not sold in the US reading the articles on it. Why
they sent out samples to various test sites is beyond me. One place
online lists it for sale but it says out of stock. They say its only
sold in Taiwan. The other problem is like I thought $38 or so listed
at the site which claims to sell it. Way too high. With shipping it
would be over $40. I can get various whole new MBs in the 80-100 range
with the cooler out of the way like an MSI.
Another possibility though this one brings out one of the problems ---
the whole thing about the PCI express mess , QC and design of the MBs
seeming to be really iffy nowadays especially in light of all the
financial problems of the makers. And specifically the problem of
nforce4 chip cooling.
Well we could see it coming though, faster speeds and lower
core sizes make higher heat density inevitable until they
can manage to find some new materials. Funny thing is, back
in the earlier Athlon days people frowned on highly o'c
Athlons claiming they produced way too much heat (I had some
putting out over 100W under full load), then those same
Intel zealots turned around and bought Prescotts producing
that much heat in stock config but then the Intel retail
'sink which was louder. Context is funny sometimes.
Take a look at some of the reviews of the boards at Newegg:
Like this MSI nforce4 though the overall rating from the people with
boards that worked pushed it up and who knows if Newegg was filtering
the replies since they deleted a review I made on a board a while back
and it wasnt even that bad a review just lukewarm but with a warning.
There are disturbing amounts of posts scattered about failing boards
in a short time.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustRatingReview.asp?Item=N82E16813130491
It could be the boards, but then again every other day it
seems like someone is claiming they got such a great deal on
their $20 500W PSU... so it seems they may not know what
they're doing enough to know which part is truely to blame.
I ask that question a few times when it comes to PSU
threads... "If the power supply kills the board, will you
blame the right part?".
Same with DFI
Good overall rating but disturbing amount of failed board reviews in a
short time and once again who know how filtered the responses are.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136163
I noticed one thing about the DFI board they talk about how hot the
nforce4 chip was and how noisy and super RPM the fan was on it.
If you take a look the fan on it its different than the usual chip set
cooler setup I think though I maybe wrong. It looks like its recessed
like some graphics chip coolers. You know they have the fan sitting in
a tray with the fins around the fan but the fan itself is recessed
into the heatsink so the whole thing is 5/8 of an inch thick or so.
Yeah I hate those, they may be thinner but they never seem
to run very long and are impossible to replace (just the
fan). It's somewhat ironic that of all the possible ways to
cool things, they always seem to find some way to muck up
such simple things in this day and age, with cooling being
one of the few technologies as old as the hills.
Thats what you would need. And of course in this case they placed it
behind the PCI slots just an example of the all over the map design of
the nforce4 layouts. Basically the whole thing has to be around
1/4-5/8 or so thick. Putting alow profile fan ontop of a regular low
profile heatsink is too high. The cheapest solution is the DFI
approach with the recessed flush with the heatsink fan which should
cost maybe 6-10 bucks max like any other chip cooler fan. However DFI
consumers here complain that its super high rpm and that it doesnt
cool that well etc. Maybe cause the heatsinks seem cut off below the
fan to make it recessed?
Tiny thin fans move very little air to begin with then
squeezing it into a 'sink makes it worse. Then the fan
wears and wobbles in the bearing and RPM drops but noise
doesn't. The metal over the core is so thin too, when the
one area it needs to be thick is there. I'm not a big fan
of those TMD fans but if ever there was a good place for one
it would seem to be here so the center mass of the fan could
be smaller. Even so, fan longevity (as related to wobble)
has a lot to do with how deep the bearing is... I try not to
ever use fans less than 15mm thick and that would leave no
room for the 'sink even if the fan were recessed into it.
If you notice though the first fan is difference from this recessed
one they use on the much praised DFI LAN party
http://tinyurl.com/dhml9
That's a lot like the 5 or 6 video card fans I pull off
right after I stress test new cards (to make sure they work
ok before moddin' the cooling). I kept them thinking I'd
use 'em someday but never did they seem a better option than
some other alternative.
This one looks recessed too flush with the top of the PCI slots.
However besides being oval in shape , the fan looks bigger. I assume
it works better as I dont see as much whining about the noisly cooling
fan etc in the reviews and hot chip. However you can see the position
of this is behind the PCI express chip very close to the end of the
video slot so if it isnt flush with the top as it looks to be youll
have the same problem.
I'd still prefer an entirely passive 'sink then if
necessary, put a fan bracket in the case and point a fan at
it. I do a fair bit of metal fabrication as a hobby though,
it would be easier (quicker and cheaper) for me than for
some people to do this. Plus, I always pre-plan a system
before building it, as it's always a PITA to strip down a
system so if I even suspect a fan might be desirable later
I'd go ahead and drill some holes in the motherboard tray
for a bracket... then if it isn't needed, there are only a
couple of holes but they look stock if done carefully.
This problem is exacerbated with the Chaintech because most of the
nforce boards are now crammed with junk its getting a bit crowded and
the layouts seem to be a bit haphazard if you look at all the makes.
Add to that Chaintech Ive since learned shrunk their board a bit
making things worse probably to save a bit of money and there seems to
be no room to move anything anywhere else its so crammed which
probably necessitated the placement of the chip there. However they
seemed to once again either not done their homework or just didnt care
and got a standard chipset cooler which is too tall for that position.
Ive seen other boards too that have this problem in various degrees
though but Chaintech seems to be one of the worst. You really need a
cooling solution flush with the tops of the PCI express slots or they
may end up useless which theyve been anyway given the lack of cards
but even with cards coming out they may be useless.
There is another option, maybe. Get a tall passive 'sink
with well spaced out fins, then just take a grinder (or if
they're spaced out enough, pliers can bend the fins near
their bases till they snap off) and remove a sort of channel
through the 'sink that allows the card to sit IN the
channel. If there are portions of the card that might short
out (common, since the cards may have copper on their entire
surface) then take some heat-shrink tubing and put it over
the pins (which rules out the fin based 'sinks of course,
but maybe some plastic sheeting with adhesive on it would
work for those but I've never tried it).
Could be possible to find a graphics card cooler which tend to be thin
and recessed like the DFI cooler and use it. But you would have to ask
or buy it and test it and if it didnt work buy another and test it.
Why people were pointing this out all over the place since its been a
YEAR since these boards came out is beyond me.
Well there were so few PCI express cards, few may have come
across the issue yet.
Add to that the weird latency problems with DAWs ---- PCI express I
thought was supposed to be BETTER than PCI . Theres been long running
threads on the problems with latency and PCI express nforce4 and to a
lesser extent INTEL boards. Also no cards for over a year?
I think part of the problem is the OEMs... they'll rely a
lot on integrated features and if an add-on card is needed
they would only have one or two, so the legacy PCI slots are
enough.
I called Newegg they wanted a 15% restocking fee. I had to threaten a
CC dispute to get a refund and I dont think they are going to refund
my shipping.
Costs even without restocking if they charge shipping:
$16 shipping for old card
$8-10 to ship it back
$16 shipping for new card
Its mindboggling enough without a restocking fee.
Over $40 for all the shipping costs for a TV tuner card
and then add tax too I think. The card
with rebate was $65 almost doubles the cost.
Yep it's bad when you have those extra costs, I'd wonder
what it would go for on ebay locally (so shipping to buyer
is lower).
Thats why buying from newegg for me is russian roulette.
Possibly a disaster if I have any problems at all with any of the
items. I think Im going back to UGH Amazon.
Its kind of like which seller online is worse at this point. Amazon
Ive had horrible experiences with lately. They clearly had a big
mistake in their advertising of an Audigy and wouldnt make things
right and even denied it happened.
I've never had a problem with Amazon but I seldom use them
as they charge tax in my state, making the total cost always
a few % higher than someplace else.
What was maddening though was some
of the CSRs easily gave full price adjustments no sweat to a some
callers while other kept denying even lied and tried everything and
anything to squirm out of any adjustments even after others including
me called 4-7 times ! Each time we got different stories. However one
thing Amazon does do is give full refunds and free shipping back.
Sometimes I wonder if their answer depends on the product,
that maybe some products have high return rates for issues
such as you had and to mitigate their losses, they'll make
every effort to charge the fees.
