Asus A7V266-E Chipset Fan Question

[Bondaka007]

After putting in my Nexus NX-3000 PSU I went downstairs happy that my PC was finally a lot quieter (it's still not quiet so I'm working on it)... 5 Minutes later I went upstairs to play with my quieter toy and thing sounded horrible as something with the Chipset fan went wrong. I messed with it for an hour or two cleaning it. Adjusting the screw head pressure had no permanent affect so I gave up and decided to get a new Chipset fan the following day.

I got a Vantec ICEBERQ "All-In-One VGA & Chipset Cooling Kit." I installed the Vantec CCB-A1A fan on the chipset that came with (using thermal grease and mounting pegs only). It's quiet. but not great as it is a 5000 RPM chipset fan. It also came with a heat sink for the chipset as well and a smaller one for another thing, not sure what.

Anyways, I was wondering if I can get away with using the Heatsink instead? My previous ASUS board just used a heatsink for the chipset as does some of the new ones, ASUS KT333, for instance. Anyone tried and know?

[Rusty075]

You can probably just run it without the fan on the chipset. Chipset fans are primarily a marketing tool (OOooh, it must be fast, it needs a fan!). Asus boards are aimed at overclockers, and they need the extra cooling for the chipset if they're overclocking the FSB. But other than that you're probably fine without it if you've got decent case ventilation. Try it.

If it's not stable with no fan you can replace the wimpy little stock HS with one of the Zalman chipset coolers. I've got one of those on my KR7A.

[starsky]

I have an ASUS a7v-266 (not the E variant) and I was thinking about relacing the chipset fan also. Are these things easy to get off? Are they glued to the chip also?

[TheMuffinMan]

My chipset cooler on my IWill has NO thermal paste on it. It really is a marketing gimmic. I'm going to buy a pretty good heatsink and some thermal tape...that should be good. The chip doesn't really get that hot, so I'm not worried about it.