Mod IC7M3 to get rid of fan's - any experience or thoughts

Schroinx · Post by **Schroinx** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 5:05 pm

I have already replaced the 40mm OTES fan on my Abit IC7 Max3 with a Papst and made a NB cooler from a modified Zahlman NB heatsink with a 40mm Papst. Eventhou I run these at 50% I am fed up with their noise, so I am thinking about removing them both together with the plastic cover over the mosfets on the mobo. It's a pretty simple and straightforward operation, but I would like to hear about anyone have done this and what the results are.

And before anyone say anything, then I might as well state that performance is more important to me than noise, to a certain extent. But can you do both, then...

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 5:11 pm

You may be able to replace the NB with Zalman 6000 (fanless) silvervarg did this with another board.

Schroinx · Post by **Schroinx** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 4:19 am

Have already done that. I'm more worried about the mosfets.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 6:40 am

Well, other companies don't run active cooling over their Vreg stuff so I don't see why it's a requirement for the Max 3 to be actively cooled. Pull off the air duct and give it a try. See if it reduces your stability under full load (2xPrime95).

You could also get a P4C800E-D which is entirely passively cooled, OC's like a mofo and has better Vdimm adjustment.

Schroinx · Post by **Schroinx** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 5:37 am

I have recieved tis on a PB.:

Saw your old post from March - curious if you ever found a solution for silencing the OTES on your IC7 Max3. I'm going to be getting one soon and need any advice you might have.

Also - did you replace the northbridge with anything? I'd like to throw on my standard zalman northbridge heatsink, but I'm told that the IC7 does not have the standard mounting holes. Any recommendations on how I should go about this?

Just wanted to let others know the answer as well.

My first mod was to replace the stock NB cooler, with a zalman and a papst 40x40mm fan. As there is no mountingholes for the zalman, I expoyed it together, with heat transfering expoy. I also replaced the OTES fan with a papst. This required a little drilling in the fan bacause of how it is secured to the duct.

The result was less noise, with the same or bette performance, but far from what I can live with as these *#!¤#*# 40mm fans give out as loud whine. They run at 5-6000 RPM and sports 5 CFM or so I recall. Using speedfan I redused the noise further, as the fans only kick in when the CPU temp rises above a certain level, indicating a large power draw. Eventually I removed the OTES stuff, with no instabilities as a result. So it is safe to do that. The NB fan is run on 40% making it almost inaudible. I the event that you don't want to OC, then it is safe to passively cool the NB, as long as there is resonable airflow in the cabinet.

I haven't gotten around to do anything about my 9600XT yet, as i have been quite busy.

I hope this helps, else feel free to ask more questions. If i get around to it, I'll post some pics tonight.