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[TKKhanna]

I have an MSI DIAMOND K8N motherboard which I bought in late 2005. I have been very satisfed with its performance until around January this year when the fan on the chipset northbridge began to spin very noisily as if it was scraping. For a while I dealt with the problem by using WD-40 spray lubricant, but it would wear off and sometimes when turning the computer on, the fan would not begin to spin at all.

I recently bought the Thermalright SLI chipset heatsink to replace the broken fan. The installation of the heatsink went well but I must also note that it sits in contact with the heatsink on the GEFORCE graphics card that I have plugged into the second PCI express slot on the motherboard. I decided NOT to use an optional 70mm fan on the heatsink as described in the instructions. I turned the computer on and had it running for several hours. After a certain amount of time I opened the PC case and felt the temperature of the heatsink which ! was very hot. I'm not sure if that is normal.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the northbridge chip is mainly used by the motherboard only when restarting your PC so considering that, I restarted the PC after having it switched on for a long time and it failed to boot. Nothing appears on the monitor, there is no hard drive activity and there are none of the usual familiar noises made by the machine as it loads. It seems obvious that the chipset has been permanently damaged. My question is (assuming the chipset cannot be repaired), how can I get a replacement motherboard? It is unlikely that this old model is still in production and buying a new model will cause a string of compatibility issues with the hardware that I already have such as the socket 939 CPU or the DDR-400 RAM, etc. Thanks beforehand for any suggestions.


Tim

[leekh]

it seem that the chipset is suffering from overheating. the nvidia nforce4 sli chip is very notorious for its hugh amount of heat. try to let your motherboard rest for a while, letting the newly installed heatsink to cool down before trying again.

if not, then u will have to script ur rig down to barebone level to just CPU, one GPU, one stick of ram and one HDD. not forgetting to do a cmos reset before trying again.

good luck.

[Exo]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the northbridge chip is mainly used by the motherboard only when restarting your PC

The chipset is used all the time. It handles all communications between the CPU and the rest of your devices like video card, harddrives, pci slots, sata etc.

When you switch it on, does it do anything at all ? fans spinning ?
If it does absolutely nothing try with a replacement PSU first.

Also, try to get a fan installed on that chipset! Active cooling is many times more efficient then passive cooling.

[LairdDrambeg]

WD-40 is not a lubricant - it dries out to a hard gum.

[TKKhanna]

Thanks for the replies. I'll try what leekh said. The other fans do spin but the indicator lights on my Corsair RAM modules do not light up so it isnt even accessing the RAM.

[leekh]

The other fans do spin but the indicator lights on my Corsair RAM modules do not light up so it isnt even accessing the RAM.

Also dun forget to try re-seating the RAM modules and the CPU. sometimes, when the contact is not aligned due to handling of the motherboard, it can cause the motherboard to display similiar problem as well.

[TKKhanna]

Ok i tried what you said leekh but something unexpected happened. I plugged in the D-Bracket 2 diagnostic LEDs and it got past the early chipset initialization but it hangs at the memory detection test. Ive tried both RAM modules in on their own but no luck. Its very unlikely that 2 RAM modules would break down when the only change Ive made to the system is the chipset cooling. Note that the mem detection comes directly after the chipset check so im doubtful as to whether its completely successful but fortunately ive got DDR400 modules in another machine so im trying those next.

[TKKhanna]

Nope. I tried my Corsair modules in another machine and they work just fine. Its the chipset's fault.

[leekh]

did u try reseating the processor? cos the memory controller is built into the processor, not the motherboard chipset.