Northbridge fan/CPU fan-difference?

[madwand1]

Reading the manual on my Gigabyte x58 mobo and it doesn't explain what the difference is between these two fans. From some searching, I found that a NB is apparantly a heatsink, does it sit on the CPU? So if that is plugged in the NB fan spot, what is CPU fan spot for? If not, can I that plug for another case fan.

 

[Outlander_04]

the northbridge is a chip on the motherboard .

If it has a fan installed leave it that way , if it doesnt it wont need one .

The cpu/processor is cooled by a heatsink you add after the processor is in the mb and then the fan attached to a fan header on the mb

 

[madwand1]

I wanted to know what I can use that fan header for if there is no Northbridge fan. Can I use it for one of my other case fans? I have 6 case fans and tehre are only 3 headers for that.

 

[Proximon]

See the copper and blue thing in the center of the picture with the light glaring off it? That's the NB heatsink on top of the NB.

See the big fan behind it? That's the CPU cooler, and somewhere underneath that is the CPU.

Yeah it's a huge picture, but I have the bandwidth

 

[Proximon]

You connect the fans to your power supply directly or to a fan controller. The NB fan header would be controlled by the NB temp, so not the ideal way to run a case fan.

 

[madwand1]

OK. I was just trying to put useless headers to work.