Currently have Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro motherboard with, if I recall correctly is a Nvidia 5700? (128mb) AGP graphics card. Yesterday the monitor went blank for about 3 seconds and then came back to normal and worked OK for the rest of the day. This morning went to turn it on; pc started up ok, but the screen is blank (monitor says no connection etc). So I am 99.99% certain that it is not the monitor. I have opened up the case and restarted again. I immediately noticed that the fan on the motherboard (not cpu) Gigabyte AGP 8X was not turning. Obviously gave it a little nudge but to no effect. From the little info that I have given you; could anyone please advise me if they think it is the motherboard that needs replacing (or possibly just the fan?) or do they think it is the AGP graphics card? Also I have an old PCI card (Matrox Mill)spare; as a temporary measure is it possible to fit that and if so how do I alter the settings. Any help/advice would be greatly welcomed

Not quiet sure as to what the over all issue may be but the fan you are refering to is the Northbridge fan, which form time to time does not spin... There was known problem with that range of boards, but the bios has a thermal managment setting which controlls the chipset fan you are talking about.. There was a number of bios updates for that model range of boards which delt with some of those issues.. Check the following , test your ram module on another board if you can.. Have a look at the capacitors which are located close to the cpu socket, if the top surface on them is any other colour but silver that may be your problem, if any of them look like they have a bulge , or have any white sort of powder on top that means the caps have gone and you will need to change your board.. It is also possible your video card may have given also, but I scptical on that one, best to try it in a nother board and see if it work. As for the PCI card it should work OK as long as you remove the agp card first and set the bios to read Primary display PCI and not AGP. Hope that is of some help to you... IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT A8N-SLI Deluxe AMD X64 3500+ Wnchst Corsair 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel GV-NX6600128D PCIX Graphics Card Ggbyte GT Pro CPU Cooler Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cool

Thanks for the reply. I am running the latest BIOS. I am pretty certain the Motherboard is OK as I believe it started up ok (no bleeps) and because the details would not show on the monitor I am sure I heard the Outlook Express received new message (it starts up with OE)and also a Windows Update ?? So it would appear that it is either the monitor ( I think unlikely) the graphics card or the fan on the Northbridge.............if that never worked would it stop the AGP graphics card also not to work. The Motherboard seems Ok no white stuff etc I cant get into the BIOS because I cant get anything on the monitor. So am I correct in thinking if I reset the BIOS on the motherboard the default settings would let it start up with the PCI card? Thanks for your time and help

Thanks for the reply. I am running the latest BIOS. I am pretty certain the Motherboard is OK as I believe it started up ok (no bleeps) and because the details would not show on the monitor I am sure I heard the Outlook Express received new message (it starts up with OE)and also a Windows Update ?? So it would appear that it is either the monitor ( I think unlikely) the graphics card or the fan on the Northbridge.............if that never worked would it stop the AGP graphics card also not to work. The Motherboard seems Ok no white stuff etc I cant get into the BIOS because I cant get anything on the monitor. So am I correct in thinking if I reset the BIOS on the motherboard the default settings would let it start up with the PCI card? Thanks for your time and help

Just an update. I removed the AGP card and also disconnected the fan and unscrewed it. I then replaced AGP card (fan still disconnected); started up and it worked :-) Just curious and reconnected the northbridge fan; and although the fan never worked the PC started up ok. So apart from the fan not working, I am not really any the wiser; unless the northbridge fan failure caused the AGP card or motherboard not to function properly. Now to find somewhere in London where I can pick up a cheap northbridge fan :-)

i think ur getting a bit confused here. the fan on the agp graphics card is not called a northbridge fan. thats the card fan. if the card fan is not working its not a good idea to run the card on its own because the card will begin to overheat especially in a poorly ventilated case. if ur fan has stopped working it is most probably a dust clogging problem or the fan actually broke. it isn't very hard to find a replacement depending on ur card. can u tell me exactly what card u have? Zo

Sorry if I confused anyone. The fan is definitely NOT on the AGP graghics card, it is the fan on the motherboard Northbridge. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro