Active cooling PWM IC on DFI Lanparty

[hughest]

My PWM IC temps are getting a little too high for comfort (and maybe stabiliity) when I'm overclocking. I would like to set up some kind of active cooling but I have no idea where to begin.

Can anyone tell me how to set this up, beginning from what type of fan to buy, where to plug it in and where to aim it? I have a dif lanpuarty nforce-4 ultra-D, and an x2 3800.

Thanks in advance!

 

[grimlykindo]

get a 5.25 drive bay fan blower on your top bay. At least the way I have my case setup, the fans would be hitting the PWN heatsinks directly. My PWN temps get really high too, but that just how the DFI Nf4s are setup to run. I have never had a problem with mine overheating or anythinga and it gets to 45c!

 

[zagood]

What are those temps? If they're sub 50 they shouldn't affect you too much if at all.

Grimly has a good idea, another is to add a fan bracket like Zalman's to force air over that area of the motherboard. Grimly's brings in cool air directly from the outside, but the fan bracket directs air specifically where you need it to go. Together they would really cool the PWN ICs.

Fan bracket:
http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=15&code=016

JediYoda's usage of it:
http://photobucket.com/albums/a72/JEDI_Yoda/?action=view&current=005a.jpg

-z

 

[Spike]

I'm not so sure I would worry much about the PWM IC temps. The chip is apparently rated to something like 100c according to the dfi-street forums. I was worried about mine but now I ignore it. So far I am 20+ hour prime stable with my opteron 165 @ 2.52 (280x9) with 1.4v vcore. Since I am only at 1.4v I plan to push to 1.45 and go for 2.6-2.7 final overclock.

All this time my PWM IC idles at 44ish c and gets to ~53 under load with no stability issues. Also, apparently the PWM IC temp sensor is not right next to the actual PWM IC chip but is closer to a hotter MOSFETs heatsink so that makes it seem hotter than it is.

If you don't care about noise then go for a fan bracket or other active cooler but as my system is practically silent I like to have as few fans as possible. Good luck!

-spike

 

[themusgrat]

Well, mine was 60C, but when I put a little 40mm fan over the RAM, it dropped to 45C at load.