Chipset Cooler for boad with no holes?

[Texun]

I've got a Shuttle AN35N socket A with the nF2 chipset. It the chipset came bare nekkid with no holes in the board - and it runs hot. I know NF chipsets run hot, but it will bring on some serious thumb pain after about 5 second. It may be spec for the chipset but heat kills and I would prefer to cool it if an easy glue-on solution exists.

How does one go about adding a solid HS to a chipset with no holes? Will something like Ceramique adhesive and a generic passive HS work as long as I have the room to mount it?

With no way to test it I looked up references of temperature and pain. A temp of 130F should feel warm or almost painful. You can't leave your thumb on this for more than 5 seconds or it will go way beyond "almost" painful and all the way to PAIN. I'm certain it would cook meat over time.

 

[Operandi]

My AOpen board has a pretty beefy passive AL heatsink on the nForce2 northbridge and it still runs pretty toasty under load so running it bare probably isn't very safe -- did the board come this way?

This Zalman comes with thermal epoxy which will allow you to install it without the use of mounting holes or hooks.

 

[Texun]

That looks good. Too bad they were OOS or I would have snagged one cheap.

As far as I can tell the board arrived with no cooling for the chip. BTW, which one is actually the NB? Is it the one closest to the CPU of the one down near the CMOS battery and sort of in front of the PCI slots? It's nF2 and the chip nearest the CPU socket has a passive cooler that's never really warm. The one below that near the end of the PCI slots is the really hot one. I know there was no way the engineers wouldn't consider it hot. It probably met the standard for some percentage of expected life, and then the bean counters decided x% was an acceptable risk and elected to shave off 3 cents a board by not using one.

 

[Old Hippie]

Frozen CPU has the Zalman in stock. They also have various thermal tapes.

 

[Texun]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie
Frozen CPU has the Zalman in stock. They also have various thermal tapes.

Thanks. I forgot about Frozen CPU.

 

[Bozo Galora]

http://www.heatsinkfactory.com/shop/product.php?productid=16157

http://www.jab-tech.com/Jing-Ting-Force...006-Offset-Chipset-cooler-pr-3450.html

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: Texun
That looks good. Too bad they were OOS or I would have snagged one cheap.

As far as I can tell the board arrived with no cooling for the chip. BTW, which one is actually the NB? Is it the one closest to the CPU of the one down near the CMOS battery and sort of in front of the PCI slots? It's nF2 and the chip nearest the CPU socket has a passive cooler that's never really warm. The one below that near the end of the PCI slots is the really hot one. I know there was no way the engineers wouldn't consider it hot. It probably met the standard for some percentage of expected life, and then the bean counters decided x% was an acceptable risk and elected to shave off 3 cents a board by not using one.

The northbridge is always the closest to the CPU of the two.

What your looking at is the southbridge which doesn't actually need any cooling, some did put heatsinks on the southbridge (my AOpen has one). If you still want to add one this Microcool would be a bit more appropriate.

 

[Texun]

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: Texun
That looks good. Too bad they were OOS or I would have snagged one cheap.

As far as I can tell the board arrived with no cooling for the chip. BTW, which one is actually the NB? Is it the one closest to the CPU of the one down near the CMOS battery and sort of in front of the PCI slots? It's nF2 and the chip nearest the CPU socket has a passive cooler that's never really warm. The one below that near the end of the PCI slots is the really hot one. I know there was no way the engineers wouldn't consider it hot. It probably met the standard for some percentage of expected life, and then the bean counters decided x% was an acceptable risk and elected to shave off 3 cents a board by not using one.

The northbridge is always the closest to the CPU of the two.

What your looking at is the southbridge which doesn't actually need any cooling, some did put heatsinks on the southbridge (my AOpen has one). If you still want to add one this Microcool would be a bit more appropriate.

THANKS! I thought I was looking at the SB. Any idea as to why it wouldn't need cooling? Man that thing gets hot. About 5 seconds on the thumb = pain. It may not leave a blister but any chip that gets that hot must have a shorter life than one that does not. I don;t like heat so I am on a mission to cool it. Besides, I love those AN35 boards and can't fine them anymore- not cheap anyway.

I appreciate the link and wish I had done some more searching before hitting the local CUSA store. They had one of these on the rack for $6 which is actually about the same as the one in your link. It came with a sticky pad which I immediately screwed up with my fat fingers. Now I'm waiting on some Arctic Silver thermal adhesive to arrive tomorrow.

:beer:

 

[Operandi]

The southbridge handles all the secondary functions of the chipset USB, IDE, either net ect. so they don't normally do enough to generate serious heat. In the case of the nForce2 I think it was the inclusion of the powerful Sound Storm that caused the chip to run hotter than your typical SB.

Still just because it feels hot to the touch doesn't mean it's running too hot, your not a chipset after all.

 

[Texun]

This is just a short follow up, not so much on the cooler but using Arctic Alumina Adhesive with it. I never used AAA before. WOW! I picked up a Coolermaster passive HS at CUSA (almost identical to one in the link above) and a package of the thermal adhesive from the Egg. It mixed easily and I applied a small dab to the chip and placed the HS dead center. The next morning it was a friggin' ROCK. The fins ring like a bell when tapped. I knew it was an adhesive but I really didn't expect it to set up like a brick. I'm glad it did. That stuff is awesome, although I can't believe the number of reviewers at the Egg who claim to have used it on a CPU. If they got the same results I did they will never see the top of their CPU again. Good stuff, but I wouldn't use it on anything that I might want to remove again.

Adding a HS may have been an overkill, but it was cheap (marked down to $6) and I feel better about it now that it's a done deal.