Heatsink on North Bridge Chip?

[PapaRomeo]

Since I built my new rig (link to specs below) I've been hearing a whirring rattle at startup. It sounded like a fan, but it went away a minute or so after start, so I didn't panic.

Anyway, I had the thing open to install a new HSF last night, and tracked down the rattle. It's the fan on the North Bridge chip of my Asus A7V133 board. I remember reading a review that noted that Asus didn't use any thermal compound on this chip, but I didn't think much of it 'til now. It is touching the chip, and the fan is running, but the thing is loose enough to rattle a little as the fan starts, until it spins up to speed. :Q

It's a royal pain to remove and re-install the HSF on the North Bridge (I'd have to remove the mobo to get at the back side of the board to remove the plastic pins that hold it on. The idea would be to put a little Arctic Silver on there and re-assemble it.)

My question: Should I bother? Could this cause problems? Any insights would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

PR

 

[phantom505]

I'm not so sure you even need a fan on the northbridge. The MSI K7T Turbo board I have doesn't use one and I have had no problems with it even being hot. If annoys you fix it, otherwise why go through all the hassle.

 

[Inteless]

I have the KT7A-Raid and I replaced the northbridge fan
with a blue orb. I don't know if your Asus uses the same
fan as the Abit (Vantec fan) but many people have reported
fan failures. I had to uninstall the mainboard to change it.
I did it as a preventative measure. It's really up to you,
but i wouldn't worry about it, unless the rattle bothers you.


Inteless

 

[Inteless]

phantom 505,

the kt133a chipset runs faster and hotter, so yes, it needs a fan.

 

[hovenas]

And if it bothers you, yes it is worth the hassle, a day in life being the overclocker...I say

 

[WarCon]

Agree with hovenas, I don't think the rattling would be good anyway. My Northbridge on my Abit is Spring loaded so it can't come up by itself. Maybe the fan installer forgot your springs, don't know for sure if Asus uses them but why put a heatsink and fan on something if your not going to secure it to board somehow.

 

[PapaRomeo]

Thanks, guys.

For the record, the HS is attached to the board, with little plastic pins that snap through the board. They have a little "spring" molded into them that is probably supposed to provide some down pressure on the HS, but it is apparently not enough. The fan is screwed directly to the HS, and those screws are tight. The rattling is more of a "buzz," as if the whole assembly was vibrating in resonance with the fan frequency at startup. When I put my finger on the edge of the fan enclosure, the buzzing stopped. It goes away on its own after the fan has been spinning for 15 seconds or so.

hovenas, I guess you're right. And it clearly is bothering me. LOL! I guess I know what next weekend's project is going to be.

Thanks again!

PR

 

[trekin]

Mine was doing the same,but took the unit off the board,put some goop on it and then rounded up a couple of those little fiber washers to take up the play ,pushed the plastic pins thru and walla. tight as a drum.

 

[DaddyG]

Goop is always good, you can't expect a fan spinning like crazy to be balanced like the fans blades on a 747 !!

 

[phantom505]

Inteless: Uh, What do you think the K7T Turbo is?? It's a KT133A. AND it has no active FAN. If you don't believe me got look at the reviews of it. You can also see what Mike Andrawes has to say about it at the main site. ALSO NOTE that it one of the most stable boards avaible for the KT133A. So do you have PROOF that is soooo hot I better get an orb for it or did you get bad advice and follewed through before getting FACTS.

Gees, I am so sick of people attempting to correct me before they even read or see if what I wrote it true or not. And for all of those who do feel the urge to correct poeple all the time why don't at LEAST turn on prive messages so I can at least SHOW you that I'm at least NOT wrong so you may edit it!!!

 

[ku]

have a question... could the northbridge be a bottleneck when overclocking? could I get a new HSF for it and overclock more? possible?

 

[phantom505]

It doesn't seem to help, but then again I'm sure someone will argue that it helps. Read the article on K7T Turbo at Anand's site. This should answer (at least in part) your question.

 

[WarCon]

Seems like someone missed out on their happy pills today.....

 

[phantom505]

You don't know what I would give if I had insurance that covered happy pills. So I just get sloshed on occasion, sorta a cheap replacement.

Besides, when you work with idiots all day it wears you down.

 

[Technonut]

phantom505, I do not feel that anyone is intending to "correct or argue" with you regarding whether the fan is needed on the Northbridge or not. This is a discussion forum, and there are many different opinions on many issues. It has been my experience with quite a few KT133A mobos that thermal compound & a fan on the Northbridge is helpful with overclocking, and the Northbridge does indeed run hot. IMHO, the cooler that one could keep any component the better.

Looking back at the Anandtech Review of the IWill KK266, you can see:


<< but we've already seen that the 8363A runs quite hot, especially when overclocking. We'll see shortly whether this would affect overclocking. >>




<< We have seen in the MSI K7T Turbo review that at a FSB speed of around 150MHz, a heatsink is still capable of cooling the North Bridge. However, at FSB speeds of 160MHz and higher, it is questionable whether the simple heatsink of the KK266 is enough to cool down the North Bridge >>




<< In order to eliminate the chance of the North Bridge generating too much heat, we replace the heatsink on the KK266 with the HSF unit that we took off from the EPoX 8KTA3. To our surprise, the system booted up and ran flawlessly at 162MHz FSB, able to knock down all the benchmark tests. This proves that the heat generated by the North Bridge may become the bottleneck for overclocking the FSB beyond 160MHz >>

 

[phantom505]

Well then I guess there are a few things someone should educate me on. And how much higher can the rest of the system go if &quot;unhappered&quot; by the north bridge? Besides, what is 2Mhz 1.2% of the bus speed, how much extra performance will you see? So how helpful is a fan? It seems to me that a HS and compound are enough. How stable is it at that FSB good enough to boot and then crash, or can you run apps?

In another case someone asked me why I put a fan on the Radeon LE. Well I got an extra 15Mhz out of it. That is a substantial gain that I noticed.

Lastly,
Tell me if I'm misinterpeting this but its sounds like a correction to me:
<the kt133a chipset runs faster and hotter, so yes, it needs a fan.>

Maybe he didn't mean it to be hostile, but I still find it to mean that you have to have one and I think it very much not true.

 

[junthin]

I'd recommend you to get a Blue Orb on the chip.