Norhtbridge Cooling

[Gamingphreek]

Im am about to put some goop under the north bridge HS. As the HS is so hot i cant touch it for more than 2 secs! What happens when this thing cools downa bit. Could i get higherclocks and more stable performance ?

-Kevin

 

[Jaxidian]

What motherboard? Can't tell you what's affected if we don't know what's connected or built-in. Generally, overheating chipsets can cause crashes.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Its an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe. Im not having any probs but the HS is SOOOO hot and so is my system i thought i might do this. Any pros and cons. Now what happens when chipset Overheat...Do you think i could get a higher multi and lower voltage if the chipset cools down a bit?

-Kevin

 

[Davegod]

if the heatsink is already getting really hot then adding goop isnt likely to make anything much better - the heatsink is hot because it's absorbing heat from the chip. Goop is "thermal interface material", all it does is help the heatsink absorb heat from the chip more efficiently by making a 100% contact. Most likely there is already goop on there, and unless Asus put on some real rubbish with a shovel then cleaning it and replacing with artic silver is not going to make it noticably better.

If you want to cool it more, it needs airflow.

 

[Gamingphreek]

damn... well how cheap do chipset HSF fans run. I want the quitest thing possible as cheap as possible. Anyone have any suggestions.

Lol i could put the stock HSF from my athlon XP on there when i get a new one.

HEY I GOT AN IDEA... what about an old socket 7 cooler. Would that work OK... i mean anything is better than what i got right now

-Kevin

 

[Davegod]

this is an option, thogh bit bizarre the stock fan is an unusual 45mm size, and it appears there's no other clips to accomodate more usual 40 or 50mm fans (note a lot of suppliers give thermalright sinks without a fan, which you buy seperately). A presumably more expensive option might be Swiftech MCX159A... I'd assume the fan's on both these would not be what you'd call quiet.

Using an old CPU heatsink might well work, but you'd have to check carefully wether it would actually fit on there, specifically wether there's any other components in the way.

The normal A7N8X-E NB cooler is a passive 'sink, tbh I doubt any other passive sink is going to be much more effective, at least unless it's a lot bigger. Maybe better idea is either not worry about a non-problem or just try to improve the case airflow, espeically in that area? (e.g. tidy up cables out of airflow, maybe stronger case fans or whatever). Then there's related efforts, e.g. my thermalright CPU heatsink is narrower than the 80mm fan that's on it, so there's about half an inch hanging over each side - when I put my passive northbridge sink on, the cpu fan overhang means it also blows towards the NB sink and gives it some extra airflow (pic).

 

[Gamingphreek]

So would using an old socket 7 HSF work good. At least better than the passive one that i have. Also any suggestions on mounting it if that will work?

-Kevin

 

[WobbleWobble]

The A7N8X NB heatsinks aren't that bad for passive and it's pretty big. Getting another passive heatsink won't yield much difference. Your NB heatsink is hot, great! That means it's working properly. Asus uses adhesive thermal paste, it's a real pain to clean off. It does do the job though.

You can not adjust the voltage of the chipset, even with the UBER BIOS. The function doesn't work even though it's there.

I'm assuming you're O/Cing your sig'd rig? Your overclock is about normal. You're not even overclocking the northbridge at less than 3200+ speeds if you're using the FSB to overclock. So my answer will be no. It probably won't help your CPU overclock.

 

[Davegod]

well, even if you can find the space around the chip to put it on (and looking at some piccys there doesnt seem to be w whole lot thanks to some large capacitors), doing it might well be a pain.

two methods I can guess at: gluing the thing on with thermal adhesive (artic silver do some), which would work provided the heatsink isnt too heavy that it threatens to pull the northbridge off the motherboard. yes the adhesive does seem to be stronger than the way the chip is put on the board and this happens quite often when people try to rip off video card 'sinks that have been put on this way. Using 100% thermal epoxy, the sink is not going to be seperated from the chip in any hurry. Using a 50:50 or 60:40 mix of adhesive and normal thermal paste, well it's still a case of trying to figure out what mix to use that will allow you to take the 'sink off the chip while not allowing it to fall off, and you wont be getting much in the way of second tries.

only other way I can think of is to drill holes through the 'sink, so that you can put a bolt through the heatsink and out through the holes in the motherboard (the holes currently used for that purpose). Even still, you'd want some fairly large washers at the back to spread the weight instead of a little screwhead, and there might be little components that could be in the way of those or worse something for the washer to short-circuit.

Seems more than a little OTT to me, and I wouldnt be so confident that even if you made it significantly cooler you'd get any better overclocks.