NorthBridge heat sink modding

AWhackWhiteBoy

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2004
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NB heatsink picture

i was just wondering if anyone modded these heatsinks before and have any suggestion? when running at 225 with a full load the northbridge overheats and causes instabilities. its a DFI lanparty and i was hoping to lap the base and re-seat it with proper thermal compound and a 40mm fan. any suggestions on how to sit a 40mm on this?

those $35 NB coolers a bit too expensive for my blood considering what you get.
 

Soulkeeper

Diamond Member
Nov 23, 2001
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looks like a nice oc so far
i would at a minimum put a large fan above the northbridge and put atleast a passive heatsink on the SB if you want anymore overclock

 

AWhackWhiteBoy

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2004
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it comes stock with a mild south bridge cooler but it never gets even warm, the northbridge gets very hot,even at stock 200mhz. i think my huge volcano 12 is making a dead area as far as airflow. it only started happening when i got the volcano. i really need to either try and get a fan on it or get a whole new NB cooling solution.
 

Peter D

Diamond Member
Oct 28, 2002
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Haven't seen much modding of that style heatsink (Looks like the same one used on the DFI and ASUS NF2's). One way you can attach the fan is put a little dab of super glue on each corner of the fan and stick it on the heatsink. Maybe you can find screws with big enough threads that dig into the fins. The Thermalright NB Cooler is a solution too :)
 

AWhackWhiteBoy

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2004
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hmm,thats a reasonable price but i can't tell if that fan does or doesn't come with that heatsink. if it does, i'd definatly get it.

how would one mount that though, it lacks brackets...
 

AWhackWhiteBoy

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2004
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oh,wow,thanks. even though its not copper the 12cfm fan makes it more powerful than the $35 solutions. i can live with $20 :) thanks!
 

DarthSlyGuy

Junior Member
Mar 19, 2004
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I have done this several times before for some nForce2 boards that came with a real crappy passive heat sink on the NorthBridge/Southbridge chipsets. I need more info on your motherboard first though. There are several DFI Lanparty models and build versions and the info you provided is not enough to get a clear picture of what needs to be done to mod this board. I would also appreciate it if you could get a decent quality picture of your board and post a link to it. The sooner you reply the sooner I can help you.
 

AWhackWhiteBoy

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2004
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plunk

its the latest revision NF ultra 400, the B flavor, just got it.

edit: thats the original 120mm Antec fan on the drive cage, doesn't push much air at all, good enough to keep my raptor and specials cool though. the rear fan is a crummy 75cfm 120mm thats going to be replaced with a 130cfm 120mm in the very near future.
 

DarthSlyGuy

Junior Member
Mar 19, 2004
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If you want a quality fan for overclocking an nforce2 chipset I would reccomend the Vantec "IceBerq" Copper Chipset Cooling Kit. So far I have not had to mod this fan in any way, while several of the similar products require modding before it will fit on some motherboards. The already mentioned NB-1 is good but I think its overkill. The "iceberq" is VERY quiet yet it does a verygood job. I put this cooler on an NF7-M. Pre-Iceberq maxed out at 195FSB(stable). After installing the iceberq I was overclocking at 230(very stable!) and was running slightly cooler than when it was maxed at 195! On my machine I have a modded IceBerq 4 Pro on my Northbridge and modded my Iceberq Coppery for my southbridge and it only cost me a total of $22 US for the two cooling kits! The Iceberq 4 Pro is actually designed for VGA chipsets but I figured that for 12 bucks modding it was worth a shot so i ordered both (just in case the 4 Pro wasnt compatible). Dont spend your money on those big processor style heat syncs unless you have a case with poor airflow.

Vantec "IceBerq" Coppery Cooling Kit
Vantec "IceBerq 4 Pro" Cooling Kit (Needs to be modded to fit northbridge chipset)
 

MDE

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
13,199
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If you have an old stock cooler from your CPU (or even an older Socket 7 heatsink) you could epoxy it on the NB (use half epoxy half paste for a less permanent solution). I put an old S7 heatsink on my GF4 Ti4600 and it works beautifully.