Passive or active cooling for Northbridge? We need a law...

[spikespiegal]

Why are Mobo makers still using those teeny-tiny NorthBridge fans that quit six months after you install the board? Are the prices of metal so high that they can't use decent, passive NorthBridge coolers or something?

While active cooling obviously beats a passive heatsink on a CPU (we aren't assuming water cooling or heat-pipe) I would think that the opposite is true with smaller NorthBridge chipsets. The stock fan based heatsinks that typically come on your NorthBridge can't be as efficient as your typical, $7.00 after market passive heatsink, and I can't imagine the price of the later adding much cost to to board. Am I wrong on this?

 

[JBT]

Do they really fail that often? I have never had one fail on any of my rigs in the past 7 years.

 

[spikespiegal]

I've had three fail on me in the past two months. Two were on Asus based production servers (socket 939) and the other a workstation (motherboard type unknown).

The two Asus machines are retail point of sale servers, so it's critical they keep moving. Perhaps if I move the servers to a clean room where a spec of dust or grease won't stop the fan........

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Get a quality down draft CPU cooler like Big Typhoon. Make a small bracket to attach an additional 80mm or 92mm fan to the BT. The Panaflo is quiet with ample air flow to cool NB, SB, and RAM.

 

[spikespiegal]

I appreciate the advice, but I'm not concerned about how to keep the NorthBridge cool as why MB makers can't ship their products with reliable onboard cooling anyways.

For instance, retail coolers that come with CPUs aren't exactly over-clock monsters, but they are fairly reliable and will *usually* work until the end of life of the product, even if it's in a dirty environment.

However, the typical Barbie-Doll Northbridge heatsink fan that commonly comes on many MB's isn't worth beans and won't last, especially when it gets dirty. The last Asus board that I upgraded was replaced with a fairly hefty Zalman ZM-NB47J passive heat-sink, and I was shocked at how hot that sucker was to the touch got when the system was just idle. That explains why the crappy stock fan was hard to pry off given the Lithium grease used to attach it was burnt to a crisp.

I'm just sick of having to use pre-built Dell, HP, yadda yadda yadda for boxes that need 24/7 reliability, but I can't justify having to replace parts on motherboards for custom built rigs when they should be reliable in the first place.

 

[MTDEW]

spikespiegal,
I'm with you on this one, im getting tired of paying top dollar for an overclocking mobo only to have to replace the stock cooling on the board the very day i open it!

And dont get me started on the whole "heatpipe" craze on mobos lately, i think theyre all about looking sophisticated with very little improvement in actual cooling over an active HSF.

 

[Synomenon]

I think the heatpipes allow for passive, most of the time quiet cooling solutions.

If you don't agree with the way they do things now, why complain about it here? Send your favorite mobo. manufacturer some letters.

 

[MTDEW]

THX for the "helpful suggestion" capt. obvious.
LOL
Dude, its a thread discussing opinions on stock chipset cooling.

You might as well copy and paste your worthless post in every 8800gt thread discussing opinions on their stock coolers and fan speeds too.

If you're not gonna participate in a thread, then read a different one.

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

I've never had a problem with NB overheating on any motherboard I've ever owned, but I agree with OP. Seems the best thing to have is passive heatsink on it, and let a side fan on the case take care of it.