Thermal Sensor Placement for NB, SB, Videocard?

[eklock2000]

I?m about to install a Zalman ZM-MFC2 and am wondering about the best place to put the 4 temperature sensors?

Obviously, the best place is right on the surface of the chip, but all of these have some kind of heatsink on them.

Is it worth removing the heatsink and pasting the sensors right next to the chip, then reinstalling the heatsinks?

Can you put them on the back of the motherboard/videocard and hope to get any accurate results? How about right on the topside of the NB/SB heatsink, or on the fins?

Thanks,

EK2K

 

[Marci]

Is it worth removing the heatsink and pasting the sensors right next to the chip, then reinstalling the heatsinks?

No - NEVER do this.

Forget getting accurate results. All you can get are relative results. On the heatsink will give temp of the heatsink, not the item itself - can be misleading.

Use CoreTemp for CPU Temps, GPU Drivers for GPU temps - these readings will be much more accurate than any self-measurement. Put the 4 sensors on anything else - GDDR (stick it on reverse of board), System ram (altho ram temps irrelevant), HDD temps... take yer pick... but pointless for CPU / GPU measurement.

 

[mrblotto]

Good to know this. I wont be too concerned then with placing them accurately

 

[eklock2000]

Thank you Marci:thumbsup:...I do use Everest and CoreTemp, but none of them return Temps for the NB/SB and I want to monitor those during OC'ing. Nice to know that the results are relative. Everest returns a temp. for the "Motherboard", but it's pretty hard to find out what that represents. I've tried contacting Gigabyte about the board sensor and got this response:

"Answer : the IT8718 chip controls all sensor on the motherboard, cpu, NB,SB and system"

LOL

Thanks for your advice.

EK2K

 

[Bluefront]

Look.....you can put various sensors on the NB, SB, GPU, CPU, etc. Just be certain the sensor is on the fins of the heatsink, close as possible to the center. You will get relative readings, for sure, but you can definitely monitor the readings for excessive temp rise.

As the second post indicates.....never put a sensor between the heatsink and the chip. Never.

I always but a sensor between the lower fins of a Ninja......very little airflow there. The temp readings are always close to the Speedfan readings. I use this sensor to control the CPU fan-speed (NoiseMagic NTM3 controller). Works perfectly. I also use a DD5 temp monitor, which uses eight different sensors, placed various locations. For a control-freak, knowing the temp of all the computer components at all times, is a benefit. 😀

I never trust the on-board sensors......on any board.