What a good and cheap heatsink for Abit NF7 Southbridge?

[human2k]

 

[PliotronX]

Here is the Zalman which is about the best passive cooling for its size, but it is tall and can block PCI cards. If you have long cards or just want a shorter one, this Alpha "Z" is the one I use, and it's a perfect fit on my NF7-S Southbridge.

 

[barrese]

I just got an NF7 board. How important is a heatsink for the southbridge? Will it improve stability?

 

[PliotronX]

Yes, it's fairly important if you're adament about squeezing every last FSB notch out of 'er 🙂 If the SB overheats while running at high FSB, symptoms such as USB keyboard/mouse cutting out, sound crackling, etc. can be alleviated. That sucker gets very hot, and even if you don't have any issues with it, I'd still slap a 'sink on there as I measured mine to be at about 57.3ºC which is just a tad cooler than what this guy was seeing (literally 😀).

 

[barrese]

How do you attach the heatsink to the chip? Do you need thermal epoxy?

 

[bgeh]

Originally posted by: barrese
How do you attach the heatsink to the chip? Do you need thermal epoxy?

yup, we use thermal epoxy

 

[Doh!]

Many, if not most, small-size heatsink for chipset cooling comes with a termal tape (I've bought three different chipset heatsinks and they all had'em).