HOT Southbound chip. Help...

[noidly1]

HELP!!!
Just got done building a comp.
fired up fine.

A8N32-SLI 939 mobo
4800+ cpu
2 Patriot 1 gigers 2.3.2.5
2 xfx 8800gtx-xxx v-cards
bfg 1k psu

after 5 minutes running, i checked temps, finger on heatpipes,
cpu ok,warm
nb ok, warm,
sb HOT, WAY TOO HOT, can't touch too long...
top v-card very warm, fan works.
bottom v-card cool.

can top v-card be touching something?
has anybody had this heat prob with this mobo????

also; should i be using the sli ribbon on gold fingers with this board?
i initially had it on. could i have caused it to loop and over load?

Thanks.

 

[noidly1]

i bought it right when am2's came out.
figured 939 was mature enough and am2 was too newat the time.
waited for a goog v-card. was looking at 7950's, then 8800's came out.
finally found a decent psu.
now i'm stumped with all the stuff about 680i's havin probs.
that means fall back to 590's. amd or Intel?
unless there is a good 680?

 

[noidly1]

I DID just build it. it took forever. started with mobo, savin and searchin, savin and searchin. piece by piece. heck, you've read my other posts. then mom had heart surg. had to take care of her... and had other priorities.

current machine, s462 w/3200+ n 6800agp. it's fine for gen use but choppy on games, figured it was time.

sounds like your in same boat with mobos.

can a fauty v-card cause probs w/sb chip? i almost got burned by it as HOT as that chip was. remember, top card was very warm, covers sb, fan spinnin, and bottom card was cool...

i am gonna take the 88s out and stab an old pci v-card in it and see if the sb chip still gets hot still. if it does, mobo time, if not, then i'll put in the bottom 88 card on top without other in bottom and see what happens, and go from there.

 

[noidly1]

The cards themselfs should effect the chip's temp. Now when running SLI you are working the chip harder so it get's hotter. But a faulty card should effect it. Most chipsets tend to be hot with stock cooling.

the cards SHOULD effect temp? even without sli? but a faulty card sould effect it?

check your wording.

no, it's a standard case.

don't know if this is normal or not but have never seen this before.
when fired up, a v-card bios comes up on screen before the mobo bios does. is this norm?

 

[noidly1]

do you think a water cooler is in order for the sb?

 

[noidly1]

the mobo came with a fan for pipes but sticker said USE ONLY WITH WATER COOLED CPU.
should i go ahead and put it on anyway?

 

[noidly1]

it is the same size as fins and paperwork shows pic..
wish i knew how to post pics.

 

[noidly1]

read bottom of Unique Features
http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=1&model=744&l1=3&l2=15&l3=226
says "The optional fan is specifically designed to provide sufficient airflow over the CPU power modules and chipset area" but shaped for pipes.

i'll work on it in a while and see what happens. hope sb doesn't smoke on me after it's been on for a while....

later

 

[elpresidente2075]

I think I know the fan you're talking about. The reason they say "only with watercooled cpu" is 'cause, like mpilchfamily said, there wouldn't be any air flowing over it with a watercooled system. Now, with a regularly cooled system, putting that fan on there might actually be detrimental. It all depends on which direction the fan pushes the air. If the air is pushing in, it may hurt the situation because of the airflows canceling each other out. If it is pushing out, well then I'd put it on there, but its just 'cause I don't care about noise. Those little fans tend to be unnecessarily loud :roll: .


P.S.
To post pics, you have to put them on an image server somewhere (imageshack is a fairly common one) and then link to them here. GL

 

[noidly1]

what if i reverse the cpu fan and have it pull air out?

 

[elpresidente2075]

That would keep the interference from happening, but it may be a little weird.

I dunno, you could try it... It shouldn't burn anything out, unless by "reverse" you mean reverse the polarity of the fan, which would certainly burn the fan out, but if you just flipped the fan over, that would work, I think.

Also, did you try to run the system with only one card in it to see if the SLI was actually the problem? In my experience, southbridges don't get nearly as hot as the northbridges, but then again, I haven't ever worked with SLI before either. Removing one card would rule out SLI as the problem, and should show if there actually is a defective part in the system, namely the heatpipe.

You may also want to get on the horn with ASUS (I know, they're a pain to deal with), and see if anyone over there knows anything about it. Hopefully you'll get someone who knows something about the boards and not some call center that pays its employees $1 an hour to sit around and read scripts to customers.

 

[noidly1]

i'll give it a try.
figure better to pull heat out than blow cooler air in...? let is suck cooler air in down by cpu.

if you think about it; since the heat pipe pulls heat out to the fins, and you have a fan blowing air in, you are blowing the heat back at the cpu.

 

[elpresidente2075]

My thoughts exactly.