ASUS P5B DELUXE NORTHBRIDGE COOLING

[Roughneck]

I'm currently working on my first overclocking project. I have an Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi motherboard with a C2D E4300. The processor and the hard drives are water cooled, the rest is air cooling.

I'm using the stock NB / voltage rectifier heat pipe/heat sink thingy with the included fan. I'm wondering if I should be concernd about this considering that I've OC'ed the NB 133 MHz...

Is there any way to check the temp of your NB? How come I really never hear people talk about that? Is stock cooling enough, or should I beef it up?

What about just attaching a small fan to the NB heatsink? Alternatively, I have a Thermalright HR-05 from an older rig that I could use, but then I'd have to lose the cooler on the voltage rectifiers since it is an integrated unit with the NB cooler.

As you can see, I'm a total newb with this OCing thing. Please let me know your thoughts.

 

[prong]

I'm currently working on my first overclocking project. I have an Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi motherboard with a C2D E4300. The processor and the hard drives are water cooled, the rest is air cooling.

I'm using the stock NB / voltage rectifier heat pipe/heat sink thingy with the included fan. I'm wondering if I should be concernd about this considering that I've OC'ed the NB 133 MHz...

Is there any way to check the temp of your NB? How come I really never hear people talk about that? Is stock cooling enough, or should I beef it up?

What about just attaching a small fan to the NB heatsink? Alternatively, I have a Thermalright HR-05 from an older rig that I could use, but then I'd have to lose the cooler on the voltage rectifiers since it is an integrated unit with the NB cooler.

As you can see, I'm a total newb with this OCing thing. Please let me know your thoughts.

A small fan to the NB heatsink would be fine, although these days entire video cards are coooled via passive heatsinks. Your case should have good air flow with front intake and rear exhaust fans. If you want to get more air flowing into the case use 120 mm fan adapters to any 80 mm case fans you may be using and replace the 80 mm with 120 mm fans. Good airflow using 120 mm fans can lower your MB temps by several degrees minimum.

 

[Roughneck]

Do you have any experience just using a fan on the stock cooler of this MB? I've taken the NB from a stock 200MHz up to 333MHz, and I've been toying with the idea of dropping the multiplier on my E4300 and clocking the NB at 400MHz so that I can run my PC6400 RAM at 1:1. But I"m worried that a 100% OC of the NB will do more harm than good.

It doesn't seem like many people ever really talk too much about NB heat. . . or maybe I'm just reading the wrong fora.

I'm concerned about it. I'm thinking about just watercooling the chipset (the block is only a few bucks and I already have WC installed); however, I don't want to do it if it's overkill.

 

[prong]

Do you have any experience just using a fan on the stock cooler of this MB? I've taken the NB from a stock 200MHz up to 333MHz, and I've been toying with the idea of dropping the multiplier on my E4300 and clocking the NB at 400MHz so that I can run my PC6400 RAM at 1:1. But I"m worried that a 100% OC of the NB will do more harm than good.

It doesn't seem like many people ever really talk too much about NB heat. . . or maybe I'm just reading the wrong fora.

I'm concerned about it. I'm thinking about just watercooling the chipset (the block is only a few bucks and I already have WC installed); however, I don't want to do it if it's overkill.

I own the same MB as yours, but I have no experience modifying the stock cooling on the NB chip. If you rememeber on the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (which I had one for one day) the NB fan was notorious for failing. There was a thread on here with the number to call and order a new fan from ASUS free of charge. Then ASUS came out with the A8N-SLI Deluxe with a passive cooler. I'm running that board overclocked like this P5B deluxe for months and months without any heat incident at all. All of ASUS's new boards have passive cooling I think. My P5B Deluxe is in an case with 9 120 case fans. It stays cool all day while being overclocked. With the stock passive cooling system and good case airflow you may be OK. Just like the 7600GT 650 mhz core and 1.8 ghz. overclocked RAM running passive cooling. I made sure I set it up with good case air flow and I haven't gotten it back.

 

[Roughneck]

How much have you OC'ed your NB, prong?

 

[prong]

How much have you OC'ed your NB, prong?

he he. I haven't. I've only stared at the setting. haha.

 

[prong]

How much have you OC'ed your NB, prong?

I think increasing the NB voltage would involve possible performance adjustments to your RAM. I'm not sure if the CPU would be directly effected. You may be already thinking along these lines.

 

[Roughneck]

Well, I may be using my terminology incorrectly. I'm assuming that bumpint the FSB to a higher frequency causes the NB to run faster and thus produce more heat.

I haven't actually bumped the NB voltage at all, but I'm running the FSB at 133 MHz over the stock speed. I'd imagine that's making the NB hotter, right? So I should probably give some thought to cooling? No?

BTW, do you use that little fan on voltage rectifier fins on your P5B Deluxe?

 

[prong]

Well, I may be using my terminology incorrectly. I'm assuming that bumpint the FSB to a higher frequency causes the NB to run faster and thus produce more heat.

I haven't actually bumped the NB voltage at all, but I'm running the FSB at 133 MHz over the stock speed. I'd imagine that's making the NB hotter, right? So I should probably give some thought to cooling? No?

BTW, do you use that little fan on voltage rectifier fins on your P5B Deluxe?

Well, bumping the FSB causes all the compnents on your system BUS to maintain at the higher level you bumped it to. That's why you should lock the PCI Clock at 33 1/3 and increase the PCI Frequency o 110-118 to accomodate the overclocking of the system BUS. You have to drag all you other components running on your system BUS along with the Processor. Myself. I overclock, but I am hessitant to push voltages on any of the system chips beyond Mfg. recommendations. Zapping you NB chip with double the default voltage may cause the MB to fail for good. Actually, it's throwing the voltage at the NB that will make it hotter. Increasing voltage to the NB will stabalize some RAM issues like DIMMS not being able to run at full spped, etc. I'm not so sure what it does to the processor to increase voltage to the NB chip. I generally overclock to the point of having to OVERVOLT my chips. I'm a chicken. I've burned my processor right through the back of my MB and singed the inside of the case a dark brown on ocassion. Hate all the paperwork to RMA all that stuff.

 

[rwpritchett]

Roughneck, did you install the addon fan that comes with the P5B-Dlx when using passive or water cooled setups? Mine came with one but I don't use it since I have a CPU fan that blows across the heatpipes properly. It's only supposed to be used in situations like you've described.

BTW, I run fulltime at FSB 333 and my NB heatpipes don't feel very hot to the touch. Id don't think you need to worry until you get up beyond 400-500 FSB.

 

[Roughneck]

Yeah, I'm using the addon fan since I have a water block on my CPU. My heatpipes don't feel hot, but the NB heatsink is warm. I bought a 40mm fan that I might install sideways on the NB heatsink and call it a day.

I'm running it at 333 right now, but I'm thinking about dropping the multiplier on my 4300 and bumping the NB to 400. That's twice it's stock speed. That's why I'm worried about temps--but I'm only worried out of ignorance, perhaps.

I just think it's interesting that I hardly seem to run across folks talking about monitoring their NB temps. Is there even a program that will do that?

 

[Aivas47a]

Roughrider, some thoughts on your questions in this thread:

NB temp can definitely be a limiting factor on overclocks and is something to consider. However you don't normally need to worry about NB temps unless you are increasing voltage (note, however, if you have the voltage on "auto" and increase the frequency your voltage will increase too).

Also if you can touch the NB heatsink and it is warm but not hot, your temps should be fine.

The NB on the 965 chipset runs relatively cool in my experience (compared to the 680i for example, which runs really hot), one of the reasons the 965 is good for high fsb speeds.

Notwithstanding the above, using a small fan on the NB is never a bad idea. Air flow is good, more is better, especially when you are watercooling the CPU and so don't have a fan there.

I'm pretty sure Everest Ultimate (you can find that with google, there is a free trial period) will read the chipset temp on the P5B.

 

[Roughneck]

Thank you all very much for your help. I'm learning... slowly but surely.