Northbridge & Southbridge cooling

[mimart7]

I have the Ausus M2N 832 SLI Vista Premium (AM2). I see my options for cooling the chipset is somewhat limited. I am using air cooling. What are a few good options for cooling? The chipsets are fairly hot to the touch.

 

[rubix_1011]

Do your north/south chipsets have individual heatsinks on them, or do they have the newer Asus heatpipe-across-your-motherboard coolers?

If they are individuals, they can be easily replaced by chipset coolers from a place like FrozenCPU.com. They have quite an assortment of cooling for 2 pin, 4 pin or hook-retained chipset coolers. Even if you have the heatpipe solutions, you could still remove the entire thing (I would rather find a small fan to blow across these, though) and attach separate chipset coolers. I know that the northbridge does typically get hot, so make sure your replacements are seated properly.

 

[mimart7]

It has heatpipes , here is an image http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.aspx?Image=13-131-163-02.jpg%2c13-131-163-03.jpg%2c13-131-163-04.jpg%2c13-131-163-05.jpg%2c13-131-163-06.jpg%2c13-131-163-07.jpg%2c13-131-163-08.jpg&S7ImageFlag=0&Depa=1&Description=ASUS+M2N32-SLI+Premium+Vista+Edition+ATX+AMD+Motherboard

I am reluctant to remove the heatpipes.

 

[rubix_1011]

Did it not come with those Asus fans that clip to the heatsinks?

I agree with you, keep the heatpiped solution, add some small diameter fans to blow across the heatsinks. Other than that, mount your entire rig inside of a standard house box-fan.

 

[mimart7]

Yes it came with the Q fan, but the directions tell you to only use with passive or water cooling, and mention something about interfering with CPU airflow and instability. I'll give it a shot and see what happens.