MB temp sensor, how hot is too hot ? 45 degC?

[matobinder]

So I have this a ASUS P5KPL-AM/PS MB, on it, it has the Winbond W83627DHG-A chip, which is/or has a temperature sensor. I installed the PC/Probe software that comes from ASUS for it, and it has alarms that you can set when temperatures reach certain levels. My CPU barely ever goes over 44deg C under heavy loads. Its default setting for an alarm is at 64deg C so it never goes off.

However, the MB sensor's alarm level is set at 45 deg C, and while gaming and other things, it regularily hits 45 deg and causes PC/Probe's default temp level(at 45deg) alarm to go off.

Question, is 45 deg C too hot for this sensor? Should I try to get some better circulation in the case? I think it is fairly decent.

Oh one last question someone, where is this sensor? Should I see a Winbond chip on the MB somewhere? Or is this built into something.

Thanks

 

[starams5]

Hi M

The default values are set too low in the ASUS Probe, most people raise the values slightly to avoid the alarms, example I raise my motherboard temp value from 45C to 55C.

 

[wuzy]

The temperature sensor for 'MB' is usually around the northbridge chipset, oftenly very close to it. To be sure, put your finger on it and if you can't leave your finger on for more than 3s then it would indicate >60C and cooling the chipset area will help. If you're not running high freq. FSB through overclocking, 45C is fine for the northbridge.
Normally as air is expelled by heatsink, that cools its surrounding area including chipset. But if you're using watercooling you would have to provide extra cooling to those hotspots.

The Winbond I/O chip is just a sensor reader (it reads your voltages too). The actual probe is not located on the IC itself.

 

[matobinder]

Thanks for the info all. I was thinking that the default values on PCProbe at 45 might be a little to low. Raising it up to 55degC

As for the sensor, I did try a little experiment, a brought up the temp monitor, and used a can of compressed air and blew it on 3 chips I saw on the motherboard

Intel G31 (Northbridge) has copper heatsink
Intel ICH 7 (Southbridge) has copper heatsink
Winbond(couldn't read text) labeled as Super I/O in the MB manual. No heatsink.

The compressed air blowing dropped the temp quickly of the MB reading only when I blew it on the Winbond chip labeled Super I/O in the MB manual.

So oddly, since it is a sensor reader, I'd assume the sensor must be near that Winbond chip. Since the air made a difference there. But its not very near the northbridge or southbridge. Its right next to the memory however.

So I next shot the air right between my two DIMMs and it had the same cooling effect. So it stands to reason that sensor is located near the memory.

Now I'm interested, are these sensors something that I should be able to notice? What they might look like?

 

[starams5]

See link, it is indirectly related but useful. Re: Tcase/Tjunction
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/221745-29-sticky-core-core-temperature-guide