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Cool the north bridge

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Thanks in advance for your help .
" They " say there are no stupid questions , so here goes .
I'm runnin a 3e prescott (478 ) on a Asus P4P800 Deluxe .
Stabil overclock @ 3.5 .
It smells so darn hot under load . MBM5 reports a 52c temp under load . Torture test on prime 95 , cpu temp rises to 55c . thru the first 5 sets of tests .
The Asus probe alarm goes off on the mobo temp , just for a second , then stops . Shows well over 80c for the mobo .
I've read that if over clocking you have to be aware of the " north bridge " temp .

So if its not a stupid qeustion , can you tell me what the north bridge is , and how to cool it ?
FYI , I'm a union Carpenter from St. Louis , and have taught my self how to build these things . I think I know the answer to this , but I'm not sure . Thanks again for ur help .

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The Northbridge is the part of the chipset closest to the CPU and RAM. Some have a passive sink, others use a fan. I believe yours uses a passive sink, but you could try screwing a fan to it.

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Reply to Crashman

Ghetto Style :lol: I like it!

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Reply to Ned_Flanders

I have a different Motherboard, but the same 3.0E CPU that you have. Mine runs about 55C under a full load. From what I hear that isnt uncommon for this CPU. Now my Northbridge is a different story. Mine is Passive, and it gets hot. To add to this, my motherboard doesnt report the correct temps. This is a known issue with my board. I dont know if your MOBO reports correctly or not, I assume it does. To cool the Northbridge on mine I bought a fan that is designed to fit in a PCI slot and exhaust air out of the case. Only cost about $10.00. The metal mounting bracket will pop off then you can take a couple of cable ties and suspend the blower so that it blows directly onto and across the Northbrige. It lowered my Nothbridge temps by aprox 7C. That just soemthing to think about, if you decide to try it and need a link to a web site that carries them let me know.

Best of luck

Reply to mozzartusm

One more thing. The only stupid question is one that you dont ask. LOL! :smile:

Reply to mozzartusm

Yeh, these wire-clip heatsinks are a bitch to find a fitting replacement for.

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Reply to Crashman
- 0 +

Part of the problem is Im not sure if its reporting the correct temps for the board . I dont think the Asus probe is , so I shut it off . For now Im set back to stock speeds . I'll put some sort of fan on the heatsink .

Thanks for the help

Reply to Chop

If you put your hand close to the CPU Heatsink and then the Nothbridge, see if you can feel a difference between the two. Be very careful though. You need to make sure that you are grounded so as not to fry your board. If you dont know what I am talking about then dont risk it.

Reply to mozzartusm
- 0 +

Actually mozz I did that , and it seemed ok . I geuss I need to do it under load .

I do have the cpu voltage turned down to 1.34 , which helped a bunch with the temps . Gets about 52c while playing HL 2 . Just worrys me that the temp for the mobo spikes up all of a sudden then drops just as qwik . Seems to do this at idle , and not under load .
I think its a false reading .

Reply to Chop

Quote :

Yeh, these wire-clip heatsinks are a bitch to find a fitting replacement for.


Thermal Epoxy. problem solved! (unless you ever want to remove it, of course :eek: )

That's what I did to my Epox 8RDA+, but I just glued an old Socket A aluminium HS to it so it's still passive. I have enough Fans as it is, without adding another... Gave me an extra 10Mhz FSB, but then the stock NB HS is pretty crappy on these.

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Reply to ChipDeath

I just screwed a 50mm CPU fan to mine, already low speed, and wired it for 7v. Now it's silent (you can't hear it from standard sitting distance) and makes up for the missing crossdraft my CPU cooler was supposed to provide (before I went liquid).

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Reply to Crashman
- 0 +

That is one of the problems with liquid cooling. It's actually a lot worse for the pwm units. They put out almost as much heat as the chip, but rely on exhaust from the hsf for cooling. Someone should come up with better ventilation for them.

Reply to endyen
- 0 +

Your mobo is at 80c, but your chip is at 52c? So, is that like putting a fan on the icecream in the oven so it stays cooler?
Last time I checked, you could not have an object in an environment, have it cooled by that environment, but have it be cooler. See if you can borrow an infrared temp sensor.

Reply to endyen
- 0 +

At idle my temps from mbm5 are cpu 37c " case " 29c .
Under load cpu goes to around 50c and the mobo temp 39c . At the stock settings .
my Asus probe would all of a sudden set the alarm off and show the mobo temp at 80c . Just for a split second , then it would be back to normal . Must be a bad reading . I was just looking for ideas on cooling the north bridge .
Think I'll go set it back to 3500 and see what happens .

Reply to Chop

Quote :

Thermal Epoxy. problem solved! (unless you ever want to remove it, of course)

That's what I did to my Epox 8RDA+, but I just glued an old Socket A aluminium HS to it so it's still passive. I have enough Fans as it is, without adding another...


**ROFL** That's almost exactly what I was thinking! (My thought was a passive P3 or earlier heatsink. I've seen some 'tall' skyscraper-like designs for passive heatsinks with a narrow base that would work excellent there.) Epoxies (thermal or otherwise) are so useful. They're almost as handy to have around as duct tape!

Luckily I don't have to worry so much about my passively cooled northbridge because I have good case airflow around there anyway. :) I'm still contemplating just improving my case air flow a little more and then throwing a giant fanless heatsink onto my CPU. With that and a passively cooled graphics card and I may never hear my PC again. :O

<pre><b><font color=red>"Build a man a fire and he's warm for the rest of the evening.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life." - Steve Taylor</font color=red></b></pre><p>

Reply to slvr_phoenix

Quote :

That is one of the problems with liquid cooling. It's actually a lot worse for the pwm units. They put out almost as much heat as the chip, but rely on exhaust from the hsf for cooling. Someone should come up with better ventilation for them.


I guess that's why so many people go to the extremes of watercooling their northbridge and GPU and such as well as their CPU.

<pre><b><font color=red>"Build a man a fire and he's warm for the rest of the evening.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life." - Steve Taylor</font color=red></b></pre><p>

Reply to slvr_phoenix
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