Northbridge still running warmer than I'd like

[ddrueding]

Gigabyte nForce 4 motherboard, passively cooled with one of these:

But it's still running quite hot @ 260Mhz and +0.2v

It isn't unstable in any way, but it's way too hot to touch, and that makes me nervous.

I'm looking for a more effective passive cooling solution; there isn't that much airflow inside my case. I'm more interested in ease of installation and total surface area than I am about cost (it's my gaming rig )

 

[Mercutio]

I handled a motherboard that ended up with Doug, that had IIRC a socket 7 Heat Sink on it. I think it was Groltz's.

That's certainly one way to do it.

 

[Sol]

You might try disabling the onboard ethernet and chucking a seperate card in. I know on my NForce3 based board the gigabit ethernet is the largest contributor to heat production.

Swiftec make a gigantic solid copper chipset coolers and thermalright make a large aluminium one which is aparently very good although both are usually used with a fan they're also both designed for hot northbridges which contain memory controlers. Also the fan which comes with the swiftec is extremely quiet anyway.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm tempted to see if I can get another Scythe SCNJ-1000 to fit in there. Does anyone think thermal paste would be enough to hold it in place?
:eekers:

Disable the onboard ethernet? There is an interesting idea. There is a second GbE on the motherboard, I might try disabling the NB-based one and using it instead. There really isn't room in the case (P180) for a PCI card.

 

[Groltz]

I handled a motherboard that ended up with Doug, that had IIRC a socket 7 Heat Sink on it. I think it was Groltz's.

That's certainly one way to do it.

It was a Thermalright NB-1C

The fan was a bit too loud on its own so I had a soldered a resistor inline with its "+" lead. Very good after that.

 

[ddrueding]

Found This one by the nifty guys at nCubed

Looks useful. I've been wanting their fan controlers for quite a while now.

 

[mubs]

This thing is supposed to be pretty good for NF4 chips; just ignore the fancy stuff. It's a favorite of the NF4 owners at the DFI forums who remove the stock cooler, put AS5 and this thing on and get significant reductions in chipset temps.

 

[CougTek]

I'm tempted to see if I can get another Scythe SCNJ-1000 to fit in there. Does anyone think thermal paste would be enough to hold it in place?

Thermal paste doesn't hold much of anything in place. Thermal tape might though.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm tempted to see if I can get another Scythe SCNJ-1000 to fit in there. Does anyone think thermal paste would be enough to hold it in place?

Thermal paste doesn't hold much of anything in place. Thermal tape might though.

Sorry, thermal epoxy, the two-part stuff.

 

[ddrueding]

This thing is supposed to be pretty good for NF4 chips; just ignore the fancy stuff. It's a favorite of the NF4 owners at the DFI forums who remove the stock cooler, put AS5 and this thing on and get significant reductions in chipset temps.

Afraid not. I swore to never again use a fan smaller than 80mm in a computer. They are, by definition, loud, unreliable, and ineffective.

 

[Sol]

Sorry, thermal epoxy, the two-part stuff.

I was going to comment that thermal epoxy might be better but I just figured you were kidding about the whole thing...

Seriously the chipset on an NForce4 shouldn't need that much cooling, the gigabit ethernet is the hottest thing it has in it. And stuck or not I don't think putting that much weight sideways (assuming the motherboard will be mounted vertically) on a chip without an independant mounting rig is a good idea at all.

Since the memory controller for an athlon64 is on the die you shouldn't need to even increase the voltage to increase the memory clock to 260Mhz. I'm admitedly using an NForce3 board but I can clock my memory up to 275Mhz without increasing the voltage or cooling on the chipset at all. I have a swiftec copper beast with a tiny fan on my chipset and it pretty much doesn't get above the ambient temperature. I'd make sure you really need that extra voltage before you worry too much about extra cooling to deal with it.

As for smaller fans a couple of companies make 40mm fans which are both quiet and reliable Sunnon spring to mind with thier maglev range, one of which comes with the swiftec chipset cooler I bought. As far as ineffective goes I think you'll find that you only need to move a very small ammount of air and you will make a massive difference in your current situation.

If you really insist on only 80mm+ I'd look for a light weight all aluminium cooler for a low power CPU and drill a couple of holes in it to make use of the motherboard mounting holes to support the weight.