Southbridge running hot!

balzary · Post by **balzary** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 1:59 am

Hi I have an asus p5n32-e sli motherboard. It has the stock passive cooler attached. However, the temp of the southbridge is 77 degrees c with the fans turned to full.

When I turn the fans to a lower a speed the temperature starts to climb, the hottest it got to was about 85 (before i could get the fans going on full again).

With the fans turned to slow, my computer is nice and quiet. However, at the moment because I have to keep the fans at 1200rpm this is not the case.

I was wondering what options I had?

Pegar · Post by **Pegar** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 2:32 am

I have a similiar problem with the same mobo. The difference being that both the southbridge and the norhtbridge are overheating and crash if I don't have my fans at full speed.

Makes me really annoyed as I wanted to make a silent system and now it's far from it.

I've come to the conclusion that the mobo is designed to have a blow-down CPU cooler (I have a Ninja) which would give air to the chips, and I just ordered a 40mm fan that I will (somehow) directly attach to the bigger heatsink and hope that the other one survives without one...

If that doesn't work I'll just leave it at that and get a new mobo someday. This motherboard ain't so great in any other way either...

Other options which I thought of are:
1) replacing both of the heatsinks with something bigger and better (I have no space for that)
2) getting a different CPU cooler that would blow air on the motherboard (I really can't afford another cooler at the moment)

Maybe one of these work for you.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:41 am

For those that have enough space, replacing the chipset heatsink should sort out the problem. The southbridges don't use too much power anyway.
There are lots of good chipset heatsinks available, but they are usually for the nortbridge, the southbridge may require glueing, due to lack of mounting holes.
If little space is available, IMO the best solution is to add the Scythe Mini Kaze 40 mm fan: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =FG-006-SY

Faster_Madman · Post by **Faster_Madman** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 5:05 am

New bigger sinks AND/OR applying new thermal paste could be a solution worth trying.

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 6:06 am

Depending on how easy it is to take off and put back, i would just reapply the thermal paste with your own.
Most board makers will use the cheapest paste possible and often not apply it in the best way.
Put a tiny blob of whatever paste you usually use (Artic silver 5 comes highly recommended if you dont have any preference, most only cost a few pounds for a tube so it wont hurt the bank) in the middle iof the chip then put the heatsink back on (trying to keep pressure on the chip even throughout, tighten opposite screws slowly etc) and then let it warm up and cool down a few times and watch that temp drop.

balzary · Post by **balzary** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 6:13 am

i have some arctic silver 5 knocking about, so i'll definately give that a go first. if that doesn't work out, are there any decent nb/sb heatsinks out there which do not require a fan...or is the scythe mini kaze quiet enough not to be heard behind case fans? (i have some noctuas, which when i sort out the sb i will be keeping at around 800rpm)

thanks very much for all the advice - this is a great website (been using it for about a year and think it has saved my sanity)

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 6:51 am

If you can get some enzotech full copper heatsinks, they would be ideal for the hot southbridges.

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 12:48 pm

balzary wrote:i have some arctic silver 5 knocking about, so i'll definately give that a go first. if that doesn't work out, are there any decent nb/sb heatsinks out there which do not require a fan...or is the scythe mini kaze quiet enough not to be heard behind case fans? (i have some noctuas, which when i sort out the sb i will be keeping at around 800rpm)

thanks very much for all the advice - this is a great website (been using it for about a year and think it has saved my sanity)

I would avoid any heatsink that comes with a fan. No SB on earth puts out enough heat to justify one.

Heres a SB cooler i found, pretty damn cheap as well.
http://www.jab-tech.com/Microcool-South ... -3332.html

The enzotech ones jamppa mentioned are these:
http://www.enzotechnology.com/bmr_c1.htm

Theya re designed for cooling the RAM chips on VGA cards, but you could put 4 of them onto the southbridge cooler and it would provide ample cooling.

frenchie · Post by **frenchie** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 12:09 am

Hi,
I have an P5N-E SLI Asus mobo and the stock heatsink on the northbridge got so hot that I would almost burn my finger if I touched it. I replaced it with the noctua chipset heatsink. The sink also got really hot and I think the airflow in my case is decent. You could feel the hot air being pulled away from the sink. Then, I added a quiet AcoustiFan DustPROOF 70mm fan (fits perfectly on the noctua sink). Now, the heatsink feels warm to the touch but not hot anymore. The fan runs on 5V (10 CFM according to specs) and once the side cover is on, I can't hear it.

On the Southbridge, I added a Zalman chipset heatsink (no heatsink by default). Not quite sure how usefull that is though... It's slightly warm so I guess it helps a bit.

If you're interested, I can post pics.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 4:51 am

So far, I have only used whatever the biggest Zalman heatsink was on all my boards for years.

Those other suggestions look really awesome however! copper by far beats aluminum it just is hard to find right for a board. The price of copper right now is psycho.

As5'ing your stock heatsinks can drop the temps significantly. (Ceramique does this as well and is easier to apply/perfect)

Those Enzotech heatsinks are so sick

I am looking at their site. Single piece forged copper. no welds or anything. that has an enormous ability to move heat.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 8:31 am

I was thinking like this for Southbridge...
http://www.enzotechnology.com/slf_1.htm