Asus A8N-SLI - Northbridge fan replacement - How hot?

rlcoach · Post by **rlcoach** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 3:31 am

I am currently building a new PC which will be as quiet as I can make it.

The motherboard I am using has a fan on the Northbridge chip and is quite noisy so I have replaced it with a Zalman heatsink. As soon as I switch on the pc, a minute or so later the heatsink is pretty hot. Should I be concerned its getting hot so quickly or happy that it seems to be connected to the chip okay because it is dissipating the heat?

Also, for the people who have done the replaced their motherboard fan with a heat sink what sort of case cooling have you got? What would you recommend?

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
Athlon 64 4000 San Diego cooled by Zalman CNPS7000B-CU Super Flower
Acousticase 6607
Zalman Northbridge heatsink
2 x AcoustiFan™ DustPROOF 120mm fans
Seasonic S12 500W Power Supply
Samsung SpinPoint 160gb
NEC ND3540A DVD Writer

Slidax · Post by **Slidax** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 5:36 am

I measured mine with a temp probe and it quickly went up to around 50C, now i have added this 120mm fan, running at a very low rpm (almost inaudible). It is suspended by elastic and blows air over the NB and my passive graphics card heatsink. The NB and graphics card now run much cooler.

120mm fan
http://img235.echo.cx/img235/355/newfan1ug.jpg

So it should be fine, but a small amount of airflow is a good idea.

rlcoach · Post by **rlcoach** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 6:28 am

Slidax wrote:I measured mine with a temp probe and it quickly went up to around 50C, now i have added this 120mm fan, running at a very low rpm (almost inaudible). It is suspended by elastic and blows air over the NB and my passive graphics card heatsink. The NB and graphics card now run much cooler.

120mm fan
http://img235.echo.cx/img235/355/newfan1ug.jpg

So it should be fine, but a small amount of airflow is a good idea.

It looks like you have the same if not similar setup to me regarding heat sink and video card. Is yours the Gigabyte card 6600 GT (which already features a Zalman heat sync?).

I will see how it goes. I have a 120mm fan on the front of my case, which blows air pretty much over the northbridge, so hopefully that will do a job on cooling it enough. If its not getting cool I may look at moving the fan to a more prominent position for the Northbridge fan.

Pooh-Bah · Post by **Pooh-Bah** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 6:40 am

You don't need any special case cooling, just add a small low-speed fan blowing directly on the chipset. It doesn't have to move much air, but it must move the air right over the chipset. I used an old stock Athlon fan that I had laying around with a speed control. You'd be amazed how much difference a tiny amount of air makes on the chipset temps. Since my own case never moves, I just wrapped the fan with zip ties to keep it from catching on anything, and laid it up against the chipset heatsink. It looks cheap but it works perfectly.

Slidax · Post by **Slidax** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 3:21 pm

rlcoach wrote: Is yours the Gigabyte card 6600 GT (which already features a Zalman heat sync?).

Similar, its the x800xl model from gigabyte.