Make Any Motherboard Passive (new system build)!

defaultluser · Post by **defaultluser** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:28 am

Howdy folks, just got done installing my new system:

Antec Sonata II (was going to get a P150, until I saw the issues with the powersupply + ASUS)
Asus A8N5X
X2 3800+ w/retail cooler
2GB Corsair XMS
XFX 7900 GT

The system performed perfectly out of the box, and performance was excellent, but I was dismayed at the noise from the 6000 RPM chipset cooler on the motherboard, and the "miniature vacuum" cooler on the XFX board. Both were hideously loud.

But luckily, Newegg can ship most stuff to me in a day. Picked up the following:

Zalman vf900-Cu heatpipe video cooler
Zalman passive northbridge cooler

So, here's the result:

I left in the stock Tricool exhaust fan at low, and added a Scythe 120mm 800 RPM fan (33CFM) liquid bearing fan to cool the hard drive and passive northbridge heatsink:

The passive northbridge, plus the vf900-Cu. Plenty of clearance between the heatsink and the video card, despite the large size of the passive northbridge sink. VERY quiet, and they cool as well as the LOUD fans they replaced:

I made this post mainly because of the passive northbridge heatsink. My ASUS A8N5X was a great deal at $75, but I knew I'd probably have to do something about the cheap northbridge cooler.

The Zalman passive northbrige heatsink yields a 41C temperature at full-load (Prime + SuperPI + 3dmark 06), and 25C at idle, given a room temperature of 22C. That's as good as the active cooler with a 6000 RPM fan! It works so well, I'm surprised they're not mentioned more around here.

For those of you who are looking for a PASSIVE motherboard, why compromise? With this baby, you can buy whatever motherboard you want with whatever features you crave, then shell out 5 bucks and make it passive. SOME motherboards may have issues with the placement of the bridge chip in relation to the PCIe 16x / AGP slot, but it should fit on most.

The heatsink is relatively easy to install, once you figure out Zalman's unique mounting clips. It uses the same sized plastic clamp pins as the original heatsink, you just have to adjust the little aluminum arms until they line up with the original mounting holes.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 12:19 pm

The Zalman passive northbrige heatsink yields a 41C temperature at full-load (Prime + SuperPI + 3dmark 06), and 25C at idle, given a room temperature of 22C. That's as good as the active cooler with a 6000 RPM fan! It works so well, I'm surprised they're not mentioned more around here.

If I search for "zalman northbridge" in SPCR I get 1329 matches. If I search for "NB47J" I get 776 matches. It's a popular product here. But you're right, maybe it should be in one of the Recommended articles, like the Heatsinks one.

EDIT: Oops, it already is.

Stjopatron · Post by **Stjopatron** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:18 pm

41Â°C must be a Bios reading. Try plug in a thermometer in the heat sink and you'll get completely different results. That way my Zalman NB47J on the Asus NF4 shoots immediately up to 80Â°C, in idle. But, a small 5 volted fan on the Zalman will reduce the temp to its half.

defaultluser · Post by **defaultluser** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 3:33 pm

jaganath wrote:
The Zalman passive northbrige heatsink yields a 41C temperature at full-load (Prime + SuperPI + 3dmark 06), and 25C at idle, given a room temperature of 22C. That's as good as the active cooler with a 6000 RPM fan! It works so well, I'm surprised they're not mentioned more around here.
If I search for "zalman northbridge" in SPCR I get 1329 matches. If I search for "NB47J" I get 776 matches. It's a popular product here. But you're right, maybe it should be in one of the Recommended articles, like the Heatsinks one.

EDIT: Oops, it already is.

Well yes, it has been discussed in the past, but I've noticed many different requests for passive or "silent" motherboards recently, there's even a thread near the top of the forum right now.

And yes, this is in the "recommended" heatsink list, but it is at the end of the second page. I didn't even know it had a second page until now

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 1:20 am

Stjopatron wrote:41Â°C must be a Bios reading. Try plug in a thermometer in the heat sink and you'll get completely different results. That way my Zalman NB47J on the Asus NF4 shoots immediately up to 80Â°C, in idle. But, a small 5 volted fan on the Zalman will reduce the temp to its half.

Take another look...he has an internal 120 mm fan that mounts between the HD's and the northbridge for airlow on both. That gives pretty good airflow relative to a little 40 mm noisemaker. The blue Zalmans are a good option especially if helped by an internal fan well aimed. Some DFI and MSI mobos have clearance issues and people cut away some fins.

cAPSLOCK · Post by **cAPSLOCK** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 2:48 am

defaultluser wrote: Well yes, it has been discussed in the past, but I've noticed many different requests for passive or "silent" motherboards recently, there's even a thread near the top of the forum right now.

I think a couple of reasons could be that on many motherboards the northbridge is under the end of the graphics card, it also means more work and warranty voiding, and Stjopatron already mentioned that you need to pay more attention to the cooling setup.

Motherboard makers should make all motherboards passive, it's obviously not impossible (or even very hard), and it means more silence and more reliability.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:58 am

Motherboard makers should make all motherboards passive, it's obviously not impossible (or even very hard), and it means more silence and more reliability.

Uh, you think running electrical components at higher operating temps improves reliability? Au contraire.

defaultluser · Post by **defaultluser** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 9:44 pm

jaganath wrote:
Motherboard makers should make all motherboards passive, it's obviously not impossible (or even very hard), and it means more silence and more reliability.
Uh, you think running electrical components at higher operating temps improves reliability? Au contraire.

What he means is most cheap high-speed 40mm fans burn out within a year or less. That's one reason why I didn't mind voiding my warranty...I knew the chances were good I'd have to replace it within a year anyway.

Of all the components on my motherboard, only two are likely to fail after the first month (to work out the kinks):

* fans
* capacitors

Otherwise, the warranty will probably not be necessary. I took pride in removing one issue early.

cAPSLOCK · Post by **cAPSLOCK** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 8:57 am

defaultluser wrote:
jaganath wrote:
Motherboard makers should make all motherboards passive, it's obviously not impossible (or even very hard), and it means more silence and more reliability.
Uh, you think running electrical components at higher operating temps improves reliability? Au contraire.
What he means is most cheap high-speed 40mm fans burn out within a year or less. That's one reason why I didn't mind voiding my warranty...I knew the chances were good I'd have to replace it within a year anyway.

Yes, sorry it was ambigious, but in my experience the only problems I have had with mobos are crappy fans dying out (and short circuiting, but that was my fault

)...

mkygod · Post by **mkygod** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 5:15 am

The Zalman chipset heatsink works great, but it gets in the way of my video card. It's grinds against my geforce 7800gs when i put it in and it scratches the heatsink cover. Ofc this depends on the layout of the motherboard.

With your layout, i could get away with it. But if you try to put a 7900GTX card in there, or use an Arctic cooling vga cooler, it will probably get in the way of things. Ive seen photos of people bending the Zalman heatsink fins downward just to fit their VGA card.