Thermal Imaging of Motherboard Components

rpc180 · Post by **rpc180** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 6:35 pm

I thought this might be useful for some of you guys in here. They are a collection of thermal images of motherboard components. Just a heads up on what gets hot, what doesn't.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bubo/

marc999 · Post by **marc999** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 1:24 pm

That was most fascinating ! Thanks for posting that rpc180. I especially like the pictures of his cats !! He is right, cats are cool !!

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Sat May 03, 2003 6:51 am

That was a really great post, thank you. Now you see why having a fan blow down onto the motherboard is a very good idea, as is losing a little heat from the back of the board as well. The problem is those tiny objects that get hot, what can you attach to them?

I notice that where the cat's fur is heavy you measure less heat. Around the ears cats do not have much fur. So of course the fur is doing it's job, keeping the cat warm.

L4177312 · Post by **L4177312** » Sat May 03, 2003 12:15 pm

nice!

Justin_R · Post by **Justin_R** » Sat May 03, 2003 8:34 pm

aristide1 wrote:The problem is those tiny objects that get hot, what can you attach to them?

Well for the absolute tiniest ones like the one resistor and the temperature monitor chip, you can't do much besides blow air at them. But lots of folks put heatsinks on their MOSFETs. For example, this page describes installing MOSFET heatsinks on that same motherboard. I think I even read at the 8RDA forum that someone put a custom waterblock across them!

Note that the first page I link to also says that the stock Northbridge cooler is attached poorly, which may explain why the heatsink looks so cool in the thermal image.