On northbridge watercooling (and why you shouldn't do it)

I really feel like ranting, but I'll try to keep this short and to the point.

After killing my THIRD motherboard by chipping the northbridge core *oh so slightly* with the danger den Z-chipset block, and after talking with friends who have all had the same thing happen to them, i just need to say it is NOT worth replacing motherboards just to try to get extra cooling on a piece of hardware where the need for extra cooling is dubious anyway.

Danger Den's new mounting system for the newer Intel chipsets (including 845PE, 848, 865, 875) is, true to its name, fraught with danger. The old hole-in-the-mobo system was much less dangerous, as you could screw on the block slowly, putting even pressure on all sides. Trying to catch two hooks onto the little rings at the same time, and with springs as stiff as the ones Danger Den supplies, is suicide. I even cut down the springs a bit with the mobo I received today, so that the pressure would not be as great. It matters not.

I don't know whether to blame this on Intel's new chipset mounting system (hooks instead of holes?? ) or on Danger Den's implementation of this mounting system, but I can say that I am finished with northbridge watercooling, and I would not encourage others to try it, unless other companies have safer mounting methods.

Speaking of which, can anyone link me to a northbridge block with a GOOD mounting system using the hooks that Intel motherboards now provide? I want to try to clue Danger Den in, so other people aren't killing their boards when they're trying to have a little fun with their hobby.

sorry to hear that, i never had a problem with cooling my NB yet.. but then again, i have the holes instead of the spring.
i used to have an intel mobo, and i know how annoying those hooks are.
I thought dangerden had improved the hooks and were willing to ship it out to people with older NB blocks?

I am running a SwiftTech NB waterblock and I got it on there with no problems at all. Very happy with the mounting and everything. Look into that.

-Alex-

you would think that designers would read this and go " hey maybe we should keep holes instead and give them on die diode support and the other little nicities arnt dificult to implement. a few minor inovations go a long way

I've never had a need to cool a NB. There is so little heat coming from there compared to a cpu.

I've cooled my Northbridges from the beginning. But I've always had holes to use.
Sorry 'bout your luck, man. I don't know what I'd do if I opened up a new mobo and it had those stinking hooks...there's alot of stuff that NewEgg will only replace with duplicate items...Probably donate it to my wife's machine, and continue hunting.
It seams they either let the block pop off, come unsoldered off the board, or allow rocking that chips your core.

What a drag that saving 5 cents in production can lead to such misfortune.

Guys I made my own custom mounting for the 875/865 chipset, for the PolarFLO Chipset block:

Click to expand...

http://www.gruntville.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6766&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30


Seems to work good, haven't installed my WCing yet, I'll let you guys know later if you want.

Before this, I was thinking to install a water block to my NB, but I read your post, it make me think twice.. sorry about your mobos..

Look at the post above, this custom set up should work flawless.

Diggrr said:

I've cooled my Northbridges from the beginning. But I've always had holes to use.
Sorry 'bout your luck, man. I don't know what I'd do if I opened up a new mobo and it had those stinking hooks...there's alot of stuff that NewEgg will only replace with duplicate items...Probably donate it to my wife's machine, and continue hunting.
It seams they either let the block pop off, come unsoldered off the board, or allow rocking that chips your core.

What a drag that saving 5 cents in production can lead to such misfortune.

Click to expand...

yeah - cooling the n.bridge is a must if you are gonna kick the voltage up a notch (well, six notches would be more accurate). Anyway, thin shims made out of nonconductive material might be able to solve this problem - at least they could keep the n.bridge block stable enough (in side to side and/or top to bottom movement if necessary) to mount teh block to the damn board.

down with the hook!!!

I have used additional n.bridge cooling on my systems for eons - the latest has a custom H2O block + 80w pelt that keeps it subzero - my FSB OC went up when I added the "excessive" cooling. I do not recall additional cooling on the n.bridge ever having a negative performance hit.

I was water cooling mine but crunched the NB on a re-mount.
I decided to leave that out of the loop and have the same OC with a 40mm fan attatched to the stock HS.
The DD Z-Chip is still in my drawer to this day.

Just wanted to add my 2 cents here. I've recently moved to watercooling my NB, and just as quickly moved away from it after chipping the core. I was using the Swiftech NB waterblock, and let me just say, I have no idea what these design people are thinking about when they came up with the two hook system, for a board that has the four mounting loops. I have since moved back to air cooling my NB while staying with a Swiftech product called the MCX159. I love it, it comes with the standard four hook retention mech that is directly compatable with the board. The only problem I noticed(and only noticed because I'm anal about stuff like this) was that one of the hangars that clips to the board was slightly pushing up against a capacitor on the left side of my asus p4p800/p4c800-e dlx board(s). I remedied this easily by bending out one arm and bending in the opposing arm on the opposite side of the block. Giving ample clearance for the capacitor and arm now. And let me just say that my NB stays just as cool as when I had it inline in my watercooling setup.

I once had a Swifty MCW20 on my NB till it ripped out both hooks (one right after another). An MCX159 sits there now, same O/C, and without the headache.

sbud said:

I once had a Swifty MCW20 on my NB till it ripped out both hooks (one right after another). An MCX159 sits there now, same O/C, less headache.

Click to expand...

Heh, the exact same thing happend to another board of mine. It was a board I got right after the incident with the first one(the core being broken) I hadn't given up on the Swifty MCW20 just yet, since I had the notion that it might have been an error on my part. Well about a week later, after I had reinstalled the swifty waterblock on my NB on my Brand New P4P800 Deluxe board, I noticed my MB temps rising drastically. I looked inside the case and low and behold my poor little block was hanging precariously by the hose it was connected into the loop with. That was confirmation enough for me to finally move away from the dream that is WC NB. I've since taken the MCW20 apart, in hopes that I can find something useful for that ginormous piece of copper that they call a baseplate. Too bad POGS went out of style in the 90's

the only way the hooks will be changed is if the board manufacturers and Intel know how much everyone hates the bastages. send some " I hate the damn hooks" email to your favorite board maker today.

Never had a problem with mine.. with Swiftech and Aqua-Computer blocks.

The NF3 250 chipset gets VERY hot, and I think it will help having it watercooled. Which is why I did mine.

my NB gets quite hot when im overclocking over 4 ghz and running it hard

Good thing my Socket A mobo has the holes.
*breathes sigh of relief*

EwoutvB: that looks like a good setup, i might run down to the hardware store and buy some of those hooks, and see how they work.

Also, bumping up the voltage on the northbridge, or just running a very high FSB could definitely be helped by watercooling. Just be careful you don't crack the core ^_^

Can you guys post some pic of your fubared NB? just curious how it looks like