P4P800 Deluxe - NB Temps?

[Thornbrand]

P4P800 Deluxe
P4 2.4c
512mb Corsair TwinX PC4000 (x2)

Just got my new system up and going and have been stress testing at stock speeds to make sure everything is sound before I start overclocking this beast.

I have a (slightly modified) DigiDoc monitoring the temps of the CPU, NB, GPU, PSU 1, PSU 2, Ambient Air, Case Temp, and Water Temp. I'm aware of the accuracy these probes provide, they are just for reference and are part of an emergency thermal shutdown system I have in place.

What's concerning me is the temperature the NB is running at under full load at stock speeds. I'm getting readings close to 70C under full load. It's the hottest chip in the system, with the CPU running around 32C and the GPU about 28-29C under load. At idle the NB is still running between 50-60C...about what I'd have expected the load temps to be.

The heatsink is the stock aluminum sink that has been lapped (on a Brown and Sharpe surface plate calibrated to +/-.00005"), and attached with a dab of Ceramique. The heatsink is making great contact and is doing it's job very well...it's HOT to the touch with the chip running that hot, so I'm certain the chip is indeed running very warm, and the heatsink is mated well to the chip.

Now, I knew the NB on this MB would run on the hot side...but that seems awefully warm to me. Pushing the FSB to 250Mhz increases the temperature slightly, though it seems to level off around 70-75C under full load.

I'll definately be increasing air flow over the heatsink anyway I can, but I'm wondering how hot other peoples northbridges are running on this particular board. Anyone else got a probe on one, or care to share how warm yours gets? I'm just really suprised to see NB temps this high and am curious to know if this is normal, or if I should be more concerned than I already am.

[Vflux]

You can try attach a 40mm fan if you have using a superglue...that's what i did with my p4c800-e while i was waiting for my swifty.....it helps a bit but it still get's hot during load....



peace,
vflux

[Thornbrand]

Yep...lack of airflow is indeend the culprit here. The case this system sits in is highly modified, and since I just got everything going, I had been testing it without the sidepanels. It seems my airflow design works well...but only if the sidepanels are on.

I just ran some stress tests again with the case sealed up, and the hottest the NB got was 58C this time, and runs in the mid to upper 40's idle. Much better than the 70+ I was seeing before. Still, I'm quite surprised to see that these chips run that hot.

It will be interesting to see how warm she gets when I start pushing the FSB. I may yet end up sticking a fan on it...as reluctant as I am to do that.

[Vflux]

You definetely need to slap on some fan ontop of your NB co'z it would caught up on you at the very least you would expect it...stability wise. Having the swifty NB cooler on my rig helped a lot with my stability, i was able to find out that the board just craps out at high overclocks due to the fact that it fluctuates so much while my cpu needed more vcore........


Peace,
Vflux

[ciku]

check sig below, sunon fam for nb's... works great :)

[sautegod]

I found that my north bridge was getting insanly hot so as a temp solution for now I set a 80mm fan on my video card pointing right at it.

It keeps the north bridge cool droped my cpu temp by 2 degress and cooled my video card enough that I was able to increase my overclock.

[ciku]

great :)

[xTrEmEoVrClOcKr]

Well, follow your touch, touch the heatsink, and if it feels HOT. Then its pretty close to 70C. But, if it feels like 100F or 90F, obviously, its B-Sing you. Sorry, didn't read all of your post, I have no idea why your NB is so hot???? It cant because of overclocking, can it?

[Thornbrand]

It's totally an airflow issue, which kinda bums me out. If I take the side panel off and prop an 80mm fan over the NB heatsink, the temps drop to between 35-40C (idle)...which is right where I'd like to see em'. With the case sealed up, my case temps are completely normal (few degrees above ambient) and the motherboard temp runs about 28-29C. Without a fan directly on the NB though, the NB temps rise to ~55C idle and up to ~70C under load.

I even tried adding two more case fans...which cools the case and MB slightly better, but does little for the NB. I'm going to need a fan directly on the NB.

I haven't even started OC'ing this rig...glad I caught this problem first. I think at stock speeds those kind of temps wouldn't cause any problems. It's stable as a rock now (8hrs Prime95), but I'm certain to have stability problems at higher FSB speeds with the NB running that hot.

Thanks for the replies guys. Sautegod...will probably do what you did to get by for now. At least I know what the problem is...now I just need to fix it.

By the way...anyone have any luck with an MCX159? Looks like a heavy little devil, considering picking one up.

[Myhre]

I've always experienced very hot NB's on my 800fsb systems, and at first I tried watercooling it with a swifty NB block, but I decided that it just adds to much thermal load to my overall water system so I decided on a swiftech air cooled NB block. All I can say is WOW, it works beatifully. My Swifty HSF is cool to the touch now, and that's saying a lot. I would recommend their NB block anyday. I really don't see the use in putting a waterblock on there because of the fact that it adds so much heat into a system. Remember you have to disperse the heat you collect when it runs through the radiator otherwise you might as well have stuck with high qual air cooling.

[Thornbrand]

This is my first 800Mhz FSB system, and I suspected the NB would run warm, but I'm still surprised by how warm. :-/

I actually had an MCW20 waterblock on the northbridge before I powered up this system for the first time. Unfortunately, the weight of the block and the strain from the hoses (1/2" system) was too much, and it pulled the hook loops out of the board. I ended up resoldering the hooks, lapping the factory sink, and slapping it back on. Had I known how hot this NB would run, I don't think I'd even have attempted to water cool it, just for the reasons you stated.

Thanks for your take on the Swifty NB cooler, Myhre...I'll strongly consider that as an option. Couple questions though...how loud is it? And does it mount securly enough for ya? Those damn hook clips...let's just say I don't have much faith in them anymore, heh.

[Myhre]

I actually had an MCW20 waterblock on the northbridge before I powered up this system for the first time. Unfortunately, the weight of the block and the strain from the hoses (1/2" system) was too much, and it pulled the hook loops out of the board. I ended up resoldering the hooks, lapping the factory sink, and slapping it back on. Had I known how hot this NB would run, I don't think I'd even have attempted to water cool it, just for the reasons you stated.

Thanks for your take on the Swifty NB cooler, Myhre...I'll strongly consider that as an option. Couple questions though...how loud is it? And does it mount securly enough for ya? Those damn hook clips...let's just say I don't have much faith in them anymore, heh.

Well I have actually heard about that problem with quite a few NB waterblocks. I personally had a MCW20 block for my Asus P4P800 board, and I made the mistake of attaching the block before I attached the lines to it. And ended up cracking the chipset core. I then moved the block to my next Asus P4P800 Deluxe board, and one day noticed my NB temps had skyrocketed. I looked inside the case to find that it had ripped both hooks out and was just hanging in there by the lines. So after that I switched to the Swiftech MCX159 (http://www.swiftnets.com/products/mcx159.asp) I never had anymore problems. As to your question: No it's not loud at all, in fact it's completely silent to my ear. And it uses the same type of 4 HOOK retention as the stock NB Asus cooler, so it mounts up like a champ. There is only one problem that I have encountered with it and that is on the P4P800 series board. The problem is that one of the hook arms comes uncomfortably close to a capacitor on the left side of the chipset. This is easily remedied by bending out one of the arms and bending in the opposing arm on the other side of the block. I ran one like this for months before switching to a P4C800-E Deluxe board. And the P4C800-E Dlx board has no problems because all of the capacitors near the NB are too short to come in contact with the Heatsink mounting arms. I wish I had taken a picture of how I had it mounted on the P4P board, but it's really quite easy to do.

http://www.swiftnets.com/assets/images/products/MCX159/MCX159-P-300x395.jpg

[Thornbrand]

Great info Myhre, thanks man. Just looking at my board I think I see what you mean about the caps getting in the way. I'm sure I can make it work though...think I might order one this week.

[ciku]

i just used the old heatsink and placed a sunon fan on top (epoxied) and used as5.. works great for me...

[OBLIVIONLORD]

I put a NB-1 on there and it slides when you apply force. Its what I hate about stupid clips insted of screwing onto the board solution.

[JKeefe]

I have a 40mm fan running at 7V sperglued to my P4P800 NB. NB is slightly warm to the touch at 250FSB, 2xF@H 24/7 load.

[Polargoat]

Just remember that the diode for the nb/case temp is located near/above the ram i beleive so its not really reading the temps of the chip itself. Its really reading case temps. :)

[JKeefe]

It reads greatly exaggerated case temps, since that is a rather warm part of the motherboard, especially with overvolted RAM.

Remember, Thornbrand said he was using a Digidoc.