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AsRock Dual SATA2 Northbridge temp is 67°C!!!!

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voodoomelon

Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2001
Location
Dundalk, Ireland
I read through most of the massive AsRock thread, found no mention of the astronomical Northbridge chip temperature.

I just measured the heatsink temp using a digital thermal probe, and sitting idle with a case temp of 25°C, the heatsink temperature is massive 67°C!:eek:

So the chip is at least 70°C minimum!

I'll tell you something, this chip is definitely going in the water loop, if i'd have known this months back I would never have left this for so long...

Anyone else get high temps on their Northbridge chip?

;)
 
That does seem quite hot. When I touch NB I can hold finger there but it is hot, on SB it's too hot after about ten seconds.

I think these chips are more like GPU chips, they can take the higher temps better than a CPU.
 
When these boards first came out, a review site guy (wizard) cooled the NB and he said it made no diff.

found it at techpower up

during our overclocking tests the Northbridge cooler reached temperatures of about 80°C, but without any effect on stability. We added a cooler to the heatsink and it did not increase the overclock, which means that the high temperature didn't lower the overclock in the first place.


"I read through most of the massive AsRock thread"

Your eyes must be burning.

edit............ http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASRock/939Dual-SATA2/3
 
voodoomelon said:
I read through most of the massive AsRock thread, found no mention of the astronomical Northbridge chip temperature.

I just measured the heatsink temp using a digital thermal probe, and sitting idle with a case temp of 25°C, the heatsink temperature is massive 67°C!:eek:

So the chip is at least 70°C minimum!

I'll tell you something, this chip is definitely going in the water loop, if i'd have known this months back I would never have left this for so long...

Anyone else get high temps on their Northbridge chip?

;)
This is strange. Is it possible that hot air from other area of the board may cause this? NB is cool to touch and does not require any remedy, just AS5. SB is the one requiring better heatsink.
what is your vldt and vdd voltage (if has done the vmod) check the vdd and vldt voltage w/ vmeter and see if your mobo is giving this chipset too much voltage. vldt is 1.18, and vdd is 2. volt without vmod, incase you need to know.
 
I had problems with temps too for a bit. Then I removed the stock heatsink and reseated it with fresh thermal. That did the job great on mine.
Maybe it will help for you.

Edit: for clarification, it wasn't the stock thermal that was bad. the heatsink was not seated well
 
I would reseat it, but that's obviously not the problem, because if it's red hot, then it's obviously doing it's job extremely well right?

And the case is nice and cool at 25°C.

I haven't done any volt mods at all yet, I may well measure the volts to see whats going down...

Where abouts do I measure the voltage going into the chipset?

:)
 
voodoomelon said:
I would reseat it, but that's obviously not the problem, because if it's red hot, then it's obviously doing it's job extremely well right?:)

Voodoo,

You are probably right. If it was me, I would have to make sure the HS is seated properly for my own peace of mind unless you are 100% sure. They don't always come from the factory correctly done. Trust but verify. If it is ok, then you know for sure the problem is somewhere else.

I don't have the proper tools to check my NB temp other than touching it with my finger. It's cool enough that I can leave my finger there forever. I don't know at what temperature the NB should operate. RT
 
yah my SB chip runs really hot. sum times to hot to touch, and my sys reboots >.<. NB just gets warm but not hot. i have AS5 on all my chips. been lookin for new heatsink to toss on that SB but its in a funny spot/size and apg card is right over top it. >.<... p.s sig out date it running faster then what it says.

Neo
 
Well, I took the whole board out, remounted my Northbridge water block on the Southbridge, because it wouldn't fit on the Northbridge chip, too many components around it.
And even then, i had to cut off some of the plastic on the block to help it fit on the Southbridge.

As for the Northbridge, I took off the crappy AsRock heatsink and put a Zalman passive heatsink on it, it just about fits and seems to be running cooler now, as i can actually touch it!

water12345.jpg

And seeing as the board was out of the case, I did the Vcore mod and the VDimm mod too, so i'm off to overclock! :D

Thanks for the input folks!

:)
 
voodoomelon said:
Anyone else get high temps on their Northbridge chip?

;)
Yes the chip on my i955X gets *extremely* hot (over 70C for sure). If I do not have a fan directally cooling the chip's heatsink it becomes too hot to hold my finger on without it physically burning me.

I have since remidied this issue by strapping a 60mm fan directally to the NB heatsink. ;)
 
voodoomelon said:
Good idea.
But that would break my blistful silence of one 120mm fan at only 600rpm.
:D

Voodoo,

You won't hear these quiet fans running at 1500 rpm. I have two of them (120 mm & 80 mm) now for general cooling connected to 12v connectors and I have to look to make sure they are on.

One of their little 60 or 40 mm might serve your purpose nicely if you need it.

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std/category=Quiet_Case_Fans.html
 
Last edited:
Thanks. :)
But the Northbridge seems grand now.

The water pump is the noisiest thing in my case, then the hard drives, then the 120mm fan.
But all of it is still less that 20db, so I'm well happy. :D
 
I've noticed the NB and SB are too hot to touch, but have been stable for months. This board can really take some abuse. I've treated it like a wife beater slapping on different heatsinks and jamming screw drivers into it accidently, many times.
 
I've melted a few of the brown caps by the inductors, then I bent them out of the way. While trying to get an XP90 off, I plowed a ditch with the screwdriver into some of the traces. Left loose solder blobs around then powered it up. Lost a jumper and used a nickel for a while. Burnt the board near the OCW volt/ratio mod. Used some heavy gauge copper wire on the VDIMM mod, then ripped it off the mosfet pad with pliers.
 
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