Chipset cooling?

should i have a fan on my A7N8x northbridge HS. case is well vented with one side fan above the vid card % chipset, MB temp 21c-25c?

The n-force 2 bridges run fairly warm. The passive cooling on the north bridge is fine if you are not overclocking. If you are in fact overclocking I would recommend eventually looking around for a small fan that would fit on top of the HS. Or replacing the HS with another with a fan. It isn't something that is gonna burn up and melt in a day, but should be addressed on a highly overclocked system. However, your temps sound very nice, so don't worry.

thxs neofate, i am cverclicking a 2000+ [email protected]. waiting for my 2100 aiuhb 0250 any day now, hope thats when the real fun begins. could anyone recomand hsf for nb. useing slk800 on cpu

Zalman NB32J Passive Chipset Cooler



It is a passive cooler, but good airflow within your case or even the air from your CPU HSF is enough for this Northbridge cooler. I'm thinking of getting one myself.

Hmm, im using water cooling and my northbridge is around 60 celsius. Im thinking that the block is not seated right. Im gonna check it out and if it doesnt seem to sit right, ill order a nice hsf for the chipset

I cut like 3mm off the length of my stock AMD sink and stuck in their. I cut 3mm off cause my CPU heatsink and some capasitors were in the way so i had to shrink it just a bit.

check this out!!!!!http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/minochcokit.html

in my opinion cooling the north bridge on that board won't do a whole lot. if it's one of the earlier revisions then it's not going to OC much above 180's FSB unless you start volt modding it. voltage is the limiting factor with these boards not heat so unless you're going to volt mod the northbridge i'd say you're fine where you are. yes the nforce2 NB's get hot specially in dual channel. but the heat doens't seem to affect them(nforce2 NB's in general) much until they start getting closer to 200FSB. my example will be the 8rda's. they start getting limited around upper 180's to 190's FSB. some people break 200 on them without changing the cooling. once the cooling on the chipset has been revamped they are usually good for a bit more Mhz. since the early versions of the A7N8X aren't tremendous overclockers considering the competition i wouldn't worry about cooling them in any special fashion unless of course you're volt modding something. then you should take every precaution necessary.

if you have a later revision (rev 2 i beleive) then you should expect to perform around the same levels as the Epox 8rda. the newer A7N8X boards have had a slightly better rep.

as far as water cooling the chipset. not needed really unless you're in an extreme situation like pushing 240's FSB with volt mods. NB's put out about half the heat(thermal) energy as CPU's so it doesn't take as much cooling to get a significant drop in temps. only other reason i could see to go this route would be to make the machine quiet. if this is a goal of yours and you don't have an extreme overclock going then it would be better to cut down an old CPU heat sink and use that passively (no fan). since a CPU heat sink would have a thicker base it would be better then the passive sink you have one there now.

i'm doing exactly that. i have a older coolermaster alum CPU cooler cut down to fit over the NB. the base is about 2mm thick. i run the VDD in the BIOS at 1.7 , full whack, and the NB sink isn't even warm to the touch. motherboard is an Abit NF7-S rev. 2. my OC is 215*10 and i'm in dual channel mode. what's more, this board came with active cooling (sink with a fan) on the NB and this passive sink is whomping the old one.

now on the other hand. heat sinks and funky plumbing look pretty cool so if you have the cash,tools and/or time then go for it. it sure won't hurt, less you spring a leak with a water cooling setup.

I have a Zalaman Chipset fan on my A7N8X Deluxe Rev. 2.0. You just gotta be careful when removing that heatsink, the factory put to much adhesive on it.