Recommended Northbridge cooling for P5AD2-E Premium ?

Hi,

I am just planning on a watercooling/peltier setup for my P5AD2-E Premium rig and was wondering wether it is necessary to add watercooling to the Chipset. If I was to do so I would be adding some extra heat into my the water circle that might be unessesary. I read some blimp about chipset cooling not really bringing any results - anyone with any insights on this?

thanks


mike

I would say that you do not need water cooling onn the NB. The P5AD2-E comes with native 1066FSB. I don't think there is any need for it because it's puts off so little heat compared to the processor. I think that a good NB HSF cooler will work. I actually just ordered the Microcool NorthPole cooler kit for my P5AD2-E Premium. It also comes with PLL sinks and some Mosfet sinks.

THIS is what I use works rather nicely.

I got the Thermalright NB-1C but have yet to put it on. Having the XP-120, I hanging over the Northbridge, I plan just to put on the copper heatsink as I do not think the fan will fit, plus the Delta fan I'm using for the XP-120 provides a ton of air which should be sufficient.

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/thnb1.html

Thanks all for your recommendations. I will also go the aircooled route then. Time to go and order!

BTW I currently also run a 120MM fan ( Zalmann) of the CPU - this thing nicely cools also the memory - backside of videocard and Northbridge. Too bad it'll have to go...

Cheers

Mike

I have been surprised at how hot the NB runs; 65 under load. This is with CPU at around 40. I would be keen to see temps other folks are getting.

I got the Swiftech NB cooler - warnign it will not work in connjunction with a big 120mm CPU cooler like the Zalmann 7700 unless you bend some of the cpu fan fins


Mike

How are you able to tell the temp of the northbridge? I just stuck a fan on my NB using zip ties, but I have no idea what th ettemp is.

I have one other q, not to hijack, but for those of you who are overclocking, do you have a situation where upon restarting, the power cycles off before coming back on?

I'm looking for one of these too. Anyone have an xp-120 that an tell me what northbridge sink will fit? And is your "ai proactive" heatsink extremely hot?

deam said:

I have one other q, not to hijack, but for those of you who are overclocking, do you have a situation where upon restarting, the power cycles off before coming back on?

Click to expand...

Happens to me when I go over about 1.4v and 4.050ghz.

Update, Since I upgraded to the 120mm BlackIce Extreme radiator, from my 80mm rad, this does not occur anymore, temps are about 12c lower so I'm thinking it has to do with temps.... still testing.

My Antec P160 case has a couple temp. sensors that you can stick anywhere. I put one on the outside HS fin of both the NB and SB. The SB stays at 55 all the time. The NB has gotten up to 75 during some OC sessions but generally runs at 66 under load.

Ranger,
I can't believe it's a temp thing for me because I am only at a 1.45 volts and am water cooling. Did anything else change?

I have a swiftech 6002, BI-Extreme 120 and Ehemi 1250, basically, the same setup as you, or similar.

Any updates?

If you guys think your NB is hot, try mine at 300 bus speeds!!! (1200mhz FSB @ 4.2Ghz)

My case temps exceed my CPU idle temps at times! LOL At least what Motherboard Monitor shows me: CPU 32-34 idle, Case 32-36 range most of the time. (and yes, I have decent ventilation, see sig for pics).

Yeah, I need to water-cool the NB asap. It's not really to keep it cool, but to cut down the case temps. I think that's the major reason these days of cooling the NB, to lower case ambient temps.

I only have 3 components contributing to heat in the case now:
- NB chip @ 300mhz
- nVidia 6800 GTO @ 110mhz
- Two DDR-II sticks @ 800mhz (seriously hot)

I'm going to W/C the GTO and NB chip to try to cut down my case temps when I clean out/service my system due to the algee crap I got. Thanks for the links guys!

Fyi, I was going to use a Danger Den's NB waterblock to keep things 1/2" for my loop.

deam said:

I have one other q, not to hijack, but for those of you who are overclocking, do you have a situation where upon restarting, the power cycles off before coming back on?

Click to expand...

*HI-JACKING ALERT*

Yes, it is related to unlocking the SATA controller chips (whatever that is called) clock from the cpu bus. It's in an article somewhere I found online. Once you overclock to a certain bus speed, the chip for the SATA fails because you are multipling the percentage of speed increase times the stock speed of it. So once you overclock, say 25% or more, the system would detect a boot failure of the SATA controller, shut the machine off, auto-unlock it from the bus (throttling it down to another rate), and attempt to boot again. I can't remember the details, that was like 6 months ago.

I think the magic number on my system was 251mhz bus speed or higher.

That is where the Asus board shined over the similar Abit board to get over ~265mhz cpu bus speed. The Abit board would lockup because it would not unlock the SATA controller, therefore causing a failed book attempt if you using a SATA HDD. That's where with the Abit, they recommend using an IDE HDD in order to get higher cpu bus rates (and disable the SATA).

I refuse to use IDE (even running a 12x DVDRW SATA drive), so I haven't tried using IDE-only devices to see if that would correct the power-off sistuation. That may be a possible fix.

So you are saying that when I restart my machine, and it turns off instead of restarting, and then turns back on a second or so later and boots normally, it is Asus's method of keeping the SATA in check? Do note that it is very quick. Even the reset button on the computer does this, and it is instant, press reset button, power off, one or two seconds, then power on and normal boot.

eduncan911 said:

*HI-JACKING ALERT*
I refuse to use IDE (even running a 12x DVDRW SATA drive), so I haven't tried using IDE-only devices to see if that would correct the power-off sistuation. That may be a possible fix.

Click to expand...

lol..... So do I, I'm running 2 SATA HD and a 16x SATA Plextor DVDRW, so looks like neither of us will be seeing if this is true.

Ranger, that means you are still having the issue, despite the 120mm BIX upgrade?

So you are saying that when I restart my machine, and it turns off instead of restarting, and then turns back on a second or so later and boots normally, it is Asus's method of keeping the SATA in check? Do note that it is very quick. Even the reset button on the computer does this, and it is instant, press reset button, power off, one or two seconds, then power on and normal boot.

Click to expand...

Yes. This is normal operation.

deam said:

Ranger, that means you are still having the issue, despite the 120mm BIX upgrade?

Click to expand...

You are correct, I think it's around 240FSB.

For mine, it is 245. At 244, boots okay, 245, power cycles...well, at least I know my board specifically isn't defective.