[enz660]

Note: I am not held responsible for any damage you cause to your computer from using this guide. What you do to your computer is up to you. This would obviously viod any warranty you have on the motherboard.


Tools & Materials Needed:

- Small Pliers
- Sharp blade (something small such as a utility knife blade or exacto knife)
- Qtips
- Rubbing Alcohol
- Your favorite thermal paste

1. Flip the motherboard over and use the small pliers to squeeze the plastic pins closed while pressing them into the motherboard until they pop back into their holes. Be careful not to over squeeze or you might damage the pins.

2. Start with the lower heatsink. This will be a bit difficult to remove since the stock thermal paste is very dry. Use some soft levar and support it using your finger. Put the other end under the heatsink and slowly push it up a little under all four sides until it pops off. Be careful not to support the lever on any parts of the motherboard.

3. Now the upper NB heatsink should be much easier to remove. Simply unlatch both sides and rotate it a little and it should be easy to pull off.




As you can see, asus has loaded on the thermal paste and trust me, it is VERY dry. Now comes the "fun" part....

4. Use the small blade to scrape off some (not all) the dry thermal paste on the LOWER chip (the bigger black one). The top of this chip is plastic, so you can apply a very small amount of force to scrape the dry paste off. Once this is done, use a Qtip of paper towel moistened with rubbing alcohol to clean the rest off. Again, you can use some force with the blade, but dont start slicing through the chip. Get as much of it off as you can. This is what mine looked like:



5. This is probably the most difficult part since now you cannot use the blade. The thermal paste on the upper NB is as dry as the stuff you have just scraped off. You might want to grab something to drink becuase this took a while for me. Use the rubbing alcohol and a Qtip to rub all the thermal paste off. This is a bare chip so I would only use some soft object to clean it. What you can do is cut the Qtip in half and use the soft plastic of cardboard stem to GENTLY scrape some paste off.

[enz660]

6. Now for the heatsinks! Something I found out about these heatsinks when I nicked one a little and saw a silver shimmer. They are Aluminum, NOT copper. I was so sad But anyways.... use the blade to scrape off most of the dry paste off from the smaller heatsink, then clean it off with rubbing alcohol and a paper towel after. **OPTIONAL** You can take off the asus logo cover to improve airflow through the heatsink.

7. Now for the larger heatpipe heatsink. Do not remove the thermal pads on it, simply clean them off a little and cut a small piece from a plastic bag and cover it up. This will keep them nice and clean until you are finished . Ok, so thats clean, now for the other one. There will be a soft, thin protective layer on the heatsink that prevents it from wobbling that could cause possible damage to the chip. Personally...I removed it, but you can fabricate your own from tape or velcro tape if you really want it back. Clean this heatsink off just as you did the smaller one, scrape the dry paste off and clean it using rubbing alcohol and some paper towel. Again...you can remove the logo plate if you want better airflow OR want to mount a small 40mm fan on top.

I scraped a little to hard and thats when I found out the heatsinks were not copper but copper plated. Since I scratched it too much, I had to lap it .



As you can see...I didnt do a very good lap job, but it was nice and shiny where the chip would be so w/ e.


After all this is done, just put some thermal paste on both chips and remount the heatsinks! I used Zalman STG-1 Super Thermal Grease for mine.





My temps dropped about 5-8c from this mod. Hope your results are as good as mine.

[nd4spdbh2]

nice... i have been meaning to take off the SB hs and pop some AS5 on there.... you know what REALLY helps the NB to stay cool... is a small 40mm fan sittin on top of it... heck i have one sitting at 5 volts on top of my P5W DH nb hs... it pushes barley n e air, but with out it temps rise 35*F to 135*F! (this is with AS5 on the hs and a temp prob on the underside of the hs closest to the nb core)

[jimmsch]

is it necessary to completely remove the heatsinks if I just want to get rid of that stupid cover? It seems to me if I just lose the cover and don't bother with the new paste I might get beter temps just like that.

[Femto]

Excellent guide! I vote sticky!

Thanks for this, I mean, I don't have this motherboard...and I probably won't ever get it...but, come on, you get it!

Good job!

[enz660]

Originally Posted by jimmsch

is it necessary to completely remove the heatsinks if I just want to get rid of that stupid cover? It seems to me if I just lose the cover and don't bother with the new paste I might get beter temps just like that.

you could possibly do that, especially with the South Bridge heatsink. But the NB cover is a little harder to get off, and you might move the heatsink off the chip by mistake. If this happens, you MUST change the thermal paste since the stock one is very dry.

[Sleepy_Steve]

I think i will preform this mod when i get mine in on wednesday... But after i get an initial temp reading.

I'll do the first tests on air, but i want to see what i can get with a 40mm fan on the NB and the included blower on the other half of the cooler. -- Hopefully doing this will work well with the WC setup im building.

[jimmsch]

Asus packages the NB cooler fan with a warning strictly stating that it is NOT to be used with air cooling. It is for use with passive or H2O cooling only. They claim it will interfere with the fan cooling the CPU causing irreperable system damage.

[Moto7451]

Possibly it'll harm the CPU's airflow but I doubt it, especially with a TR design cooler. If anything it'll blow a little more through the base of the fins. "Irreparably system damage" sounds silly. They may as well have written "Beware the Northbridge fan of doom!"

So have at it I say .

[nd4spdbh2]

Originally Posted by Moto7451

Possibly it'll harm the CPU's airflow but I doubt it, especially with a TR design cooler. If anything it'll blow a little more through the base of the fins. "Irreparably system damage" sounds silly. They may as well have written "Beware the Northbridge fan of doom!"

So have at it I say .

problem is the stock nb optional fan clips onto the heatsink up by the ps2 ports... the heatpipe hs over the vregs.... and the heatpipe on thoes boards dont work well at all... so may was well just ad a 40mm fan to the stock nb hs.

[jimmsch]

Originally Posted by enz660

My temps dropped about 5-8c from this mod. Hope your results are as good as mine.

Are you talking about your core temps as monitored by TAT or core temp? Or do you mean the NB temps themselves? Curious coz I don't know how to check the NB temps.

[Sleepy_Steve]

I belive it was not a software bassed probe... and that he was using a probe placed beneath the HS right next to the exposed core of the NB.

I would think there was some sort of temp monitor in the bios... And probably another utility to see mobo temps on the driver disk -- But those software probes varry a lot, and its generaly agreed only usefull for comparing +/- deductions of any cooling mods. Because the base temps are often way off of what they really are and the rate at which a real change affects the given reading is also just as inconsistent from board to board, and manufacturer to manufacturer.

[enz660]

Originally Posted by jimmsch

Are you talking about your core temps as monitored by TAT or core temp? Or do you mean the NB temps themselves? Curious coz I don't know how to check the NB temps.

yeah dang...i found out i was looking at the SB temps after I posted this mod... stupid asus board doesnt have a probe for NB.

[Sleepy_Steve]

Hmm, thats good to know i think... Man i wish i had a better temp probe.

[nd4spdbh2]

Originally Posted by enz660

yeah dang...i found out i was looking at the SB temps after I posted this mod... stupid asus board doesnt have a probe for NB.

yup the MB temp is the SB temp... only way to test temps on the NB is to put a probe on it... and believe me a single 40mm fan will drop the temps on the nb a good 35*-40*f


ALSO i dont think you stated n e where that you put some covering over the resistors and capacitators that are present around the NB core... pop some electrical tape around the thing just to be safe because if you look at the stock padding on the bottom of the nb hs you will notice little indentations from them... and that padding stuff isnt thick at all.

[PhysX]

this thread is pretty much a rip off of this one check link

http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=19

check post dates...

[enz660]

Originally Posted by PhysX

this thread is pretty much a rip off of this one check link

http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=19

check post dates...

wow

[nd4spdbh2]

LOL ... well its a fact the cooling on the p5w isnt great from the factory... but a lil easy moddin and you have great coolign.

[tyler_bishop]

So whats this blower thingy that comes with the board?

****STICKY!!****

[Jod]

I did this too and the damn thing still got way too hot. Jing Ting solved my issue and fit under a Tuniq to boot!

[nd4spdbh2]

Originally Posted by Jod

I did this too and the damn thing still got way too hot. Jing Ting solved my issue and fit under a Tuniq to boot!

did you ad a 40mm fan to the stock stuff?

[xTrEmEoVrClOcKr]

Nice little guide, I bought an MCX159 by Swiftech, with it's hefty pricetag, it does a hefty job of cooling (Pure copper).



Now that's what I call an aircooling setup

[Jod]

Originally Posted by nd4spdbh2

did you ad a 40mm fan to the stock stuff?

W/ 4 dabs of super glue. Still shot plasma balls @ me. Tho I did this on a DS3 and a P5B Deluxe. 975 runs hotter, no? Either way, w/ the Jing Ting on there, it gets warm...like the Tuniq. You wouldn't cool your CPU w/ the stock Intel cooler, would you?

[PhysX]

Originally Posted by xTrEmEoVrClOcKr

Nice little guide, I bought an MCX159 by Swiftech, with it's hefty pricetag, it does a hefty job of cooling (Pure copper).



Now that's what I call an aircooling setup

isnt copper a...copper color ? that lieks uncopper to me :P

[i686]

hi'
I'll receive my mobo in the next few days, I'll just change the south bridge hs by a zalman(you know, the tall blue one), and set a 40mm on the north one and it should be alright, with a bigTT over the E6600, it will coll all this nicely

don't you think that it could be enough?

i686

[Drew@PSU]

PhysX: It's definitely copper, I have one, their freaking awesome ( shame I can't use it )

And I think that should be plenty i686, that tall blue one is almost as big as the swiftech one

[enz660]

Originally Posted by i686

hi'
I'll receive my mobo in the next few days, I'll just change the south bridge hs by a zalman(you know, the tall blue one), and set a 40mm on the north one and it should be alright, with a bigTT over the E6600, it will coll all this nicely

don't you think that it could be enough?

i686

dont even bother changing the south bridge one..... plus, if you use that zalman, you will block pci & pcie slots. Other than that, it sounds good!

[i686]

hi'
I thought about the height of the thing ...
and then I thought that an old fan from a P200 should fit perfectly and cool enough, silent enough too

i686

[Goshawk]

Originally Posted by PhysX

isnt copper a...copper color ? that lieks uncopper to me :P

Nice setup!


Rock and Roll! :P



~ Gos

[Sleepy_Steve]

Forgot to mention... I did preform this mod when i went from the stock intel cooler to my ultra 120.

Modded the NB w/ AS5 and a 40mm fan. Clearance was VERY tight under the 120. Less than 5mm.
The south bridge was left stock, didnt really see the point.