Does cooling NorthBridge affect CPU temp?

[Slaught]

Ok, Ive just added a crystal orb to my northbridge (with a little modification, was a tight fit on Epox 8k5a3) and now my temps seem to have dropped by like 10 degrees C.

The north bridge was incredibly hot before, it would have burnt your finger if u touched it, now it seems just slightly warm to the touch.

Before I put the crystal orb on my temps were running at 49 whilst under load (folding for team 32!) but now they are sitting at a much nicer 39. This is an xp 1600+ running at 1836mhz.

Should cooling the NorthBridge affect CPU temp like that, has anyone else had similar results?
Im sure I havent changed anything else, other than putting heatsinks on my ram, this just seems way odd to me.

Not that im complaining, im off to see how much further i can push my CPU

 

[mjones73]

Cooling the Northbridge shouldn't cool the CPU by 10 degrees, it really shouldn't impact the temp of the CPU much at all. You sure you don't have your motherboard and CPU temps backwards?

 

[Slaught]

Im certain. This is very odd.

 

[steveyboy]

This doesnt make any sense!!!!! You must of made a mistake somewhere.

 

[The Spyder]

No..... he is probaly VERY correct! The "crappy" tape they use~ sucks at transfering heat~ if he had just replaced the tape his temps would have droped 5c+

 

[mjones73]

No..... he is probaly VERY correct! The "crappy" tape they use~ sucks at transfering heat~ if he had just replaced the tape his temps would have droped 5c+

He never took the CPU HSF off per his post, he claims the CPU temps dropped 10c by only adding a cooler to his northbridge.

 

[drunkmonkey]

weird
that shouldn't affect cpu temps @ all, maybe you've stumbled upon a great new cooling technique, now where di I put that extra 92 mm and fan adapter, time for extreme northbridge cooling, lol.

 

[Slaught]

Well it is odd for sure. I didnt think cooling the NB would lower my cpu temp, that makes no sense at all.
I was just cooling it hoping for a few extra mhz on the FSB, but I think my gfx card doesnt like the high agp

I did take the system apart so I could get at the back of the main board, but i did not remove the water block (maze3) from the cpu. The water temps are also the same, so it doesnt have anything to do with the w/c system.

Im sure i havent mistaken anything, very odd things pcs...

 

[The Spyder]

dude!!! Your watercooling? THat explaines it~~~~ I mean even "touching the maze3" will shift the springs~!!! I bet just touching the tubin did it!!! I had the same thing happen

 

[Slaught]

Ah, I guess that would explain it. Still odd though.
Thought I had the springs pretty equally done up, but its not easy to tell. did the same no. of turns on each etc.

 

[fender123]

Slaught, i see they still have that damed capacitor blocking the way for the cristal orb.....

How did you modify the orb to make it fit, and were you able to tighten it down using the socket holes or did you have to epoxy it to the chipset ?

 

[mjones73]

Ahh, watercooling, that makes a lil more sense, I'll have to agree with Spyder on his comments about the Maze 3 shifting.

 

[RoadWarrior]

Now, if there were a hsf on your CPU, a lot of the air spilling out of it would have been helping to take heat out of the regulators the northbridge and other sources that dump into the board's backplane. So adding a NB fan when you've got all that happening already wouldn't affect much more than the NB. However, with a waterblock, you've got like no airflow cooling the components around the CPU, the only path for that heat was up the CPU pins, and out through the waterblock. Now with a NB fan you have way more airflow in that part of the board, removing all that heat before it gets to the CPU so I don't think it's all that unusual to see such an effect.

I'm surprised more people with waterblocks haven't seen blown regs and other such problems due to lack of airflow from an absent CPU hsf, when they haven't had any extra NB cooling either.

Secondary heatpaths can make a difference. I can drop 5C by aiming a fan at the back of my mobo.

regards,

Road Warrior

 

[mjones73]

I still don't think that would have dropped the CPU 10C, of course the diode is in the socket so it's effected by board temps on AMD boards. That's why you see a 5C drop in temps by blowing a fan on the back of your board, your most likely effecting the diode reading as opposed to dropping the CPU itself down 5C.

 

[RoadWarrior]

Yeah, but my diode isn't down on the board, it's sprung on a lead pressing the back of the CPU, and I gooped it with thermal paste, so it's more closely coupled to the CPU temp than the mobo temp. That fan used to be worth an extra 66Mhz overclock when I had the Volcano 6CU on, don't need the help now with the AX7. Well maybe I do, maybe I'd make 1800 instead of 1749, hmmmmm

Road Warrior

 

[Slaught]

@fender123:
I had to saw off a couple of the fins. Not the best solution, but it easily fits now. (well if u call 1 or 2 mm clearance "easily")
Just have to be careful the fan doesnt touch anything, although only removing 2 of the fins doesnt really leave the fan open, as its still protected by the bottom and top, theres just the small hole created by removing a couple of fins.


I think its a good theory about lack of airflow, hadnt thought of that. As it was I didnt have any case fans running either, hadnt got round to sorting them out. Got them running now though, and am a lot happier with my temps
Im running about 35 idle, and 40 at full load. Much nicer.

 

[fender123]

So this means you could use pushpins to attach it to the motherboard or did you have to glue it on ?


Thx for the reply.

 

[Slaught]

Oops, missed that sorry

The push pins don't quite fit across, so I used a pushpin on one edge, and a tiny amount of super glue in the other corner. It holds it well, but im not sure how well its mated. I put plenty of HTC on it, so it should at least be making contact, and as far as i can tell it make perfectly good contact.

This little sucker is LOUD though, loudest part of my system at the moment, so im gonna go mod it to 7v in a min...

 

[Nico3k]

good luck...

 

[Daemonfly]

Could experiment with the air flow theory easily by just taking side of case off and testing with fans. Could use one big fan, or hold a smaller fan and move it around to different areas to see if it affects temp any.

I can see how it *might* be possible for secondary heat sources/paths to be affecting it as there are a lot of other components right around the CPU that usually benefit from the airflow of a heatsink. With a waterblock, they don't get cooled and could increase ambient air temp around the CPU and also spread heat through the board/traces to the CPU. I'm not sure about a 10c difference though, but it's testable.

If you didn't glue it, I'd have suggested removing the Orb and see if you gain that 10c back. If you didn't, I'd point to waterblock shiftage to your advantage.