Cooling Asus A8N Premium Northbridge

adam3223 · 20 May 2006 at 17:36

I've noitced my system become unstable over the past few days, and i believe its due to the passively cooled northbridge on my mobo.

Its very hot when i touch it, but i have no way of measuring exactly how hot.

There isn't much airflow over the chip itself, and the heatpipe heatsink is near my sythe ninjas 120mm fan, but doesn't seem to be cooled well either.

I was wondering if the northbridge is designed to run v hot?
or any suggestions on how to cool it?

bbreezeuk · 20 May 2006 at 17:52

stick an 80mm fan at the bottom of your case facing the heatpipe, worked for me on my asus A8N32-Sli dropped temps by 10degs

adam3223 · 20 May 2006 at 17:54

At the bottom?
Do you mean at the back, just below the PSU?

ted34 · 20 May 2006 at 23:56

Get a zalman passive cooler and stick it directly on top of the asus cooler. I posted a guide in the official asus premium thread. Best is thermal glue but i secured it with zip ties and used as5. Dropped temps by 10 degrees.

adam3223 · 21 May 2006 at 00:10

The thing is, if the current heatpipe design isn't cooling effectively, will another passive solution solve it?

I did look at the Zalman, and it looked like its brackets could fit in the plastic 'screws' holding the asus cooler, isn't that possible?

Mikebert4 · 22 May 2006 at 11:15

The Zalman fits the Nb on all A8N boards... I've a friend that had one on his Delux, and transfered at across to his premium, and I had one one both the A8N basic and the SE. SO no worries there

That said, what do you intend to do with the mosfet end of the heatpipe assembly? I got a mosfet waterblock when I WC'ed the Premuim, but on air? You might get away without one, the A8N-SLi SE omits the Mosfet heatsink and that seems to do fine... But on the Delux and premium I believe it gets considerable toastier :S

just my two cents....

ajgoodfellow · 22 May 2006 at 14:50

What case are you using?

If you're using a case that inverts the motherboard then the heatpipe becomes useless causing the board to overheat. Replacing it with the Zalman solution will solve this problem

adam3223 · 22 May 2006 at 15:52

Im using a stacker, and i haven't switched to btx mode.

Regarding the mosfets, i intend to leave the original heatsink on, and just put the zalman ontop of the asus cooler ontop of the northbridge.

If you meant cooling the mosfets, surely the heatsink adjacent to them actually hinders that, by realsing more heat close to them?

At the moment i have taken a 40mm fan off a SCSI drive enclosure, and hung it over the northbridge using one of the spare ram clips as an anchor. This has got rid off all my BSOD so im sure the northbrdige is the cause of the problem. However this is a very noisey and dodgey solution so im still considering the Zalman.

V For Vendetta · 22 May 2006 at 20:54

adam3223 said:
Im using a stacker, and i haven't switched to btx mode.

Regarding the mosfets, i intend to leave the original heatsink on, and just put the zalman ontop of the asus cooler ontop of the northbridge.

If you meant cooling the mosfets, surely the heatsink adjacent to them actually hinders that, by realsing more heat close to them?

At the moment i have taken a 40mm fan off a SCSI drive enclosure, and hung it over the northbridge using one of the spare ram clips as an anchor. This has got rid off all my BSOD so im sure the northbrdige is the cause of the problem. However this is a very noisey and dodgey solution so im still considering the Zalman.

thermaltakes new northbridge cooler may be a goodin