North Bridge Controller Cooling Solved It Finally (I think)...I hope~!

No_Style · May 19, 2003, 04:52 AM

My case temps were sky rocketed today. 40 C! It was @ 40 C after some benching and such. I wondered why. I thought it was my O/Cing, but it turns out it wasn't in a way. All this time I thought my internet going out on me was the CPU's fault, but the real culprit was the North Bridge Controller. I did some testing and to my delight as soon as my NBC was getting hot, my network connection gives out a bit. Since my case is closed, that NBC can get really hot, especially with my O/C. So, I took the spare Pentium fan I had and slapped some "Goop" in the center of the fan and smacked it on the Heatsink of the NBC. To my delight, my case temps...or I should say "North Bridge Controller" Temps are @ a fixed 32 C on full load. I played some RTCW and all appears well! I truly hope this will fix my woes with Internet and this high O/C! I can see why now Gigabyte and MSI boards have that fan on their NBC now. ASUS, if you're listening...DO WHAT THEY'RE DOING!

WyreTheWolf · May 19, 2003, 06:19 AM

Excellent news... I had a feeling that it was you NB .. but, I dont know a lot about the nForce2 mobos ... so, I kept my mouth shut. Glad that everything is sorted! Do you have anything cooling your mosfets? I have heard that this can really bring down your temps around the CPU socket. From what I gather it can help keep overclocks stable, and allow for a little more overclocking ... as the temperatures of the mosfets go up ... they have a tendency to cause voltage fluctuations. Just a thought.

No_Style · May 19, 2003, 07:13 AM

What are "mosfets? And unfortunately, that wasn't the complete solution to my problem. But I did solve my problem (I hope for real) The solution is embarrassingly simple as well.

DriveEuro · May 19, 2003, 09:02 AM

Mosfets are all those capacitors that are typically somewhere in the top left corner of your case.

Necrosis · May 19, 2003, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by DriveEuro
Mosfets are all those capacitors that are typically somewhere in the top left corner of your case.

Hmm..okay Drive ROFLFAO.....it's not a cap for sure! It's a type of transistor..sort of.

Looky here

Here is a picture of one.

WyreTheWolf · May 19, 2003, 09:40 AM

Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) Field Effect Transistor (FET)

No_Style · May 19, 2003, 12:08 PM

Interesting. How do you cool those? I'm guessing just blowing air on em?

merry · May 19, 2003, 02:53 PM

A radical solution:

http://www.hothardware.com/reviews/i...y/fetsinks.htm

The MOS-FETs aren't visible, they are beneath the Aluminium sinks added by the modder. You can see the P4 socket to the right and the LPT/COM connectors to the left.

But case cooling could be enough.

DriveEuro · May 19, 2003, 05:09 PM

HEHE, i'm dumb.

dipstick · May 19, 2003, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by WyreTheWolf
Excellent news... I had a feeling that it was you NB .. but, I dont know a lot about the nForce2 mobos ... so, I kept my mouth shut. Glad that everything is sorted! Do you have anything cooling your mosfets? I have heard that this can really bring down your temps around the CPU socket. From what I gather it can help keep overclocks stable, and allow for a little more overclocking ... as the temperatures of the mosfets go up ... they have a tendency to cause voltage fluctuations. Just a thought.

Listen to this one guys. Those suckers are the hottest pieces on the motherboard. If you have an NF2 mobo I definitely recommend you slap some cheap ramsinks on there and maybe even a tiny fan. Also don't overlook the southbridge like most; makes a huge difference

DriveEuro · May 19, 2003, 05:34 PM

Or buy the Zalman Passive North Bridge Heatsink.

Vampyromaniac · May 19, 2003, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kakarot
If you have an NF2 mobo I definitely recommend you slap some cheap ramsinks on there and maybe even a tiny fan. Also don't overlook the southbridge like most; makes a huge difference

Heh, will the ol' penny-sinks work?

Seriously though, is there any need to cool the mosfets? I would think, they're just made to be hot, and don't really mind

dipstick · May 19, 2003, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vampyromaniac
Heh, will the ol' penny-sinks work?
Seriously though, is there any need to cool the mosfets? I would think, they're just made to be hot, and don't really mind

hehe, not sure on the penny-sinks, you should talk to digi. I think he made one some time ago, not sure though.
But if you're not OC'ing I wouldn't worry about it. Now if you decide to juice your cpu and/or do something like a vdd mod, then it's pretty much a necessity.

merry · May 20, 2003, 06:42 AM

They are part of a switching power supply that feeds "vcore" to the CPU. The higher the vcore, the higher the curret consumption of the CPU and thus the power dissipation of the MOSFETs.

A ramsink on top would cool them a bit (although their sink-area is mounted towards the pcb), I can't say how effective that might be (never tried it myself).

Talicni_Tom · May 20, 2003, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DriveEuro
Mosfets are all those capacitors that are typically somewhere in the top left corner of your case.

thx for the laugh

Quote:

VRM (Philips vs. Fairchild vs. Infineon)
Sourcing of components is a very important issue in any mainboard or other semiconductor / consumer electronics manufacturing process. Only in the rarest case will a design be accepted that is a single source, the risk of being either at the mercy of the manufacturer in question or else simply experiencing bottlenecks in the supply are simply too great.

It is not surprising, therefore, that with most standard components as e.g. capacitors or transistors, every manufacturer sticks to certain specifications that warrant exchangeability with other manufacturer's components. This can potentially be a disadvantage but in general, it works both ways, as long as the price is right.

A case in point is the choice of MOSFETs used on the NF7 VRM. Some boards use a combination of Fairchild FD022D and Philips PHB 55N03LTA, other boards substitute the PHB 96NQ03LT FETs for the Fairchilds and yet others use the Infineon 05N03LA "OptiMOS" switches instead of the Philips 96NQ03LT. Any combination between these listed upper and lower FETs is possible and there is no correlation between either combination and the board revision. Rumor has it that certain combinations, that is, specifically the PHB 55N03LTA and PHB 96NQ03LT causes unstable core voltage, we have not been able to see any of this.

http://www.lostcircuits.com/motherbo...f7-s12/3.shtml

mosfet`s channel is designed for certain wattage and ,no matter how good your cooling is, running out of the specs can degrade the channel and blow up mosfet

Kgentatszu] · May 22, 2003, 06:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by kakarot
Listen to this one guys. Those suckers are the hottest pieces on the motherboard. If you have an NF2 mobo I definitely recommend you slap some cheap ramsinks on there and maybe even a tiny fan. Also don't overlook the southbridge like most; makes a huge difference

when you're talking 'bout Oc ing the south brigde, is that the same as oCing the fsb??

shuki · May 22, 2003, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vampyromaniac
Seriously though, is there any need to cool the mosfets? I would think, they're just made to be hot, and don't really mind

only when doing some extreme OCing... I've had my nf7-s up to 230 with no mosfet cooling at all but I think this board just runs cooler than most

Have stock hsf on nb (as3) and a passive heat sink on south bridge.

dipstick · May 22, 2003, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Maxwell1234
when you're talking 'bout Oc ing the south brigde, is that the same as oCing the fsb??

Yep. If you going for some high fsb's it's a very good idea to cool the southbridge also. Especially on nForce2 boards, she gets hot hot hot

Kgentatszu] · May 22, 2003, 02:45 PM

if northbridge is the black heatsink in the middle of my mobo, then where's the south bridge??

No_Style · May 22, 2003, 04:13 PM

It's that chip that says SIS on it. You can't miss it. It's south of the NorthBridge

No_Style · May 22, 2003, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kakarot
Yep. If you going for some high fsb's it's a very good idea to cool the southbridge also. Especially on nForce2 boards, she gets hot hot hot

My SouthBridge isn't as hot. I wonder why...

Maybe it's just NForce 2 SBs?

Kgentatszu] · May 22, 2003, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by No_Style
It's that chip that says SIS on it. You can't miss it. It's south of the NorthBridge

oh~yea, just found the south one, thankz for the info......

satech2001 · May 22, 2003, 04:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by No_Style
Interesting. How do you cool those? I'm guessing just blowing air on em?

Actually blowing air at them isnt gonna do the trick unless your using atleast a 60x60 blowing a hell of alot of air at them with the drawback of NOISE.

So what i did with my EPOX 8RDA+ that has one stack (6) mosfets lined up next the the CPU socket but also next to a line of capacitors leaving little room was this:

I recently purchased a ram cooling set from thermaltake that had the classic ramsinks but also had a pair of the heatsinks meant for vidcard ram (about 3 inches long by 1 inch wide and 1 tall) but that width was a problem to fit between the capasitors etc so what i did was to shave it down about 1/4 inch then polished to perfection and used some thermal adhesive compound and glued it on to the row of mosfets.

Now on the NB i bought a Zulman chipset heatsink ,took off the shitty one provided by epox and with some AS3 applied it to the NB but not using spring-clips...i bolted the sucker to the mobo. and also added a 40x40 5000rpm ys-tech fan...now according to sandra im at 30c system and thats at 210 fsb .

Also note that there is another thing to check and thats that the southbridge also gets hot so you need a passive cooler ther at least.
One more thing is the mosfet thats next to the vdd regulator that will burn out if you do a vdd mod.

THermal images of a 8rda+

"A Cool sytem is a happy system"...hehe

Btw the above stuff voids your warranty....but who gives a...f...

satech2001 · May 22, 2003, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Maxwell1234
when you're talking 'bout Oc ing the south brigde, is that the same as oCing the fsb??

Are you kidding??

I hope not because what my friend kakarot is say is that if your overclocking (that meaning FSB ect.) then your southbridge ALSO gets hot .

Look at the thermal photo link on my previous post to see that the core of the SB can get VERY hot (60C +).
One guy actually burnt his finger on it when he checked to see if it gets hot......no joke.

May 19, 2003, 04:52 AM	#1
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	North Bridge Controller Cooling Solved It Finally (I think)...I hope~! My case temps were sky rocketed today. 40 C! It was @ 40 C after some benching and such. I wondered why. I thought it was my O/Cing, but it turns out it wasn't in a way. All this time I thought my internet going out on me was the CPU's fault, but the real culprit was the North Bridge Controller. I did some testing and to my delight as soon as my NBC was getting hot, my network connection gives out a bit. Since my case is closed, that NBC can get really hot, especially with my O/C. So, I took the spare Pentium fan I had and slapped some "Goop" in the center of the fan and smacked it on the Heatsink of the NBC. To my delight, my case temps...or I should say "North Bridge Controller" Temps are @ a fixed 32 C on full load. I played some RTCW and all appears well! I truly hope this will fix my woes with Internet and this high O/C! I can see why now Gigabyte and MSI boards have that fan on their NBC now. ASUS, if you're listening...DO WHAT THEY'RE DOING! __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

May 19, 2003, 07:13 AM	Thread Starter #3
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	ASUS P4PE actually What are "mosfets? And unfortunately, that wasn't the complete solution to my problem. But I did solve my problem (I hope for real) The solution is embarrassingly simple as well. __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

May 19, 2003, 09:02 AM	#4
DriveEuro HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Gurnee Illinois Posts: 4,677 Rep Power: 0	Mosfets are all those capacitors that are typically somewhere in the top left corner of your case. __________________ [color=orange]ASUS P4P800 Deluxe [color=black]-[/color] 2.4C --> 3300mhz [color=black]-[/color] Mushkin PC3200 at 220 5-2-2-2 (cpu limited) [color=black]-[/color] BBAti 9800Pro at 430/375 [/color] [color=black]3[/color][color=gray]D[/color]M[color=black]a[/color][color=gray]r[/color]k[color=yellow]01[/color] [color=black]3[/color][color=gray]D[/color]M[color=black]a[/color][color=gray]r[/color]k[color=yellow]03[/color] 16001200 12801024

May 19, 2003, 12:08 PM	Thread Starter #7
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	Hmm... Interesting. How do you cool those? I'm guessing just blowing air on em? __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

May 19, 2003, 02:53 PM	#8
merry gargouille Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Posts: 962 Rep Power: 0	A radical solution: http://www.hothardware.com/reviews/i...y/fetsinks.htm The MOS-FETs aren't visible, they are beneath the Aluminium sinks added by the modder. You can see the P4 socket to the right and the LPT/COM connectors to the left. But case cooling could be enough. __________________ There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn't. ~~Leonard Cohen

May 19, 2003, 06:19 AM	#2
WyreTheWolf Wolfish Bastard Join Date: May 2002 Location: Cave; Ozark Mountains Posts: 2,110 Rep Power: 0	Excellent news... I had a feeling that it was you NB .. but, I dont know a lot about the nForce2 mobos ... so, I kept my mouth shut. Glad that everything is sorted! Do you have anything cooling your mosfets? I have heard that this can really bring down your temps around the CPU socket. From what I gather it can help keep overclocks stable, and allow for a little more overclocking ... as the temperatures of the mosfets go up ... they have a tendency to cause voltage fluctuations. Just a thought.

May 19, 2003, 09:40 AM	#6
WyreTheWolf Wolfish Bastard Join Date: May 2002 Location: Cave; Ozark Mountains Posts: 2,110 Rep Power: 0	Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) Field Effect Transistor (FET)

May 19, 2003, 05:09 PM	#9
DriveEuro HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Gurnee Illinois Posts: 4,677 Rep Power: 0	HEHE, i'm dumb. __________________ [color=orange]ASUS P4P800 Deluxe [color=black]-[/color] 2.4C --> 3300mhz [color=black]-[/color] Mushkin PC3200 at 220 5-2-2-2 (cpu limited) [color=black]-[/color] BBAti 9800Pro at 430/375 [/color] [color=black]3[/color][color=gray]D[/color]M[color=black]a[/color][color=gray]r[/color]k[color=yellow]01[/color] [color=black]3[/color][color=gray]D[/color]M[color=black]a[/color][color=gray]r[/color]k[color=yellow]03[/color] 16001200 12801024

May 19, 2003, 05:34 PM	#11
DriveEuro HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Gurnee Illinois Posts: 4,677 Rep Power: 0	Or buy the Zalman Passive North Bridge Heatsink. __________________ [color=orange]ASUS P4P800 Deluxe [color=black]-[/color] 2.4C --> 3300mhz [color=black]-[/color] Mushkin PC3200 at 220 5-2-2-2 (cpu limited) [color=black]-[/color] BBAti 9800Pro at 430/375 [/color] [color=black]3[/color][color=gray]D[/color]M[color=black]a[/color][color=gray]r[/color]k[color=yellow]01[/color] [color=black]3[/color][color=gray]D[/color]M[color=black]a[/color][color=gray]r[/color]k[color=yellow]03[/color] 16001200 12801024

May 20, 2003, 06:42 AM	#14
merry gargouille Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Posts: 962 Rep Power: 0	Right They are part of a switching power supply that feeds "vcore" to the CPU. The higher the vcore, the higher the curret consumption of the CPU and thus the power dissipation of the MOSFETs. A ramsink on top would cool them a bit (although their sink-area is mounted towards the pcb), I can't say how effective that might be (never tried it myself). __________________ There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn't. ~~Leonard Cohen

May 22, 2003, 02:45 PM	#19
Kgentatszu] DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 1,802 Rep Power: 0	if northbridge is the black heatsink in the middle of my mobo, then where's the south bridge??

May 22, 2003, 04:13 PM	Thread Starter #20
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	The chip that says SIS It's that chip that says SIS on it. You can't miss it. It's south of the NorthBridge __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here