Cooling a northbridge - currently 81C
Discussion
I've got a PC set-up running as a server for Plex in my home. It works flawlessly but I've always been concerned with the northbridge temperature.
Everything is cooled well and the CPU never goes above 40C but the northbridge settles at 80-81C and hits 84C when under load.
The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-SH2 which is known to get hot but this is insane. The heatsink is the stock one that came fitted to the board. Any ideas on how to cool it more effectively using a passive heatsink or is it worth removing and applying fresh thermal grease to the existing heatsink and chip?
Everything is cooled well and the CPU never goes above 40C but the northbridge settles at 80-81C and hits 84C when under load.
The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-SH2 which is known to get hot but this is insane. The heatsink is the stock one that came fitted to the board. Any ideas on how to cool it more effectively using a passive heatsink or is it worth removing and applying fresh thermal grease to the existing heatsink and chip?
Interesting. I think i'll have a bash with a thermal compound. I can't hurt.
The board is revision 1.1. I've known about the problem years (bought the board back in 2008), when it was first released. Originally I had revision 1.0 which burnt out and I had it replaced with rev 1.1. I used to remember temperatures around 65C however checking it for the first time showed 80+C which is a bit nuts.
Cheers!
The board is revision 1.1. I've known about the problem years (bought the board back in 2008), when it was first released. Originally I had revision 1.0 which burnt out and I had it replaced with rev 1.1. I used to remember temperatures around 65C however checking it for the first time showed 80+C which is a bit nuts.
Cheers!
A colleague of mine has suggested instead of playing around with the heatsink and potentially damaging the northbridge, I should be able to reduce the temperature by adding an external GPU and therefore disabling the GPU on the northbridge meaning it'll just work as a northbridge and not a complete GPU.
Can anyone confirm if this will work?
Can anyone confirm if this will work?
wolves_wanderer said:
ZesPak said:
No options to improve airflow over the northbridge?
Would seem the easiest option. If you have a spare fan header then you should be able to bodge a quiet fan pointing over the northbridge.
If not, it's about £28 for a passive AMD HD6450 GPU with AVD 3.0 which allows for much faster decoding than my AVD 2.0 spec. I just want to know if it'll work before spending any money on it at all.
(Just upgraded the CPU and memory to handle the higher definition movies on Plex and it runs perfectly. I just need to resolve this heat issue).
Fan it is then....maybe! I've decided to replace the system with a Mac Mini in time. Quieter, uses less energy and can be tucked away out of sight.
All my other gear in the house is Apple so it pretty much makes sense.
Hard drive wise I can just use USB drives for storage. Cheap, cheerful and interchangeable very easily.
I'll see how I get on but I think it's time to sell this beast on.
All my other gear in the house is Apple so it pretty much makes sense.
Hard drive wise I can just use USB drives for storage. Cheap, cheerful and interchangeable very easily.
I'll see how I get on but I think it's time to sell this beast on.
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