Northbridge temperature too hot?

[kallekill]

I'm a little concerned about my Northbridge temperature on my Gigabyte P35-DS3. It hoovers around 60 C and when I ran a stress test it went up to 64 C. It isn't very hot in my room now either. My Tuniq Tower CPU fan is blowing air out of the case, but I think some of the hot air bounces off the inside of the case and hits the Northbridge chip.

I read somewere that the northbridge is able to withstand temperatures of well over 70 degrees, but I don't rememer where. I also read that you should be able to put your finger on the heatsink for more then ten minutes and I can do that without a problem. Should I be worried?

 

[JustaGeek]

I would add a fan, even if it was just an 80mm fan on top of the video card.

 

[kallekill]

I'm thinking of adding one of these or some other similar product above the video card.

Akasa System Air Extractor

http://www.dustin.se/dacsaport...aspx?prodid=5010072540

By the way, I just guessed that the temperature that speedfan reports at 64 C is the Northbridge temperature cause it isn't the CPU temperature and the other temperature must be the case temperature since it is much lower. It can't be anything else, right?

 

[JustaGeek]

I don't know if your MB has the NB temp sensor. Why don't you get an infrared thermometer like this one:

http://www.harborfreight.com/c...m.taf?Itemnumber=93984

They had one for $9.99, but it disappeared from their website.

I don't know about the slot fan (Extractor) - I used one a few years back, and not only it was real noisy, the temps in my case actually increased!

But maybe others have a better experience with those...

Try the simple 80mm fan first, and see if it makes a difference.

And... Perhaps SpeedFan is reporting some temperature wrong...? Check the actual temp of your NB heasink first before jumping into conclusions.

Good luck!

 

[Nickel020]

I have some good and some bad news for you
The good news is, that temp thats reading 60+° is not your northbridge temp, but the temp of the monitoring chip, which sits right below the video card and can quite hot if you have a high-end video card.
The bad news is that your northbridge temp is probably even higher! But that's kinda fine, since it's allowed to reach a temperature of 105°C. When overclocking, my NB temp reached 94+°C yet the system remained absolutely stable. But I still ordered a thermalright HR-05 IFX because I don'tlike high temps. It fits nicely beside a Scythe Infinity, but I'm not sure if it will fit netx to a Tuniq (the longer side was aligned vertically in my case).
The northbridge temp can only be seen in the BIOS, and they system must not be overcloked and Intel QST must be used as the fan control method in the PC Health menu. If you're overclocking and you want to see your NB temp, create a profile with your OC settings, and a stock profile with QST enabbled. Use Prime95 (or something similar) for a while, then reboot, enter the BIOS, load the stock profile, save & reboot then enter the PC health menu to see your NB temp (might be called MCH temp or something). This is how I got the 94° reading.

 

[ultra laser]

Get one of these: http://www.jab-tech.com/Sunon-...oling-Fan-pr-2944.html
Your temps will drop substantially.

 

[Blain]

On my OC'd E4300 and GA-P35-DS3R I use an SI-120.
The "SI" is taller than the "XP" version which allows for more clearance.
It also positions the HS high enough for the air flow to wash the whole area around the CPU socket.
:thumbsup::laugh:

 

[lenjack]

On my ds3r, 6750 at 3.4G, I felt the northbridge and southbridge were both too hot. I had some 40mm fans, which I stuck on their heatsinks, which cooled them down considerably.

 

[kallekill]

Originally posted by: Nickel020
The northbridge temp can only be seen in the BIOS, and they system must not be overcloked and Intel QST must be used as the fan control method in the PC Health menu. If you're overclocking and you want to see your NB temp, create a profile with your OC settings, and a stock profile with QST enabbled. Use Prime95 (or something similar) for a while, then reboot, enter the BIOS, load the stock profile, save & reboot then enter the PC health menu to see your NB temp (might be called MCH temp or something). This is how I got the 94° reading.

I ran Orthos for about 10 minutes until the CPU temperature seemed to stabilize and then I rebooted and checked the Northbridge temperature. I got 78°. Where did you read that the Northbridge is designed for temperature of up to 105°? I guess this is the max temperature. Is there a temperature that you are recommended to stay below? I also tried to touch the heat sink in another place were it gives better contact with my finger and I could not keep the finger on the heat sink for more than 6 seconds. But if it is designed for 105° it doesn't seem right that you should be able to keep your finger that long on the heat sink.

If I understand it correctly, I am not even overclocking the Northbridge chip. The motherboard is designed for a FSB of 1333 Mhz and I am running the FSB at 334*4 (Q6600 default 2.4 Ghz 266*9 @ 3.0Ghz 334*9). I tried to add a PCI fan, but the chip is still hot to the touch. The fan barely fit between the video card and the Northbridge heat sink and is blocking the lower side of the heat sink which probably isn?t very good.

I haven't had any stability issues, other than explorer.exe acting up a couple of times in Vista, but I am still a little concerned that it will fail or burn up or something one day.

 

[Nickel020]

105° C is straight from the official German Gigabyte forum, posted by a moderator there. He says that if you're below 80° you have nothing to worry about.
And FS1333 is "quad-pumped" real FSB is 333 (1333/4).

And why shouldn't you be able to keep your finger on the ehatsink for 6 seconds? The NB is designed to function up to maximum teperature of 105°, it does not need 105° to work, the less the better.

 

[kallekill]

Originally posted by: Nickel020
And why shouldn't you be able to keep your finger on the ehatsink for 6 seconds? The NB is designed to function up to maximum teperature of 105°, it does not need 105° to work, the less the better.

What I meant was that I have read that you should be able to hold your finger on the NB for more than 10 or 15 seconds. But if the chip can handle 105° or 80°, that can't be right. I don't know the threshold of pain, but it seems like it is well before 80°. Of course the heat sink might not be as hot as the actual NB chip.

Originally posted by: Nickel020
And FS1333 is "quad-pumped" real FSB is 333 (1333/4).

I meant that the motherboard is designed to handle 1333 FSB which is actually 333 (1333/4). I am running the FSB at 334 (1336/4) which isn't much of an overclock.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

The 10 second rule is applicable up to about 50C. Temperature above 60C can cause system instability with an overclocked rig. Most ICs are designed for 70C max. MOSFET output devices can safely run up to about 70C when stressed.

 

[Nickel020]

The heatsink is usually also 15-25° colder than the Chip itself, depending on where you touch it.

And 70° is perfectly fine for a chipset. Chipsets and GPUs can run much hotter than CPUs.

 

[mrfatboy]

How can I tell what my northbridge temp is on my rig? See sig below.

My bios->PC Health has only system (40c) and cpu(29C) temps.


I had to increase my (g)mch to +.1v to get a stable 3.6 overclock. I just want to make sure that I'm ok.

 

[Nickel020]

You have to enable QST as the fan control method, and the system must not be overclocked. Save these BIOS settings and upon re-entering the BIOS the NB temp will be visible in PC Health.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the heat sink. Get as close to the chip as possible. A TC 1/2" away from the chip is usually 5 to 7C cooler than one that is mounted next to the chip.

 

[mrfatboy]

Originally posted by: Nickel020
You have to enable QST as the fan control method, and the system must not be overclocked. Save these BIOS settings and upon re-entering the BIOS the NB temp will be visible in PC Health.

@nickel020
hmmmmmmm... I tried that but it does not work for me. The northbridge temp or any other is not added in the bios. Do you know for a fact that it works for my board?


@serpentroyal, I have a digital thermometer for the house. It has a sensor (for outdoors) with a 6 ft cable going to the display. If I put that sensor on the heatsink would that work? How accurate would it be?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Don't know. Some digital thermos are very good, others are junk. You don't know until you test the unit with a referenced standard. I use a calibrated TC connected to a DMM to display temperature. My fingers will only tolerate 50C for about 20 seconds. That's the quick and dirty technique. Their P965 boards will easily toast my fingers...+63C range. I would expect to see 55 to 60C with their P35 boards.

 

[mrfatboy]

Here are my tested temps. I tested Non OC & OC'd, idle & orthos stressed.

Northbridge temp
NON OC'd
------------------
idle 37C
stressed 40C
Coretemp 47C

Northbridge temp
OC'd (see sig)
--------------------
idle 40C
Stressed 48C
Coretemp 57C


What do you think? I have the thermal sensor right in between the fins of the heatsink(in middle).

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Reasonable. If you can hang-on to the heat sink under load, then it's probably under 50C.

 

[mrfatboy]

i held my fingers on it for a while. It was just warm. I didnt' need to pull away at all. I guess I'm good to go

 

[Nickel020]

Originally posted by: mrfatboy

@nickel020
hmmmmmmm... I tried that but it does not work for me. The northbridge temp or any other is not added in the bios. Do you know for a fact that it works for my board?

I have a DS3 and a DQ6 here, and it works for them. Did you reboot after enabling QST? Also Load Optimized defaults first, then enable QST, then reboot. As I said, it does not work if you overclock or manually changed the Vcore.

And some P35 chipsets seem to run cooler than others. Some people report hot heatsinks that they can only touch for a few seconds, some say theirs is only warm (that is non-heatpipe heatsinks).

 

[mrfatboy]

i set everything back to default manually. Maybe I missed something. After doing the earilier testing and actually holding onto the heatsync while orthos was running. I feel good about my temps.

When I get a chance I will try it your way and see what happens.

thanks