Northern and south bridge s are the main components of the motherboard chipset. They are designed to control all computer devices, but if the south bridge got the role of a "little brother" that controls, albeit important, but slow interaction processes within and between the interfaces of the board (controllers for disks, network and audio devices, etc.), then the north bridge used as "heavy artillery", as it is responsible for the processor, RAM, video adapter, and also controls all communication processes between these components and the controller. In other words, its destiny is to control devices that account for the maximum load during computer operation.

Location

It is a chip soldered into the system board, located on its northern (that is, upper) side and covered with a cooling radiator. The northbridge on most motherboards is cooled by passive heat removal, while active cooling using a cooler is the prerogative of powerful systems designed for extreme loads. It can be gaming computers, graphic stations and servers.

heat sink

A standard heat sink is enough to successfully cool the north bridge in most cases, including when upgrading the system, however, it is not uncommon for users to overclock their computers by increasing the frequency of the motherboard, processor or video card to increase PC performance. This, in turn, inevitably leads to an increase in the heat release of these components. And given the very close proximity to them and their own increased temperature, factory cooling for the north bridge in such cases may no longer be enough, which is fraught with very unpleasant consequences, up to the failure of the chip. The result in this scenario is most likely to be a motherboard replacement, since repairs are not economically viable.

Ready-made cooling systems

In cases of possible overheating, the search for a motherboard cooling system, as a rule, begins with determining the form factor of the computer. There are certain solutions for different sizes of boards (mini-ATX, micro-ATX or ATX), so when ordering via the Internet (and most often such devices are purchased this way now), it is important to take into account the dimensions of the computer and the dimensions of the installed components.

Do-it-yourself northbridge cooling system assembly

Currently, the choice of such systems in retail outlets is rather poor: mainly cooler-radiator units for cooling processors are on sale, so owners of computers that need more efficient heat dissipation often have to assemble their own designs, showing miracles of ingenuity. Heatsinks from old processors are used, to them different ways fans are attached, power connectors are soldered, and then the resulting hybrid is installed in the bowels of the computer. Moreover, the cooling efficiency is often very high.

If the situation does not allow for one reason or another to purchase a ready-made solution, and you can only rely on your own hands and ingenuity, you should follow a few important recommendations.

• Carefully measure all distances to new system did not overlap the video card, RAM and processor.
• Remove the video card, RAM and, if necessary, the processor before installing. At the same time, it will not hurt to clean the cooling systems (and, possibly, replace the thermal paste) on the processor and video card.
• Without extreme necessity, do not dismantle the "native" cooling radiator of the north bridge. Firstly, it is fraught with loss of warranty (of course, if it is still valid). Secondly, it can be attached to the chip using a layer of special adhesive thermal paste, the cleaning and replacement of which in a limited space is a very long and difficult process. If the radiator is attached with special clips, it will require access to the back of the motherboard to remove it, which is also not always feasible without disassembling the computer.
• In most cases, it is enough to add a cooler of a suitable size, which can be fixed with super glue (be careful!) or with small self-tapping screws screwed into the gaps between the radiator lamellas. Sometimes the design of the heatsink allows the use of adhesive tape, on which superglue is applied on top, and then the fan is glued (for example, Gigabyte northbridge cooling heatsinks).

• If it is still not possible to solve the problem without a comprehensive replacement, all actions are performed with a motherboard completely free from connected devices. In the case of clamp fastening, problems should not arise, but with an adhesive base, you will have to tinker. You will need a solvent (nail polish remover, lighter gasoline or vodka), cotton buds and an old plastic card. For installation, you can use the classic KPT-8 (clamp mounting) or hot melt adhesive (adhesive mounting).
• Avoid getting solvent, thermal paste, and adhesive on other parts of the motherboard.

If everything is done correctly, the temperature readings on any of the tests in different load modes will be within the normal range, thereby extending the life of the motherboard.

Every second person has a computer these days. And everyone wants to get more performance for less money. But how to do that? Of course, I'm talking about overclocking / overclocking, a simple example, why buy a processor with a higher frequency, if possible, overclock a younger one to its frequencies. Everything would be great, but there is one “BUT”, this “BUT” is the competent cooling of the intrasystem space.
How to organize it better? What components of the system to put? I will offer you my way of modernizing some computer devices. I didn't touch on CPU cooling, because the Internet is full of comparisons and tests of various coolers. For this reason, I decided to write a guide on how to easily and painlessly upgrade the motherboard and your video. I would also like to say that this article is more likely to help beginners, doubting people, rather than adepts in such a difficult matter as overclocking.

I will also give data about my system (it is 100% stable):

Pentium 4 2, [email protected].2 (Step. DO) (264*12) (1.6V) (Northwood)

Zalman CNPC7000Cu (2000rpm)

Kingston DDR400, (2.5/3/3/5) (2.8V) 512mb*2 (Dual Channel)

maternal board -Asus P4P800 Gold

Video-ATI Radeon [email protected] (324/[email protected]/710) (3.2ns Samsung)

HDD Maxtor Diamond 9 Plus 160 GB

PSU 300W Powerman

Additional fans: 1-for blowing (80mm), 1-for blowing (80mm), 1-on the hard drive electronics, from the side 92mm Zalman - they are all connected via Thermaltake Hardcano 9

WinXP SP2 (build 5100), system installed on local disk With, with a volume of 15GB, all unnecessary services and services are disabled.

The temperature of the video card was measured using a thermocouple, near the core. The following programs were also used to check the temperature:

Asus PcProbe v2.20.07

Video Drivers - Catalyst 5.1

To warm up the memory and processor - S&M 0.3.2a

To check video:

The article will consist of several stages:

Motherboard cooling upgrade

Video card upgrade

Motherboard

Today I865PE/I875P chipsets are very popular among regular users and, of course, overclockers. They possess excellent performance and good overclocking potential.

Everyone is familiar with the P4P800 motherboard from Asus. And everything would be fine in it, both design and overclocking capabilities, but the cooling let us down. On the board, it is implemented using a passive cooler, which obviously does not contribute to overclocking. In principle, as a result of refinement, the stability of the system should increase when operating at a high bus frequency of 285-300 MHz.

On my P4P800 rev.1.02 board, this heatsink is silver. I would like to immediately note that during the modernization warranty is not lost, with straight arms. I am not responsible for damaged boards. Everything that is described here in this article, you do at your own peril and risk.

What we need:

thermal grease KPT-8, Alsil 3

hygienic sticks 3-4 pcs. + alcohol

fan from the Titan TTC-CUV2AB kit for video cards or any other 40*40mm

Super glue

paint (silver / black) or not needed at all if the valve is black

wide blade screwdriver

First stage

We remove the motherboard from the case, you also only need to remove the video card and RAM. We need to carefully remove the heatsink without hitting the motherboard textolite in order to get rid of the old thermal interface. To do this, take a screwdriver with a wide sting and push the hooks from top to bottom, as shown in Fig. 1:

Under the radiator is the northbridge, in my case covered in a disgusting pink substance. We wash off all this disgrace with the help of hygienic sticks soaked in alcohol or solvent. In its place, we apply a thin layer of good thermal paste KPT-8 or any other, since there is plenty to choose from. Also don't forget to wipe off any old thermal paste from the back of the heatsink. Now we do the whole operation in reverse, i.e. install the heatsink on the chip.

Second phase

When the radiator is installed in its old place, you can start installing the fan, but we need not lose the warranty, how can we do this? There is an Asus inscription on the radiator, we stick a thin strip of adhesive tape on it:

Next, we take a fan from the kit for Titan TTC-CUV2AB video cards, initially it is golden in color, of course, this is good, but I wanted it to be the same color as the heatsink, i.e. silver color. In the pantry was found a can of silver Motip paint. The valve was immediately repainted in a different color. It dried for an hour or an hour and a half. You can either paint the valve or not.

After all this, you take Super Glue and drip a few drops on the place where the adhesive tape is pasted and put a fan on top of it. So, what did we get as a result? The temperature dropped by about 3-5 degrees, and the installation of additional cooling had a positive effect on overclocking my processor. I managed to raise the bus by another 5 MHz, so now I have 264 * 4 total 1057 MHz. In practice, we see an increase in speed after simple manipulations. More about testing conditions. After all this, I really wanted to know if the temperature had really dropped so much. To check, the S&M utility was launched for 5 minutes, before and after the upgrade. The data on the temperature of the north bridge and the processor went into the table. By the way, I wanted to say that my south bridge is not bare, there is a small passive radiator on it, on adhesive thermal paste. Actually here is the diagram:

I think comments are unnecessary. Even the seemingly simplest mod can increase the overclocking potential and lower the temperature. Now let's turn our attention to the video card, as to another "heater" in your case.

Replacing cooling on an ATI RadeOn 9800 @ Pro video card

So, I purchased an ATI Radeon 9800 128mb video card, made by Sapphire, but, apparently, it was from the first series, so the Ati sticker on the cooler was not even replaced on it. The board is a fully reference design from the manufacturer. The only thing that upset me was the relatively slow memory with a cycle time of 3.2 ns in Samsung's performance. Here she is:

The older sister differs from mine in that they are usually equipped with faster memory with a response time of 2.8 ns, which ensures operation at a frequency of 700 MHz.
Thus, the frequencies of the "Pro" version are 378/680 MHz, and mine is 325/580. I think you get my idea? Yes, yes upgrade 9800 to 9800 PRO. But for this, it is necessary to upgrade the cooling of the chip and memory, because you won’t go far with native cooling:

One distinguishing feature of this cooler is the excellent grip to the core, due to a small bump on its back. Let's not forget that there was a protective frame around the core of the entire older generation of Radeons. It can be easily removed, but then we would lose the warranty, which is highly undesirable. And where is our experimental processor cooler? It will be GlasialTech Igloo 4100GE for Pentium 4:

Highly good cooler, with gold plating, and a quiet fan. It was decided to subject it to light processing and install it on a video card. Light processing is a refinement for the profile of the video card. Here are some characteristics and data about the experimental cooler:

The maximum frequency of the cooled processor is Pentium 4 3.0Ghz

Dimensions 83x69x53 mm

Weight (with fan) 357 grams

Thus, I had to cut the radiator on the lathe where the capacitors of the video power system rested against it. The frame, which, in theory, should press the cooler to the central processor, had to be removed and the fan was screwed onto self-tapping screws right between the radiator fins. Also, a thread was cut from the back of the radiator, for two standard holes, and pieces of the radiator were cut out in some places for small parts, such as capacitors, etc.:

The cooler is pressed perfectly to the video card. The bolts were equipped with rubber gaskets to avoid damage to the textolite. A thin layer of KPT-8 thermal paste was smeared between the core and the cooler. Also, a thermocouple was installed between the radiator fins, connected to the Hardcano. As a result, we get the following monster:

But that's not all, we still need to put radiators in memory. But where can you get them?
There was no cooler at hand, but there was a silent cooler from Zalman ZM80D-HP, made on two heat pipes. I tried to install it, but personally it seemed to me ineffective during overclocking, because it played the role of a frying pan in the case, everything was heated from its huge planes ... But it came with excellent memory heatsinks, which I used:

Actually, after all the manipulations, the card was installed in the AGP slot without any problems. There was a little excitement because of the mass of the cooler, but everything seemed to work out. I overclocked the video with RivaTuner. With the new cooling, the board overclocked perfectly and more than blocked the frequencies of the older sister, from the "native" 325/580 MHz it raced up to 410/710 MHz. It was decided to flash BIOS from Radeon 9800Pro with Samsung memory 2.8 ns. I asked. Everything is great! The drivers recognized the new video card, and I ran several tests and not a single artifact or stripe! Now let's take a look at the temperature of the card at idle and when running tests from the 3D Mark 03/05 package: the temperature of the video card in idle mode is 24°C, at boot - 41°C.

Some 3D Mark 03 (default) benchmark results so we can see the overclocking gain:

Conclusion

So, as a result of our simple upgrades, we were able to take the performance of the computer to a new level. Cooling the motherboard helped to increase the bus frequency by 5 MHz, respectively, the processor frequency also grew. We also upgraded the video card, having received an increase in overclocking for the core: 26%, for memory: 22%. In addition, now I have a 9800Pro in my case, which cannot but be pleasant.

I will be very pleased if this guide helps someone do something new for their computer, improve its performance. Good luck!

P.S. For comparison, I am attaching a photo of the old video card cooler and the new one:

Kibis
23 /02.2005

Previously, I recommended purchasing boards that did not have any additional gadgets for cooling the northbridge of the chipset, because most often this indicated a "correct", competent design.
Now, however, the trends have changed, and northbridge cooling has become the norm.
Alas...

Therefore, we should try to evaluate the degree of efficiency of the northbridge cooling system, because since it is present, let it be effective: “you can’t spoil porridge with butter.”
What useful information can we get by visual inspection?
There are not so few of them...

I never recommend motherboards to anyone with active cooling on the northbridge chip (heatsink + fan).
Source of negative information: personal experience.
Let the manufacturing companies forgive me, but I do not believe that they are installed there expensive and reliable fans.

And a cheap and unpretentious one will clog with dust and die after a year of active computer operation.
Further, it should be understood that a radiator with a stopped fan on top is even worse than a radiator with no fan at all.
On this, perhaps, we will finish with the issue of active cooling of the north bridge ...

Photo 3. It cools well ... While it works ...

Preference should be given to fairly high "needle" radiators.
In the absence of a fan (we have already discussed why it is better not to have one), this design of the heatsink ensures that it is most efficiently cooled by air flows inside the case.

Photo 4. The most "correct" radiator: competent fastening, good high "needles".

Less preferred are tall "lamellar" radiators, even if their fins are quite narrow and there are many of them.
Why?
Yes, simply because the air currents blowing "across" the plane of the plates will cool them much worse.

Of course, you can say that the flows can be directed in the right direction.
One question: will you be doing research on the air circulation inside your computer case?
You may not answer...

Photo 5. Fastening is good, but the shape is not perfect.

The worst options of all are small, flat "plate" radiators, or radiators with very short "needles", as well as the vast majority of "design-decorative" solutions.
I think those who have read the points of the previous paragraphs no longer need to explain why.

In fact, such a radiator is 70% (according to the mildest estimates) a complete sham.
He can only make up for it a little. instant short-term heating, but it will not save the chip from the consequences of constant overheating.

Photo 6. A wonderful, beautiful design element.
Cooling has nothing to do with it. One thing pleases - it's still the south bridge.

A lot about who the manufacturer holds us for can be told by the method of attachment.
If you observe special “clamps” for the heatsink on the board (their two main varieties are shown in photos 4 and 5 above) - with a high degree Most likely, this indicates that there is thermal paste between the chip and the heatsink.
mount in this case it is necessary for the simple reason that the heatsink cannot hold the thermal paste on the chip, and that is not its task.

If there is no fastening on the radiator (photo 7), then with almost 100% probability it can be argued that it is glued to the chip.
And with a 90% degree of probability it is glued with adhesive plastic tape, the thermal conductivity of which is very far from even the most mediocre thermal paste.
At best, this means that the cooling capacity of such a radiator is artificially reduced (precisely due to the mounting method).
In the worst case (which is not so rare), this means that such a radiator is a complete sham.

Photo 7. Fastening is not observed, which means that the radiator is almost certainly glued.
"Turn" it, holding your fingers by the sides.
If it turns a little - plastic Velcro, no doubt.

As you can see, even a visual inspection of the northbridge cooling system can tell us quite a lot.
It only remains to add that more efficient cooling in the general case increases the "margin of safety" of the board (although, of course, the bottleneck may not be here at all).
But it doesn't make it smaller, that's for sure.

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Very often, owners of budget and medium-priced motherboards are faced with a problem when the chipset gets very hot. This happens because the cooling system installed by the manufacturer does not cope with its task by 100%. Ultimately, strong heat can cause the chipset to simply burn out, and you will either need to buy a new board or repair the old one for a lot of money. But all this can be avoided if the chipset is well cooled. Actually, this is what we will talk about today.

Replacing thermal paste

The first method that can help with cooling is to replace the thermal paste. Many mistakenly think that there is no difference between thermal pastes as such, but this is not at all the case. Each thermal paste has its own specific properties that greatly affect heat dissipation. When buying, it is very important to pay attention to the thermal conductivity parameter - the higher it is, the more efficiently the high temperature will be removed, which will ultimately have a positive effect on the cooling of the chipset.

Among the most popular thermal pastes are the following: MX-2 and MX-4 from Arctic Cooling, DC1 from beQuiet!, Liquid Ultra from Coollaboratory and Aeronaut, Kryonaut from Thermal Grizzly.

Installing a new radiator

If the replacement of thermal paste does not help in cooling the chipset, then you should think about replacing the standard heatsink with another, more efficient one. Getting a new radiator is not as easy as it might seem. Even in large computer stores, they are rarely sold. Fortunately, there are flea markets and foreign online stores where you can find a suitable option for yourself at any price.

At one time, the following models were among the most popular chipset heatsinks: Noctua NC-U6, PCCooler NB-400, Thermalright HR-05 and Zalman ZM-NB47J. As for the first one, U6 is very hard to find anywhere, but there are no problems with the rest. The cheapest radiator - Zalman, will cost 250-300 rubles. PCCooler will cost about 900 rubles. The most expensive one, Thermalright, will cost +/- 1000 rubles, but the price is fair, since the radiator is really good and removes heat to the maximum.

Homemade cooling system with a fan

If you can’t find a radiator or don’t want to spend money, then you can make a chipset cooling system yourself. All it takes is a small 40 x 40mm or 50 x 50mm fan, but no bigger.

Some heatsinks on the chipset have a flat surface, so installing a fan on it with a couple of screws is not a big deal. As for those motherboards where the heatsink is non-standard and has a certain shape, then you will have to tinker with it. In such cases, "craftsmen" often resort to special spacers, which are first attached to the radiator, and then the fan is already screwed to them.

One-stop solution for everyone

Finally, I would like to mention one more universal way cooling, which combines the two previous ones - this is the installation of a ready-made Deepcool NBridge 2 cooler on the chipset.

This cooling system is a small radiator with a set of different mounts, on which a small fan is installed on top. All this works very efficiently and, most importantly, allows the user not to bother looking for other heatsinks or thinking about how to install a fan on the chipset.

NBridge 2 is easy to find in any computer store and costs only 250-300 rubles. Also, another advantage of this cooling system is that it comes with all the necessary fasteners for different motherboards. Thus, no matter what the chipset costs - Intel or AMD, NBridge 2 is guaranteed to be on any one and will effectively do its job.

Conclusion

That, in fact, is all that I wanted to tell today about the cooling of the chipset on motherboard. Which of the methods described is best to use - here everyone should choose for themselves, based on their needs. If the temperature needs to be lowered a little, then replacing the thermal paste is suitable, and if the heating is too high or you plan to overclock the system, then you should use other options.

Quite often there is a problem when the south bridge is very hot on the computer. And for nForce-based motherboards, overheating of the chipset is perhaps the most common cause of failure. Came to us system unit based on MP ASUS M2N-XE. Running the AIDA64 program, we saw that the temperature of the chipset reaches 78 degrees:

MCP is a chipset

Many will say, “Well, what's wrong with that? It's nForce!" Yes, the chipset from nVidia is a very hot microcircuit and it always warmed up not weakly. But the colder it is, the longer it will work.

How to improve chipset (bridge) cooling

Removing the motherboard

The most time-consuming procedure is the dismantling of the motherboard. But in most cases, this is necessary in order to remove the radiator. We take out the video card, disconnect the cables and wires, unscrew the 6 bolts with which the "motherboard" is attached to the case. On the reverse side of the system board, compress the tips of the fasteners:

We take out the plastic fasteners ourselves and remove the radiator:

Chipset mounts (bridge)

Replacing thermal paste

Now you need to remove the remnants of the old thermal paste from the heatsink and chip and degrease them with alcohol. Then you will need to apply a new paste on the bridge

and on the radiator:

Installation of additional cooling for the chipset

We decided to take the opportunity and screw a 40mm cooler to the radiator for better cooling.

Cooler 40x40x10

We install a radiator with a cooler on the chipset. We snap fasteners. Now you can screw the motherboard to the case, connect wires, SATA cables and install a video adapter.

The result is excellent: thanks to the fan, the temperature of the bridge has dropped from 78 °C to 49 °C:

The temperature of the nForce chipset has dropped significantly

Thus, we protected the nForce chip from overheating and probably significantly extended the life of the computer as a whole.