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[Endy]

Okay the case tempature on this PC is up to 40C+ (like 90F) and that is starting to worry me. This case has 3 fans plus the power supply fans so theres no way that should be happening. The CPU and GPU heatsinks are merely warm to the touch and MBM reports that the CPU is at 50C (125F) which is a perfectly acceptable temp for the processor.

The hottest component on the motherboard is the itty bitty passive heatsink on top of what I believe is the northbridge? Touching that thing is painful and it heats the center of the case (and the back side of the video card) to such a stupid tempature that I'm starting to see video texture corruption in some games despite the fact that the heatsink on the GPU is barely even perceptibly warm when touched.

So my question is this. Where do I find a new heatsink or a fan to sit on top of a northbridge? Has anyone even seen a problem like this before... this seems to be a very abnormal problem.


For the record the PC is not overclocked. I do not know if it ever was at one point as I haven't owned the system for its entire lifespan but most likely it hasn't been.
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[Zelig]

What's the model of your motherboard?

[killer_roach]

Make sure you have some spacers between your motherboard and the case... if the case is getting that hot, I'm surprised it isn't causing an electrical short.
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[Discomb]

My brother's PC has the same problem, except the reading says 35C, though there are still corrupt textures every now and then. I thought it may be a physical problem with the GPU as I even get corrupt textures when working in BIOS, but now I'm leaning more towards heat exhaust since I realized where the heat sink is physically located next to the GPU. Funny this only started happening half a year ago, and it's a 2.5 year rig.
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[killer_roach]

No clue... my northbridge is actively cooled, and hence doesn't run all that hot.
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Official forum economist. Explodes when thrown.

Desktop:
Core i7-2600K @ 4.5 GHz
16GB DDR3-1600
eVGA GeForce 970 FTW
Windows 10 Preview

Laptop:
Core 2 Duo 2.8 GHz
4GB DDR3-800
Radeon 4570 1GB
Windows 7 Home Premium x64

[ouch]

yeah the north and southbridge (if present) chips ARE the motherboard basicly. if those go then your screwed.

they are just fancy microcontrollers, and like microcontrollers they are VERY vulnerable to line noise and improper voltage regulation.

check your voltages (if your mother board can) to see if their correct first of all.

then you might want to hook up a multimeter to the lines to confirm the voltage.

while you got the meter out check the amps as well, make sure it's within your power supply specs.

next step would be to hook up an oscilloscope but most likely you don't have one.

you could also trace back to the supporting hardware and check those as well. (though, that's a bit overkill since you can buy new boards for little of nothing these days.)

if it passes all those tests then it's probably just the bridge saying enough is enough... in which case cool it the best you can, you might get another year or more out of it if you cool it properly.

get yourself another case fan, or a regular cpu fan, basicly whatever you can scrounge up.

get yourself some wire (even trash bag twist ties would work) if you can't get the fan attatched to the heatsink directly then look for screws or screw holes to wrap the wire around and basicly suspend the fan in front as close as possible to the heatsink. yeah it will look like [filtered], but it might bring the thing within safe temperatures again.

if that doesn't work get a big floor fan and have it pull air through the whole computer. (don't have the fan blowing on the case itself though.)

if that heat sink was as hot as you say the heat transfer compound might be shot though. in which case you might be screwed. but the extra fans will certainly help reguardless.
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ouch

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[NightShadow]

As for where to find better cooling for the Northbridge, most shops that sell cooling hardware will have stuff for the Northbridge as well. Just search for either Northbridge cooling or chipset cooling.

It may be difficult to get one properly mounted, depending on which one you purchase and how the stock heatsink is mounted. I bought one of the Zalman passive heatsinks a year or two ago, and had to cut off the corner fins to the stock ring clamp on it. The northbridge on that motherboard died out about 6 months ago or so, because one corner of the motherboard part of the clamp came off, so the heatsink wasn't making full contact.

Newegg link
Xoxide link
CoolerGuys link
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[X-BoT]

I use one of these for northbridge cooling. Had to switch because the original fan begun making a lot of noise. Even though it's passive, it feels cooler than the stock HSF did. You might require an active cooling solution though.
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[crazyaxemaniac]

[Grom_hellscream]

... hehe.. my "old" rig was oced and the cpu(amd a 64 3500+) was runing on 37c too bad the casefans was 50db or somthing.. :-/
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