Northbridge-where???

[Jelvis]

I have an Asus A8N-E as in the attached picture. Theres a certain fan on the motherboard, the small black one that says 'Asus' on it and its soooo noisy. Basically Im looking to replace it, but is this the northbridge or southbridge? I've become really confused by this.
Reason I ask is because im looking at this: http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=200&code=014

It says its a Northbridge cooler.

Thanks for your help

 

[wallabing]

Yup, I have it and it's a northbridge cooler.

 

[wallabing]

If your Asus fan 2 mounting holes are 5 1/2 cm apart, then it is a northbridge heatsink. Anything smaller and it's a southbridge heatsink.

 

[Jelvis]

I know the zalman is a northbridge cooler, im asking wheres the northbridge on my motherboard?? If its where the black 'asus' fan is then I take it I'll need an intake fan too since the zalman chipset cooler is fanless.

 

[wallabing]

The Northbridge is the one under the asus chipset fan.

 

[Jelvis]

Just checked and the 2 mounting holes are about 5 and a halfcm apart. Its def between 5 and 6cm (I couldnt get the ruler in flat lol).

 

[wallabing]

If you take off the fan, and you see the nvidia logo on the chipset or a Nforce 4 label, then that's a 100% positive ID that it is the northbridge.

 

[Jelvis]

Under as in underneath? I'll be getting the zalman, how do you find its performance?

 

[wallabing]

Your all good then, get the heatsink.

 

[wallabing]

Under as in underneath? I'll be getting the zalman, how do you find its performance?

I used artic ceramic with the Zalman, and it stays hot-warm, not finger scalding hot like my stock one did.

 

[Jelvis]

O right, I presume some form of thermal grease comes with the heatsink. My current one is very hot if not scalding too. Im amazed a fanless one can cool to the same degree if not better without getting as hot!

 

[wallabing]

Yes, this heatsink kicks ***

http://www.hardwarelogic.com/news/62/ARTICLE/1268/3/2006-09-19.html

 

[Jelvis]

Thanks for your help, I'll be ordering that later!!

 

[KingCody]

Hi Jelvis,

That is indeed the northbridge. There is no need to search around the board or measure anything because there is no southbridge on that motherboard. The Asus A8N-E uses the Nvidia nForce4-Ultra chipset. nForce4 chipsets use single chip design (technically it is not a chipset, it's just a chip).

they are able to combine all functions of the northbridge and southbridge chips into one because the memory controller is on the CPU instead of the northbridge. (all socket 754, 939, and AM2 CPU's feature built-in memory controllers). That is one of the reasons that the nForce series chipsets perform better, because they eliminated the bottleneck that can occur between NB & SB communications.

BTW, enjoy your new silent cooler

cheers :wave:

 

[Jelvis]

Cheers Kingcody.
Im surprised I didnt put 2 and 2 together. I knew the memory controller was in the processor but never realised my motherboard had just one chip to control everything. No wonder that thing gets so hot!
Yep, I was going to get a laptop but figured I'll mod my pc a bit and take that to university next year.