Need help on Northbridge Temp control

[NF1ltrate]

Setup:

MSI 770-C45 Mobo
Thermaltake Extreme Spirit II with 2 small neoprene rubber washers as balance for contact
AMD Phenom II X4 810 w/ stock cooler
Diamon ATI Radeon 4890
Corsair CMX DDR3 1333 4gigs
Windows XP SP3
250 WesternD HD
Thermaltake 600w PSU
Cheapy Apevia computer case w/ 4 antec 80mm fans for intake and 1 antec 120mm exhaust

So i've been researching and people have their Northbridge temperature at like 30c-38c- degrees on idle and 45c on full load. That's not reality for me though haha. My Northbridge goes from 46c idle to 52c on full load! And thats with the Thermaltake Extreme Spirit II Northbridge cooler installed. I made sure that the cooler comes in contact w/ the thermal paste on the chipset so I can't determine the problem myself. I know for sure after I post this thread though, i'm going to further tighten the cooler just a tad bit to see if that helps. I hope you guys can give me some insight on how to lower my Northbridge temperatures. I don't know if this is important information but the CPU runs around the same temperature as the NB and sometimes even more to about the 54c range. Please help me guys.

 

[NF1ltrate]

bump......

 

[red1776]

Hi NF,
what program are you using to get that temp? you might try a second one to verify that. . if you want to lower that temp, airflow is the cheapest way to do it if you have the ability to do so. you said cheap case.....could it benefit from some wire management? im not familiar with that case but i presume its kind of cramped? another alternative is to put a NB cooler with an active fan I don't know if this specific one is compatible with your MB but as an example
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835108072.. welcome to Techspot

 

[NF1ltrate]

I'm using both Everest and CPUID Hardware monitor and they both show the same temps. I just recently bought the antec 900 in hopes of cooling everything down tremendously and there only been a 1 degree drop in temperature. I cleaned up the wire configuration for optimal airflow but still no dice. I've been trying to change everything in relation to cooling but suddenly thought out of the box for a sec and wondered if my Thermaltake 600w PSU could be the issue and overheating hardware. The ATI 4980 alone recommends a 550w psu atleast and with a soundcard, mobo, proc, memory, etc... wouldn't it be cutting it dangerously close to stepping over that 600w limit? Though I have high temperatures all across the board, my computer doesn't have any reboots which would be related to insufficient power.

Heres some information form the bios about some of the temps and voltage. Hopefully some of this information can prove to be useful.

CPU temp = 44C/111F
Systemp Temp = 49C/118F
CPU Vcore = 1.288V
3.3V = 3.280V
5V = 5.016V
12V = 11.968V

 

[red1776]

Hi NF1ltrate,
the recommended PSU wattage that you saw with your 4890 takes into account the entire system. your 4890 does not draw 550 watts, actually i believe it is around 150 watts for that card. so if your TT psu is in good order 600W should be enough. when you read reviews for video cards you will notice that 99% of the time the power consumption benchmark is for the entire system taken at the wall. what HSF are you using?

 

[red1776]

never mind, i just saw it. I just replaced my cpu with a phenom II x3 720, your cpu's brother as it were, and the stock HSF i got with it was junk, I assume you got the same. for about 25-30$ you can get a aftermarket HSF that will drop your temps drastically. see attachment, this is my x3 720 OC;d to 3.8Ghz with a 29$ OCZ vendetta.

 

[NF1ltrate]

Yeah for now i'm just using the factory AMD HSF. I'll take your advice and go with an aftermarket HSF real soon here. You say temps should drop on the proc itself but will the mobo temperatures go down as well?

 

[red1776]

the processor HSF will bring down the cpu temp only, i see you have a Thermaltake Extreme Spirit II NB cooler so that surprises me. you mentioned that you are using two neoprene washers on either side of the mount? are you sure its making good contact? and did you use thermal compound?

 

[NF1ltrate]

lol of course i used Thermal paste. What i did was make sure the small (and i meal small) pieces of neoprene compressed so that the hsf would have good contact on the chip. Then took off the HSF again and reapplied the same pressure to the screws as before. Just recently I bought an antec 900 and change all chips thermal paste to Arctic Silver 5. Each temp dropped by about 1 degree. Not sure if cured, my temps will drop. Hopefully they will but how long will the curing process take? On another side note I also purchase an aftermarket proc fan and now the cpu idles at 31c and goes to 35 on load. No luck on bringing down the NB chip.

UPDATE!!! I noticed another chip with on a puny heatsink. This is the AMD 710 Southbridge I believe. It sits right next to my ATI 4890 which always goes above 70c at gaming. Can that be the reason my Mobo temps are higher than everything else? I can hang an 80mm fan so it blows at the chip but would like some insight first. Thanks for all the information so far guys. I'm loving this forum.

 

[red1776]

the 770 is your NB, that mobo has the 710 southbridge . the HS above your pcie slot is the NB. I would try putting a fan (if only temporary) on the NB and see if it helps, that's a fast board, maybe its just a warm NB. short of water cooling, i don't know what else you can try.if your not having stability problems, i wouldnt worry too much about it. i wasn't trying to be condescending about the thermal compound, just one of those things you have to check

 

[NF1ltrate]

The Northbridge is the one with the Thermaltake HSF on it but the southbridge is the chip with a passive heatsink on it. I can't fit the Thermaltake on the southbridge due to the ATI videocard hogging most of the space but I can hang an 80mm fan and direct some airflow towards the southbridge.