Northbridge Cooler Help?

[Alai]

Could you guys help point out which of these coolers are the best options for cooling the northbridge on my mobo? I think I can't OC too high due to overheating of the northbridge since I have 4 sticks of RAM.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1429972

If none of these are ideal, could you guys point me to something better?

 

[sirmonkey1985]

what kind of temps are you seeing? usually when running 4 sticks of ram your limiting factor is the amount of voltage you can push through the northbridge.. thats the downfall of northbridges and 4 sticks of ram..

 

[BillParrish]

Consider this:

You have an issue as the heat pipe assembly that cools the NB also helps cool the mosfets above the CPU socket and if you eliminate the downward blowing stock fan you will trade one issue for a new one, hot mosfets, if you remove the heatpipe for some 3rd party NB cooler.

I recommend you remove the board from the case, rework the heat pipe assembly by replacing factory grease with a high performance heatsink compound on the NB chip. Most likely there are thermal pads between the mosfets and the portion of the heat pipe for cooling the mosfets. It is not advisable to do away with the pads as the "fit" tolerance is usually too sloppy for thermal grease to work on the mosfets. If you are careful removing the heat pipe and with a little help from an exacto-knife etc. it is fairly easy to get the heat pipe free of the mosfets without damaging the pads. The pads can be replaced but it is a pain to find new pad material.
After applying your high performance thermal grease on the NB chip replace the heat pipe using "real" hardware, nylon #4-40 screws nuts and washers are available at any good hardware store and are ideal. The Nylon eliminates any chances of shorting to a trace and their nature tends to keep them from loosing up over time. Double nut on the underside if desired or a drop of super glue on the middle of the nut where the screw threads are will keep them from ever loosening. You can buy longer than you need screws and snip off the extra length on the bottom side of the board. No need to even try to figure out what length screw you need. Just get plenty long and trim with side cutters, exacto knife etc. Tighten every thing down smartly snug but do not over do it. The increased clamping force and decent thermal paste will yield an immediate improvement in HS efficiency. If it was getting hot before now it will get really hot showing that the HS is doing its job even better. Do a web search on "heat pipe mod" there are several general guides out there that show you the steps. It is easy to do just requires some care, a little patience and a trip to the hardware store.

As for active cooling the best solution I have found for most gigabytes, it depends on the heatsink profile, the "flatter the better", is to take a 40 or 50mm fan and use RTV silicone adhesive (again any decent hardware store) to glue a fan directly onto the NB heatsink portion of the heatpipe. It is cheap and easy to replace when the fan fails. Those little fans seldom last more than a year or two. Look for a medium or low speed fan or it will be very "whiny" and annoying as far as noise. Just having any kind of direct air blowing down into the heatsink will do wonders for reducing the heat/temp. The trick is to find the right size fan so that 3 or better yet all 4 mounting holes will line up and "hit" the cooling fins of the NB heatsink. You put a nice big blob of RTV silicone adhesive in each fan mounting hole so 1/2 of the blob is in the hole and 1/2 sticking out. Gently lay the fan onto the heatsink so the exposed parts of the blobs hit a fin. Very very gently press down just a little so the blob makes decent contact with some part of the fin. Do NOT push all the way down. The idea is to leave a little gap. Two reasons for the gap; no way the fan blades can hit the heatsink fins and you just made your own custom silicone vibration/noise damping fan mount. Do not touch anything and let it sit for 30 minutes. It does not seem like much but if you don't mess with it the silicone is plenty sufficient to hold the fan on. Oh and the first thing to do is to pry off the "bling" Gigabyte sheet metal cover off of the NB portion of the heat pipe. Typically a good pull with a pair of needle nose pliers and the crap will pull right off.

The real beauty is when the fan dies. Just grab it and with a little twist it will come right off and the silicone peels right off the heatsink fins with a fingernail. Rinse and repeat with a new fan. No need to mess with hardware etc. The other thing is the fan will cool the entire heatpipe taking care of your mosfets as well as the NB.