Northbridge and Southbridge cooling 8RDA+

[JEB]

I am planning to do some cooling mods to my 8RDA+ to see if that'll help get some higher FSB speeds.

What solutions have people come up with for this. I'm concerned with the hole spacings for both, and not too sure what will fit.

Was planning:

Either a active Crystal Orb or a Vantec Iceburg on the NB

&

Either the stock passive HS off the NB, or a passive Crystal Orb chipset heatsink on the SB.

Anyone got either of the above solutions to fit a R1.0 board?

Also if yes - was it easy to get the stock HS off the NB.

Cheers...

[sotti]

there is a little cap that prevents the stock NB from mounting to the southbridge.

If you've got a dremel or some other grinder that would be an easy fit.

I've got a copper iceburg on mine, and it got me maybe a mhz or two out of my NB.

I haven't done a vdd mod so I dunno.

[JamesUK]

hi, am planning on maybe putting a fan on my NB but am not sure ifits worth it? am not overclocking, yet the HS does feel a bit warm sometimes, will i benifit at all from putting a fan on or will i not notice a bit of difference if am not overclcoking?

thanks

[Neofate]

Is it just me or does the Southbridge get extremely hot? I noticed everyone is concentrating on how hot/warm the N-bridge gets, and sometimes the Mosfets. However, if I touch my southbridge for a few seconds it is almost hot enough to hurt a little. Soooo...

I just got finished doing my first series of N-bridge/S-bridge/Mosfet mods..

Man was it a job... Could have been easier had I bought pre-cut heatsinks, but I always want to get out the cheapest I can so I started scrambling around in my "junk box" for parts.

I came up with an old TNT1 Video card (Nice heatsink on it)---An old PII (Hugemongous) slot type of (Heatsink)---And a fan off a Pentium 75Mhz chip (Really small, must be 20-30mm at most)---Lastly a fan that popped out of thin air (really ) [This fan puts out some CFM, but is quiet, it measure 40x40x25, and pulls .17 amps.]


So, I got to work. As I am unfortunate enough to have a dremel, or a VICE (Sheesh how a vice would have helped), I grabbed my hack saw, a C-Clamp, Jig-saw, and anything else that would help me at this daunting task.

Cutting up the PII Heat sink was a JOB! It probably took me over an hour to get the pieces needed to use it for the Mosfets. I used a jigsaw on the heavy parts, and eventually went to the old-fashioned hacksaw for smaller pieces. BUT, I did get what I needed. One slim long piece of heat sink for all the Mosfets in a relatively straight line, then one more single piece for the remaining mosfet (the piece I cut originally wasn't long enough to hit the last one).

My main concern was getting the Southbridge cooled. It seemed to me, contrary to most peoples concerns, to be the hotest running chip (other than the CPU) on the motherboard itself. So I examined the size of the heatsink on the TNT 1 video card and decided it would be a bit big, but work just fine. So I used the "freezer trick" to pop off the heatsink and it worked like a charm. The fan I chose to go on top of the southbridge was the 40mm .17amp fan I found! It runs at about 4800rpm, but isn't any louder than the .48dbA CPU fan heheh. It mounted a bit ackwardly on the TNT1 heatsink, but I managed to use a screw inbetween the fins to get a reasonable enough fit.

The northbridge, well I have felt and felt the heatsink and bottom of the chip itself time and time again, and it never felt really hot. So I used the fan I found off of the PentiumI 75Mhz, (Remember this one is only 20-30mm), and it fit like a glove on top of the stock N-bridge heatsink.


As far as application goes, on all of the chips, and mosfets I used Arctic Silver III Thermal compound, along with a dab of krazy glue to mount the heatsinks. Also, I quickly lapped all heatsinks for thoroughness (and in the occasion of the TNT 1 sink, to get the old paste off). It worked very well, and I am pleased.

Of course none of this is going to lower my CPU temps, but I think it will help stability, and hopefully I can pull a few more mhz out of the overclock.

The next thing on the list is a Quality powersupply, with which I hope I can hit 200fsb. (currently holding at 193, haven't had a chance to try to up it since my recent mods.)

Maybe that will give you some ideas... Also what does everyone think about what I did? Sound reasonable?

Temps as of now, (basically the same), 33-34C Idle, and 42C Load.

Thanks

[JPS]

how about pics of your handiwork?

[pltguy]

Originally posted by JEB
I am planning to do some cooling mods to my 8RDA+ to see if that'll help get some higher FSB speeds.

What solutions have people come up with for this. I'm concerned with the hole spacings for both, and not too sure what will fit.

Was planning:

Either a active Crystal Orb or a Vantec Iceburg on the NB

&

Either the stock passive HS off the NB, or a passive Crystal Orb chipset heatsink on the SB.

Anyone got either of the above solutions to fit a R1.0 board?

Also if yes - was it easy to get the stock HS off the NB.

Cheers...

Active on both N./S.

Insane Cooling on 8RDA by me

[JEB]

Ok - so from the advice so far:

I've sourced an Active Vantec Iceburg in the UK, and I fancy that over the passive Zalman NB32J.

Still need a southbridge solution though to fit straight on without a mod. Elusion - where did you get your passive Crystal Orb's chipset Heatsink, as I can't seem to find anywhere that sells them in UK.

Otherwise can anyone else offer any other suggestions for the SB cooling?

Cheers.......

[oqvist]

Just a quick question! Is it possible to burn your mainboard (north or southbridge) without a volt mod by trying to high fsb:s or does the computer crash before it get to hot?

[Truckchase!]

Originally posted by JEB

Otherwise can anyone else offer any other suggestions for the SB cooling?

If you get the Iceburg, it comes with a little passive heatsink that fits perfectly on the SB. Also comes with the correctly sized "frag tape". I picked up the Iceburg last night and I'm not really impressed... haven't tested it out yet but it's really small and the fan is downright slow.

Man, that avatar is spooky.

[JEB]

Glad you like the avatar Truckman, she's cool eh!

I'd be very interested to hear what results you get from the Iceberq on the NB and SB. Can you do me a favour and let me know how you get on once fitted. Cheers.