Quality of OEM chipset coolers?

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rAD

I just redid the compound on the chipset heatsink of my ECS K7S5A and added
a fan. All there was was a gooey piece of tape. It now seems to run at
147MHz FSB. BTW, I used Radio Shack compound and super glue at the four
corners.

It's got me wondering if it's a good idea to redo this as a routine on any
motherboard that is going to be overclocked at all.

rAD
 
rAD said:
I just redid the compound on the chipset heatsink of my ECS K7S5A and added
a fan. All there was was a gooey piece of tape. It now seems to run at
147MHz FSB. BTW, I used Radio Shack compound and super glue at the four
corners.

It's got me wondering if it's a good idea to redo this as a routine on any
motherboard that is going to be overclocked at all.

rAD
Click to expand...


I replaced the chipset fan on my KD7 because out of the box it looked like
it wasn't really upto the job for overclocking.
My sys temps hovered between 50-55C! This may have been because of the
positioning of the sys-temp sensor though.

In an attempt to improve this I removed the stock fan (which wasnt even
rigged upto a speed sensor) then used artic silver adhesive to stick a
40x40mm heatsink, the bottom of which I polished, to the northbridge chip.
On top of that went a 40mm delta fan which spins at near 7000rpm! (says
Winbond). This stops my sys temp ever going over 39C even when the room is
warm. My highest stable fsb is now 183, limited by the 1;5 pci divider I
think not the actual northbridge.

I bought this board mid december just gone, now I fancy a NF7-S v2.0 ;0)

chris
 
rAD said:
I just redid the compound on the chipset heatsink of my ECS K7S5A and
added a fan. All there was was a gooey piece of tape. It now seems
to run at 147MHz FSB. BTW, I used Radio Shack compound and super glue
at the four corners.
Click to expand...

Err... presumably this is an improvement? It would help to have the
original maximum speed as a comparison.
It's got me wondering if it's a good idea to redo this as a routine
on any motherboard that is going to be overclocked at all.
Click to expand...


Guess that depends on the motherboard.

There are many things such as this which could in theory improve
overclockability. Not least of which would be improving the heatsinks too.

I took the northbridge heatsink off of my A7N8X Deluxe to see what was
written on the chip and upon puttig it back on, used Arctic Silver 3 - I
didn't make a conscious effort to improve the thermal interface, although I
expect I have done. This was before ever firing it up (bit silly really,
considering the problems these boards supposedly have)

Ben
 
Chris said:
I replaced the chipset fan on my KD7 because out of the box it looked
like it wasn't really upto the job for overclocking.
My sys temps hovered between 50-55C! This may have been because of the
positioning of the sys-temp sensor though.

In an attempt to improve this I removed the stock fan (which wasnt
even rigged upto a speed sensor) then used artic silver adhesive to
stick a 40x40mm heatsink, the bottom of which I polished, to the
northbridge chip. On top of that went a 40mm delta fan which spins at
near 7000rpm! (says Winbond). This stops my sys temp ever going over
39C even when the room is warm. My highest stable fsb is now 183,
limited by the 1;5 pci divider I think not the actual northbridge.
Click to expand...

I don't really take much notice of system temperature - it doesn't really
measure very much. I would attribute most of your temperature drop to new
airflow over the sensor than anything else, unless you can demonstrate
otherwise..

Ben
 
I don't really take much notice of system temperature - it doesn't really
measure very much. I would attribute most of your temperature drop to new
airflow over the sensor than anything else, unless you can demonstrate
otherwise..

Ben
Click to expand...

I guessed it to be a case of half and half really. I run the cpu with a
slk800 and an 80mm delta screamer fan, this was probably pushing alot of air
onto the chipset anyhow. It definately HAS made it alot more stable when
going for the upper fsb's. Its at 177 all day everyday now, something it
wouldnt do with the standard sys temp. I only opened it up to fit the gf4
which replaced the gf2Ultra, but you have to play with these things!!!!
;-o

chris
 
Ben Pope said:
Err... presumably this is an improvement? It would help to have the
original maximum speed as a comparison.
Click to expand...

The ECS K7S5A is a 133MHz FSB board which was very popular a year or two
ago. It can be overclocked w the Cheapoman or HoneyX BIOS. I've had two and
they have always been flakey even when not overclocked and w good PSU.
Anyone who has one of these lemons should get better cooling of the chipset.
Mine's now running at 147MHz. w Crucial PC2100. I'm gonna rip a DVD to SVCD
and see if it makes it. This is the most CPU and memory intensive test I
have ever found.
 
You should consider Arctic Adhesives - they're an epoxy with decent thermal
properties. Certainly better than superglue, although I also used an
Isocyanate to stick my case thermal probe to the underside of the heatsink.
It's reading between -5°C and +2°C above the socket temperature depending on
whether I've just off of load or just started loading the processor,
respectively, so it's probably not bad. The probe is glued maybe 1mm from
the edge of the core on the bottom of the heatsink. I suspect that the
socket holds heat for a while and that is why there is up to 5°C difference.
The ECS K7S5A is a 133MHz FSB board which was very popular a year or
two ago. It can be overclocked w the Cheapoman or HoneyX BIOS. I've
had two and they have always been flakey even when not overclocked
and w good PSU.
Click to expand...

So you're saying that you can now do 147Mhz stable, whereas 133MHz was
flakey?

Ben
 
Ben,

Why did you choose to put the original heatsink back on after you removed
it. I am curious because, as you will see below, I went with the Microcool
NorthPole heatsink and fan. I was originally going to at minimum replace it
with the Zalmann NB heatsink, but decided to go with the Microcool as soon
as I saw it. I, like you, can only guess if there was an improvement as I
swapped mine out before firing it up as well.

BFD

--
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe rev2.0 Demoulous Uber Bios 1005
Athlon XP 1700+ T'bred B running 12 x 166 (~2.0 GHz) @ 1.6volt
512 Corsair TwinX 2700LL 2-2-2-6
WinXP Pro SP1
CM Aero 7+ w/ Arctic Ceramique
Microcool North Pole w/ Arctic Ceramique
Southbridge w/ generic heatsink
Serial ATA chip w/ heatsink
All Mosfets w/ Microcool heatsinks
TDK 40x12x40 CDRW / JVC LiteOn 16X DVD-Rom
Western Digital 120GB Serial ATA / Sony FDD
MSI GeForce4 Ti4200 VTD128
2x 53CFM Mechatronics intake fans
2x 32.5CFM Sunbeam CCFL exhaust fans
Vantec ION 400W PSU w/ two fans
 
Big said:
Ben,

Why did you choose to put the original heatsink back on after you
removed it. I am curious because, as you will see below, I went with
the Microcool NorthPole heatsink and fan. I was originally going to
at minimum replace it with the Zalmann NB heatsink, but decided to go
with the Microcool as soon as I saw it. I, like you, can only guess
if there was an improvement as I swapped mine out before firing it up
as well.
Click to expand...

As I said, I never really intended to improve performance, I just wanted to
see what was written on the chip.

When I put it back on, I thought I'd use AS3 since I had some.

Ben
 
Chris said:
I replaced the chipset fan on my KD7 because out of the box it looked like
it wasn't really upto the job for overclocking.
My sys temps hovered between 50-55C! This may have been because of the
positioning of the sys-temp sensor though.

In an attempt to improve this I removed the stock fan (which wasnt even
rigged upto a speed sensor) then used artic silver adhesive to stick a
40x40mm heatsink, the bottom of which I polished, to the northbridge chip.
On top of that went a 40mm delta fan which spins at near 7000rpm! (says
Winbond). This stops my sys temp ever going over 39C even when the room is
warm. My highest stable fsb is now 183, limited by the 1;5 pci divider I
think not the actual northbridge.

I bought this board mid december just gone, now I fancy a NF7-S v2.0
Click to expand...
;0)

I am getting this!!

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/minochcokit.html
 
Big F'N Deal said:
Ben,

Why did you choose to put the original heatsink back on after you removed
it. I am curious because, as you will see below, I went with the Microcool
NorthPole heatsink and fan. I was originally going to at minimum replace it
with the Zalmann NB heatsink, but decided to go with the Microcool as soon
as I saw it. I, like you, can only guess if there was an improvement as I
swapped mine out before firing it up as well.
Click to expand...

Same here, that NorthPole NB cooler rocks..i'd use the Zalman NB heatsink
for the Southbridge.
 
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