"JJO" said:
Stop me if you have been this spot before. A friend's in-law has a system
with this motherboard. The problem as stated to me was that the system had a
virus and he wanted it cleaned off. Ok so he had two hard drives and wanted
XP on one and the other cleaned and installed as a slave.
I installed XP and all went well....at first (with only one hard drive
installed). I had a minor problem with XP but attributed that to drivers
problems. Now enter the second hard drive and the system really became
unstable. After about 3 or 4 hours reinstalls of XP became less stable. I
also noticed a fair amount of heat in the case and started to wonder if the
PS was giving me trouble. Lo and behold I see that the fan for the system
controller chipset (VT8363A) is toast and who knows how long it has not been
working. So the question becomes, is it possible that the MB is shot because
they have been running it for some time without proper chipset cooling. The
case really leaves something to be desired for cooling, it seems like it is
trapping rather than eliminating heat.
Thanks for any input.
Regards,
John O.
If it isn't dead yet, then fix the cooling, and it could run
for a long time to come. Either buy a replacement 40mm fan
with tacho output, or you could opt for passive cooling, like
these Zalman Northbridge heatsinks. These have adjustable
arms on them, to align with the holes in the motherboard.
(Note: Avoid the temptation to use what is called "thermal
epoxy" - that compound, while nicely fastening a heatsink
to the Northbridge, cannot be removed again, and your cooling
solution should be removable, in case you need to send the mobo
back to Asus under warranty. Keep the old Northbridge cooling
solution, in case there is any time left on the warranty.)
http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/code_list.asp?code=014
For a passive cooler to work well, it helps if the CPU
heatsink/fan "spills" air onto the fins of the passive
heatsink. So, sometimes, a different CPU heatsink/fan, coupled
with the passive heatsink, will allow two devices to be cooled
with the CPU fan. If you aren't interested in that much
fooling around, the replacement 40mm fan is a lot easier
to arrange.
Once the Northbridge is fixed, you may want to check the
CPU temperature, using the monitor in the BIOS. If the temperature
is on the high side for the processor, perhaps reapplying thermal
paste between the CPU and the CPU heatsink will improve things.
With an AMD processor, try not to get paste on the bridges beside
the CPU silicon core - you can test how much the paste spreads
by putting a tiny dot the size of the head of a pin, onto the
silicon die, press the heatsink into it, then remove and examine
the pattern. That will help gauge how much is needed to get a
thin even layer onto the die (the paste is there to fill gaps and
correct for non-planarity in the surfaces of the CPU and the
heatsink, not to become a "grease sandwich").
AMD has another opinion on the use of paste/grease:
http://www.xtremetek.com/info/index.php?id=14&page=1
For the computer case, you should have one additional fan, besides
the generally weak fan on the power supply. The power supply fan
is designed just to keep the power supply at whatever temp the
designers thought it needs. To keep the computer case at a
reasonable temperature, an additional fan helps. You can sometimes
get an idea as to how bad the cooling is, if the temp of the
case falls dramatically, just by removing the side cover of the
computer case, while the computer is running. That is a sign that
either additional fans are required, or that more holes are needed
in the case. If adding only one fan, I'd mount it on the back of
the computer, blowing out into the room.
This article mentions a delta of 7-10C between case air and
the room, as being the norm. A lower delta is better.
http://www.intel.com/technology/magazine/computing/dt11021.pdf
I have one case, for example, and it is equipped with a 120mm
fan. There simply aren't enough holes in the computer case for
a fan that big, and as soon as the case cover is opened, the fan
speed drops due to it not having to work as hard to move air
through the case. I fixed that partially, by removing some plastic
pieces from the front of the computer case. With a really old
computer case I'm still using, I built a fan assembly that fits
in front of the drive trays, to provide additional air input.
What case mods you attempt, will depend on how much money your
friend has to spend, and how bad the cooling is.
HTH,
Paul
