Mainboard temp twice as hot as CPU?

[matteos]

A little help here?

I'm confused, why would my mainboard temp be 59c? Thats so much hotter than my GPU or CPU

Motherboard is biostar 890FXE, could it be a loose heatsink, bad sensor etc. Not really familiar with the CPU-ID software so don't know which part is so hot.

 

[munkle]

could it be a loose heatsink, bad sensor

Yes. Mainboard is usually the chipset heatsink.

 

[War Zone]

ya but not all ways .try different software .sometimes one app gets it wrong but the other games it right.

as well some motherboards have really lame heat sinks on their chip-sets .
you might want to look in to that if that's were the thermal diode is if not and its just a ambient air sensor on your mobo then you might want to do something about the ventilation in side your case .

btw what motherboard are you using and what case\fan setup are you using ?

 

[matteos]

ya but not all ways .try different software .sometimes one app gets it wrong but the other games it right.

as well some motherboards have really lame heat sinks on their chip-sets .
you might want to look in to that if that's were the thermal diode is if not and its just a ambient air sensor on your mobo then you might want to do something about the ventilation in side your case .

btw what motherboard are you using and what case\fan setup are you using ?

I've got an Antec 900, I left all the fans on high on default so there's good airflow. Mobo is Biostar 890 FXE.

I just downloaded Speedfan and its the same temp with that... I've never reseated heatsinks on a mobo before, is it similar to the CPU? or could it just be a faulty sensor?

 

[War Zone]

resetting heat sinks is the same as all the rest really just be shore to have some thermal goo on hand when doing this kind of thing .my self i have a tube the size of a small toothpaste tube.

price $6
type of thermal goo used imho is over rated.i remember one review were buddy did use toothpaste as a joke in the review vs all the rest.funny part was it won the review for lowest temp

and my self i have five 92" 5000 rpm case fans + custom heat sink & fans everywhere.
you case looks fine fan\air flow wise from the pics i found. so its not that.

i see that your chip-set is using passive cooling sadly so was mine at first till i added my top-secrit weapon vs heat.

sadly the main chip for the chip-set is badly setup imho and at the same time is dependent on air flowing to it from your cpu cooler.
depending on the cooler used this could be very bad heat wise for your chip-set .water cooling would be the worse seeing as their would be no air flow going at the chip-set heat sink.

if your lucky you can pop off the bio-star plate and just bolt a fan $5 fan on the side of it .this should lower your Northbridge temps by like -40% ish

btw +60c is most likely ok for a chip of its kind and is still with in the limits of what the chip can do but its getting their heat wise if you know what i mean and i know my self id like lower numbers if it were my call.

 

[matteos]

resetting heat sinks is the same as all the rest really just be shore to have some thermal goo on hand when doing this kind of thing .my self i have a tube the size of a small toothpaste tube.

price $6
type of thermal goo used imho is over rated.i remember one review were buddy did use toothpaste as a joke in the review vs all the rest.funny part was it won the review for lowest temp

and my self i have five 92" 5000 rpm case fans + custom heat sink & fans everywhere.
you case looks fine fan\air flow wise from the pics i found. so its not that.

i see that your chip-set is using passive cooling sadly so was mine at first till i added my top-secrit weapon vs heat.

sadly the main chip for the chip-set is badly setup imho and at the same time is dependent on air flowing to it from your cpu cooler.
depending on the cooler used this could be very bad heat wise for your chip-set .water cooling would be the worse seeing as their would be no air flow going at the chip-set heat sink.

if your lucky you can pop off the bio-star plate and just bolt a fan $5 fan on the side of it .this should lower your Northbridge temps by like -40% ish

btw +60c is most likely ok for a chip of its kind and is still with in the limits of what the chip can do but its getting their heat wise if you know what i mean and i know my self id like lower numbers if it were my call.

Thanks for the help. I see what my problem is, the chipset is sandwiched between my CPU cooler (coolermaster V8) and my 6950, due to the nature of their designs not much air is getting to the heatsink. Might see if I can spin my cpu cooler round 90 degrees so it is blowing hot air upwards out of the case and also sucks the hot air from the chipset.

 

[War Zone]

cheers
Thermaltake Bigwater my self.
first one ever made...

really if it were my call your northbridge chip-set cooler would look like this + the heat-pipe going wherever + active fan

 

[matteos]

cheers
Thermaltake Bigwater my self.
first one ever made...

really if it were my call your northbridge chip-set cooler would look like this + the heat-pipe going whatever + active fan

Ok, there's definitely issues with the design of this board, I've took my case apart (realised the back fan was on the wrong way round... whoops) added a fan blowing onto the northbridge chipset.. and the temp rose, its about 61c idle. I think the sensor may be relating to the southbridge chipset which is entirely covered by my 6950.

The layout of the chipsets on this board is bad. The chipsets themselves dont seem so great either, don't know what to do, there's no real room to add a bigger heatsink on the southbridge, I may try to ghetto mod a fan blowing over the southbridge taped to the top of my video card, but if that doesn't lower the temperatures I don't know... Its very strange. All my other temps including CPU are 26c and this is 61.

 

[matteos]

I've ghetto modded a fan nearby sucking the air from the southbridge heatsink. temp has dropped to 53 degrees. I wish biostar had incorporated a heatpipe between northbridge and southbridge. I may have to try a make something like that, that would be a much better solution. The southbridge heatsink can't feasibly get any bigger (it is small) as the video card fits flush over the top.

silly placement of it.

 

[War Zone]

Southbridge chip you might be able to replace it with something like this seeing as height Is the only problem heat sink wise .well you do have a feu caps that are really in the way.hemmm
Seeing as the pin size will probably not match you can use thermal tape to get around the problem
link
If you want to go full on ghetto mod stile you can use double sided sticky tape
Some are better then others.

I went looking for the white paper for your chip-set today but after like 45 min i gave up .
So i have no idea what the thermal limits are on the integrated circuit in question .
Best guess its anywhere from 60c~100c before thermal death but really i don't know.
Your guess is as good as mine.

In any-case when you start getting close to the limit what starts happening is the computer becomes unstable.
This is more often than not the wake up call that theirs a problem somewhere.
In this case heat.

Seeing as were on the topic of ghetto mods do you like my BFG 9800gt 600@680mgz ?

 

[matteos]

Thanks for your help Warzone, lol your video card is cool. I don't want to stick with teh ghetto mods too long as I spent a while painting the inside of my case and doing cable management and all the things to make it look nice. I'll see if I can get a better heatsink with fan like the one you posted.