Northbridge heatsink question.

I accidentally bumped the chipset heatsink while installing a new cpu cooler on my 870A-USB3 mobo. It is attached with two spring loaded pish pins and because they are at opposite corners of the heatsink it wobble pretty easily. I don't know if actual thermal paste or pads were used at the factory but I'm wondering if I should remove the heatsink and apply good paste to it now. I had never paid attention to the temp other than cpu before but I see after about an hour of bf3 the system temp is at 48c. I'm not an expert so if that is fine I won't worry about it, and the system is running fine so I may be worried for nothing. Any opinions would be appreciated. System specs in sig inside a Cooler Master 690 ll I and just added a 212+ cooler because the stock was brutally loud under a load.

You probably don't HAVE to do anything but I always like to put whatever thermal paste cools best. It should buy you a few degrees and they are super easy to remove and put back on.

Go for it.

Well I tried it and I'm glad I did because the stuff on there was very hard and you could see where the bond broke when I accidentally rocked it. I put a thin layer of some stuff that came with my Hyper 212+ on it. The machine seems to be running fine so I may not have helped it but at least I don't think I hurt it.

merc68 said:

Well I tried it and I'm glad I did because the stuff on there was very hard

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That was thermal glue, not paste. It's commonly used when the heatsink isn't properly secured to the motherboard (AKA the manufacturer is a fuckin' cheap bastard).

first thing i always do when i buy a new mobo is fire it up on a table and if it posts the i remove all heatsinks and apply a known good paste on all of them...im a temp nut anyway snd hot running chips drive me nuts...since 1996 ive never had a board fail in my personal rig..i attribute this to very cool running systems...my current x58 setup runs so cool compared to most peoples x58 rigs...

It is holding steady at 39c after sitting idle for the last hour but I did have a video card driver stop responding earlier which is a first for this setup so that bothers me a little bit. The hottest it got last night after applying the thermal paste was 48c after an extended session of BF3. Do those temps sound reasonable?

merc68 said:

It is holding steady at 39c after sitting idle for the last hour but I did have a video card driver stop responding earlier which is a first for this setup so that bothers me a little bit. The hottest it got last night after applying the thermal paste was 48c after an extended session of BF3. Do those temps sound reasonable?

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Yes those are very reasonable temps.As far as the driver crash unless your card is getting hot,then I wouldn't worry about it too much unless it happened often and with different games.