How hot is hot? (southbridge overheating)

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zolointo

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Posted a previous thread about suspicions that the southbridge chipset on my motherboard was overheating, but didn't qualify with stats.

The hot part in question is the big metal MSI-labelled chunk in this picture:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/200604/msik8ndiaplus_full.jpg

There's a heatpipe that connects the southbridge to the northbridge heatsink/fan. Confirmed that the northbridge is generally warm to the touch and the fan is working.

I wedged a probe into a little space around the heatpipe. Still working on temperature tracking from totally cold boot to crash, but here's what I have so far.
  • PC had been running all day
  • Turned off the PC and did some dust cleaning / probe placing for about 20 minutes
  • Turned on PC, turned off front intake fan
    [*]Probe reads temp of 40 C​
  • 5 minutes later, Windows desktop up.
    [*]Probe reads 55 C​
  • Left computer to idle for 15 minutes.
    [*]Probe reads 78 C​
  • Cranked up front intake 120mm fan and left PC to idle overnight.
    [*] Probe reads 66 C in the morning​

Stress testing planned for tonight. In the meantime, re: post title, how hot is hot? The southbridge heatsink is hot to the point that even touching it for 1 second is too much.

I know some stuff generally runs hot, but is 78 C at idle TOO hot? Can I conclusively say that this is the source of USB/Bluescreening problems?
 
I know some stuff generally runs hot, but is 78 C at idle TOO hot?
Click to expand...

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on non-Intel chipsets.

IMO yes, offhand I cant understand unless there was very heavy I/O (HD array rebuild, big bunch of USB devices with constant activity etc.) why temps like that should be on the SB.

(side note: It makes me wonder what the Northbridge/Nvidia chip is running at and if the heat-pipe is working as it should as the pic show a fan (i think) on the Northbridge part of the heat-pipe, the concern being that the Nortbridge portion of the heatpipe is heating the entire assembly due to some kind of heat-pipe failure ).

Can I conclusively say that this is the source of USB/Bluescreening problems
Click to expand...

I don't know about conclusively but my opinion is that it seems a pretty good bet. I would slap a fan on it and see if that helps any and if it does I would want to further investigate the heat-pipe assuming there is no/little I/O activity.

Monitoring NB temps would be helpful too.

I would be in touch with MSI tech support and their forum where more people that use that board are likely to be hanging around and could make a comparison with your board. You have some decent data there that should help someone more familiar with that board to decide if the south-bridge/heat-pipe is the problem. It certainly seems too hot to me but see disclaimer.

Bottom line, nothing on that board should be so hot you cant put your finger on a heatsink and cannot even get to a count of 2 before being forced to remove. And at idle/low utilization even more so. Again IMO (disclaimer).
 
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Interesting idea about the northbridge being the source of the problem... that also brings something else to mind: If the southbridge is THAT hot, wouldn't the northbridge heatsink be heating up too? Because it's not. Very curious indeed!

Thanks for the response, Bill. I think you have functioned as the sounding board that I need to buy more things for my computer. Just need to find a kit that will fit there as the video card is very close by. I'll leave this thread as is for now, but will chime in if I meet with success later on!
 
If the southbridge is THAT hot, wouldn't the northbridge heatsink be heating up too? Because it's not. Very curious indeed!
Click to expand...

You are right. The fan on the NB is a bit of wildcard on the whole situation. I think the SB has become defective constantly pouring out the +5 current for USB devices that are not there or some such crazyness. I just dont know enough about MSI's current boards but yeah, send it back with USB defective/SB overheats RMA.
 
I had this issue with a Intel board while ago, had a large card blocking the SB heatsink from the airflow of the rest of the system, fixed my problem by cable-tieing a small fan on to the heatsink and fixed the problem. Fixed a NB overheating issue I had by using one of those Thermalright HR-05 heatsinks, works great even now running passively over the past 3 years almost running max 36'C with a thermal temperature hardware probe under the base of the heatsink. SB usually don't run hot, unless there was a power leak being defective esp when your using heaps of devices connected to the mb, i.e BillParrish's last post
 
@all

RMA is probably out of the question. Mobo is over 3-4 years old at this point... old enough that I can't remember when I bought it.

I disassembled the entire box last night. The northbridge/southbridge heatpipe setup is an all-in-one piece. You can't just remove the heat pipe and replace _just_ the northbridge or _just_ the southbridge kit.

Problem was that the unit was held in place with those plastic pogo pins, so I had to snip the ends off in order to remove the unit. If I had found replacement pogo pins somewhere, I probably could have just put some thermal grease on the NB/SB chips and put the unit back on... no idea where to find those things easily unfortunately.

I ended up getting a fat passive heat sink for the NB, and a "SUPER TWINKLE WONDER VGA PHAN COULER" for the southbridge (older orbs like the Iceberq are difficult to track down locally). Not entirely happy with the result as the components aren't as solidly attached to the mobo as I'd like. In particular, the NB heatsink is held on by pogo pins in the upper right and lower left corners only, so it wiggles if you touch it.

Going to run a stress test on it over the weekend to see if I can make it bluescreen in the same way. Hopefully have remedied the problem in the meantime.

Just for sake of documentation, southbridge controlled devices would be
- 3x sata HDDs
- 1x sata DVDRW
- USB Keyboard
- USB Mouse
- USB Wireless-N
- USB card reader
- USB 2.0 hub
- sometimes: 1-2 USB thumbdrives
 
Ahh I see, I got 6 USB devices connected to mine, and 4 sata drives and 2 optical drives, and my southbridge temp doesn't go over 29'C, and its some cheapy GB small heatsink with "pogo pins" holding tight to the mb. SB heatsinks are usually held down by some extremely sticky TIM and its pretty hard getting them off sometimes.

Heres some current pics of mine
http://img85.imageshack.us/i/24072010509.jpg/
http://img299.imageshack.us/i/24072010508.jpg/
http://img408.imageshack.us/i/24072010506.jpg/

Had a look at yours on google, seems MSI has used a custom heatsink for your board, your best bet is to clean the Thermal Paste off the all-in-one NB and SB heatsink, use rubbing alcohol (Isopropyl Alcohol from dvd cleaners) and clean it completely off, next up is that reapply grade-a AC5 or equiv. thermal paste and make sure its in full contact, about the "pogo pins" your best bet is to grab another "pogo pin" off another unused heatsink and attach it on, my stock HR-05 pins broke, so I had to "cut" down and re-make into the original shape with another set of "pogo pins" I obtained off a unused graphics card heatsink and reclipped them. Another suggestion is that, you could try test with certain amount of USB devices connected, could be some thumbdrive that is drawing heaps of power because its faulty or so, I had a Sony Microvault 2G thumbdrive kill the SB on a older AMD board, weird problem though, and also do test with your system to ensure stability with different devices connected etc.

Hope this somewhat helped.
 
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If its the pins I think you are talking about you don't snip, you squeeze the flared part out and push it through the board.
 
BillParrish said:
You are right. The fan on the NB is a bit of wildcard on the whole situation. I think the SB has become defective constantly pouring out the +5 current for USB devices that are not there or some such crazyness. I just dont know enough about MSI's current boards but yeah, send it back with USB defective/SB overheats RMA.
Click to expand...
Maybe I'm stupid but I don't see how it could pour out current unless there was a short, there is nothing to pour out current to with nothing hooked up? If it was pouring out too much on stuff that is there I would expect to see some dead devices.

zolointo said:
@all

RMA is probably out of the question. Mobo is over 3-4 years old at this point... old enough that I can't remember when I bought it.

I disassembled the entire box last night. The northbridge/southbridge heatpipe setup is an all-in-one piece. You can't just remove the heat pipe and replace _just_ the northbridge or _just_ the southbridge kit.

Problem was that the unit was held in place with those plastic pogo pins, so I had to snip the ends off in order to remove the unit. If I had found replacement pogo pins somewhere, I probably could have just put some thermal grease on the NB/SB chips and put the unit back on... no idea where to find those things easily unfortunately.

I ended up getting a fat passive heat sink for the NB, and a "SUPER TWINKLE WONDER VGA PHAN COULER" for the southbridge (older orbs like the Iceberq are difficult to track down locally). Not entirely happy with the result as the components aren't as solidly attached to the mobo as I'd like. In particular, the NB heatsink is held on by pogo pins in the upper right and lower left corners only, so it wiggles if you touch it.

Going to run a stress test on it over the weekend to see if I can make it bluescreen in the same way. Hopefully have remedied the problem in the meantime.

Just for sake of documentation, southbridge controlled devices would be
- 3x sata HDDs
- 1x sata DVDRW
- USB Keyboard
- USB Mouse
- USB Wireless-N
- USB card reader
- USB 2.0 hub
- sometimes: 1-2 USB thumbdrives
Click to expand...

my bet is that resetting the heat sink will fix it for you. Maybe it became loose over time giving you high temps?
 
@all: Thanks for all of the suggestions.

@SlowCobra: Tried doing that, but I couldn't seem to crush them down enough to get them back through the board... anyhow, I had snipped them before you mentioned this.

So after replacing the NB/SB with new heatsinks (SB has a crappy fan on it, too), I thought everything was hunky dory. A day later, bluescreens again.

Problem not solved.

I suspect that the mobo is pooched. When I had removed it from the mobo tray, I _did_ notice that one very tiny section on the backside looked like a tiny explosion had taken place... a small circle of gray on the blackish board. Thought it might be residue from an adhesive label I might have pulled off, but now I'm thinking that something went kablooie.

Funny thing is that any stress test that I throw at it doesn't bluescreen the box. It seems through random casual usage that the machine trips up.

I'm just going to deal with it as a junker until I have the chance to refresh (for the first time in five years!) in the fall/winter.

Again, @all, thanks for the troubleshooting recommendations. I always know I can count on this board for solid advice!
 
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