Motherboard Temperature

[tx00824]

I have got ASUS Rampage Extreme x48, and recently just to check some other things I installed this Asus PC Probe 2, it shows that my Motherboard temperature is to high, it is 46°C, this alert is triggered at 45°C in this software.

Is this really to high temperature? What does it even mean motherboard temperature, I mean mobo is the biggest component inside PC and I would like to know exactly which part of it is overheating, so I could do something about it.

 

[ZodaEX]

I think thats your mobo chipset temp. What app says thats too hot?

 

[aphasia]

asus x38/x48 chipset MB's should give you 3 board temps, NB, SB & MB. the NB & SB sensor location is obvious tho i could never figure out where the temp sensor for the MB was.

the x38/x48 NB's ran hot. i've got a Asus Maximus Formula (x38) and the only way i could get it under control during oc'ing was to stick a water block on it. have removed it now and have to rely on air.
when it was water cooled, it would max out at low 40's. on air, mid 50's.

if the temps in your post are for the NB, then it's not too bad, tho better if lower. if PC probe doesn't give all the board temps, try HWmonitor or Everest (has been renamed, can't remember it atm). if the NB is reading 45-46, can you get a fan blowing over it?

 

[tx00824]

aphasia, PC Probe shows me all available information: voltages, rpm's and temperatures.

Below I have included a screenshot right after playing a game. It is strange that without any OC temps are so high. MB temperature alert is set to 45°C on default in pc probe..

 

[iconiK]

High? 47 degrees Celsius is HIGH?! The northbridge is rated to run much hotter than that - 47C is lukewarm for electronics.

 

[aphasia]

aphasia, PC Probe shows me all available information: voltages, rpm's and temperatures.

Below I have included a screenshot right after playing a game. It is strange that without any OC temps are so high. MB temperature alert is set to 45°C on default in pc probe..

i had issues on my x38 board with MB temp when i ran graphically intense programs (gaming). the heat from the GPU dumped into the case caused my MB temp sensor to skyrocket. the video card in my system was in lower PCIe slot with aftermarket heatsink/fan (the reference cooler died) so heat was exhausted into case rather than outside. led me to believe MB sensor was on lower half of board. had to crack the side of my case and power up a desk fan to cool it in warmer weather.

looking at the temps, i'd be more worried about the NB temp. i know i had stability issues if my NB was hitting 50's.

i'm surprised at your SB temp, that should run cooler than NB.

from memory there wasn't much difference between the x38 & x48. think use of DDR3 RAM rather than DDR2 was the only difference. looks like there is a slight bump in your NB volts. you say you're not OC'ing, but according to PC-probe it's at 1.33v (is stock supposed to be 1.25v?). check your bios, it might be your board is over volting.

what kind of heat sink is on your chipset (standard heatsink, heat pipe)? can you get a fan blowing on it?

 

[tx00824]

High? 47 degrees Celsius is HIGH?! The northbridge is rated to run much hotter than that - 47C is lukewarm for electronics.

That is a thing I don't really know what MB normal working temperature should be I was trying to find that out but no one seems to know. I am waiting for reply from asus so if they tell me I will post it here. This 47°C is on red because default settings in PC Probe is set this way.

i had issues on my x38 board with MB temp when i ran graphically intense programs (gaming). the heat from the GPU dumped into the case caused my MB temp sensor to skyrocket. the video card in my system was in lower PCIe slot with aftermarket heatsink/fan (the reference cooler died) so heat was exhausted into case rather than outside. led me to believe MB sensor was on lower half of board. had to crack the side of my case and power up a desk fan to cool it in warmer weather.

looking at the temps, i'd be more worried about the NB temp. i know i had stability issues if my NB was hitting 50's.

i'm surprised at your SB temp, that should run cooler than NB.

from memory there wasn't much difference between the x38 & x48. think use of DDR3 RAM rather than DDR2 was the only difference. looks like there is a slight bump in your NB volts. you say you're not OC'ing, but according to PC-probe it's at 1.33v (is stock supposed to be 1.25v?). check your bios, it might be your board is over volting.

what kind of heat sink is on your chipset (standard heatsink, heat pipe)? can you get a fan blowing on it?

Here's the thing I have recently bought some new RAM, 16GB of Corsair XMS3 which is 1600MHz, it replaced my OCZ ReaperX 4GB 2x2GB 1333 MHz. I needed as much memory as I could get into my machine for 3D Graphics. Strange thing is that it is all recognized and working very well and online specs on Asus shows that my mobo should be able to handle up to 8GB only, but somehow it works! I had to buy 1600MHz memory because it was in 4 sticks times 4GB each, I couldn't find 1333MHz in this configuration, anyway it was cheap too.

So this might be my little bump in the voltages. Everything in the BIOS is on automatic settings, I didn't tune anything manually.

• If you have a look at the picture of my motherboard, I have my 4870x2 in the top blue pci slot, this could be the source of my SB heat (I assume it is on the south of my board as the name says, this makes sense for me , this part is covered by the card). This graphic card I have it is nearly melting during the high stress times like playing game or rendering.
• Right after I bought it I removed my water block from the chipset and replaced it with the normal air based radiators included in the box (top left corner). There is an optional small fan to blow at this radiator. I will install it and see if it makes any difference.

I will try this little fan and see if it will do the trick, if not, would you think about installing water cooling? I mean apart of this red flag I get in pc probe everything works no hangs/freezes

 

[aphasia]

That is a thing I don't really know what MB normal working temperature should be I was trying to find that out but no one seems to know. I am waiting for reply from asus so if they tell me I will post it here. This 47°C is on red because default settings in PC Probe is set this way.





Here's the thing I have recently bought some new RAM, 16GB of Corsair XMS3 which is 1600MHz, it replaced my OCZ ReaperX 4GB 2x2GB 1333 MHz. I needed as much memory as I could get into my machine for 3D Graphics. Strange thing is that it is all recognized and working very well and online specs on Asus shows that my mobo should be able to handle up to 8GB only, but somehow it works! I had to buy 1600MHz memory because it was in 4 sticks times 4GB each, I couldn't find 1333MHz in this configuration, anyway it was cheap too.

So this might be my little bump in the voltages. Everything in the BIOS is on automatic settings, I didn't tune anything manually.

• If you have a look at the picture of my motherboard, I have my 4870x2 in the top blue pci slot, this could be the source of my SB heat (I assume it is on the south of my board as the name says, this makes sense for me , this part is covered by the card). This graphic card I have it is nearly melting during the high stress times like playing game or rendering.
• Right after I bought it I removed my water block from the chipset and replaced it with the normal air based radiators included in the box (top left corner). There is an optional small fan to blow at this radiator. I will install it and see if it makes any difference.

I will try this little fan and see if it will do the trick, if not, would you think about installing water cooling? I mean apart of this red flag I get in pc probe everything works no hangs/freezes

yeah i recon you're having the same problem i had with MB temp sensor overheating.
to remedy this, try positioning a 120mm fan inside your case and move it around to isolate where the temp sensor is. if you can pin-point it, get a fan on it.

running with all 4 DIMMs full is pretty stressful for the NB and generally it requires a manual bump of the NB voltage. it seems you're board has already done this for you. you might be able to drop it a bit to get it closer to the default 1.25v. you never know, full DIMM population might run at stock volts on the NB. also what's the default voltage for your RAM (1.5v, 1.6v?) you board has it near 1.6v. if the RAM is rated @ 1.5v, you might be able to drop it slightly.

regarding water cooling you chipset, would i recommend it -yes.
i had my Asus X38 MB water cooled for around 3 years. you know a chipset is hot when the manufacturer (asus) releases a MB fitted from the factory with a water block. pity the block was a bit average.

shortly after i got my x38, i ripped the chipset sink (covering the NB & SB) off and slapped on 2 chipset water blocks (swiftech MCW30's) on both the NB & SB. dropped the temps dramatically (15C + during load). you could do the same, if you can get a full cover water block (that covers the NB, SB & VRM's), do that. if there are no full cover blocks available for your MB, individual chipset blocks will do. you will have to however find a way to cool the voltage regulation around the CPU socket.

with the heat dumped into the case from the GPU that's tripping the MB sensor, either use a better heatsink/fan on the GPU that exhausts more heat outside the case or setup a fan in front of the graphics card, pop a few PCI slot covers off to get rid of the heat.

another alternative is to pick a GPU waterblock. that would solve the problem. not sure you'd want to spend a lot of cash on one however considering the age of the card. might be able to get one cheap second-hand.

another thing to consider is hitting up other tech forums. i know extremesystems forum had a couple of massive threads dedicated to my asus maximus forumula for overclocking, tweaking etc. it was where i got the majority of the info to setup my board.
as your board is a asus ROG board as well, there should be something similar out there too.

 

[tx00824]

aphasia, I think I will start off with the fan, I've got one 3600rpms and will try today to find out where I would have to position it. If this won't help then I will get the water cooling. The thing is as you said it is an oldish rig now and I am thinking about a universal water cooling kit so it will be good for the future computer.

I would like to hit two birds with one stone if I buy this water cooling, so besides of better heat dissipation I want less noise. Would you have any suggestions for good cooling kits? (I would like a kit for NB, CPU and VGA) I am thinking about this Zalman Reserator 1 v2

If you look on the picture of my mobo it is all interconnected, NB, SB and on the top and left of the CPU so with one cooling on the NB it should cool all what do you think?

 

[iconiK]

The northbridge and southbridge temperatures ARE PERFECTLY NORMAL, ACTUALLY ON THE COOL SIDE. No need to adjust voltages.

 

[tx00824]

Ok so I have made some rearrangement inside the case:

• I have moved my VGA to the lower slot so South Bridge is nicely exposed and not affected by its heat
• I installed extra fan blowing at the South Bridge and North Bridge as I found out that somewhere over there is this MB sensor.
• I have cleanded my CPU fan (zalman 9700) it was all dusty and between blades was so much dust that the air was bounced back into the case instead of flowing through it and then out the case, this way I could lower the CPU rpms almost by half and while the cpu temp is lower by almost 10 degrees

It all makes a bit of change to the situation, ambient temp in the case is much lower now, but when I turn on the game MB temp rises rapidly within 3 minutes to about 56°C (which is lower than before 60°C) Right after I turn of the game temp is falling very quickly to about 40°C. (Have a look at the screenshots below)

Computer doesn't shut down anymore now on itself, is 56°C acceptable?? I know it is not good but can it stay this way now?

1 Before any changes - during a game

2 After Installing extra fan and moving VGA to lower slot - on Idle

3 After Installing extra fan and moving VGA to lower slot - during a game

4 After Installing extra fan and moving VGA to lower slot - on Idle

 

[aphasia]

that's a massive improvement for the NB & SB temps. those temps for NB & SB (idle & load in the 40's) are much more comfortable.

the temps you had before on the NB & SB would similar to that of a system heavily overclocked. the voltage on the NB may still be a little high for a stock clocked system (1.33v) but considering how much you've dropped the temps, you could probably ignore it.
good work.

regarding the MB temp sensor, don't know. as i said i was never able to pin point the exact location on my board. i'd suggest you hit up the Asus forums or find a dedicated thread to your Asus board on extremesystems or overclock.net forums.

the threshold for the MB temp sensor should be adjustable in the bios. search the various forums that centre on your motherboard to see what they say is safe. if it's normal to run at high 50's, raise the threshold to prevent warnings / system shut downs. definitely check, don't just raise it to make warnings go away.

 

[tx00824]

CASE SOLVED​

Guys I have finally found the location of MB sensor!! I have compared temperatures in my PC Probe with SpeedFan and once I knew which one it is I read the components name, which then pointed me exactly to the right spot on the motherboard, in my case it is a Winbond I/O chip. Strange that it gets so much overheated but it must be my Radeon's fault it gets extremely hot during a game and it is very close to it.

This method can be used for the future motherboards to get the exact location of MB sensors. I have tested it and once I directed my fan on to the chip the temperature dropped down massively! Have a look below at the screenshots.

Look below at the temperatures I am getting now, first one is on idle (with the OPT Fan 1 is on 100% which is not necessary but since it is not to noisy I will leave it as it is)

and this one is at the stress during the game (OPT Fan 1 is still on 100%) Temps on the NB and SB are a bit higher than in my previous post because fan is no longer blowing at them, instead it is directed on the winbond chip.

I also included some pictures where is the sensor on my mother board and how I have directed the fan, on the pictures it is screwed into the case on this piece of metal frame as it came with my old abit motherboard. But I found out it works much better when I just place over the chip from the above at the angle of about 45°.

Sensor location is somewhere near this chip

This is how it is all attached

I am thinking about installing two fans in the case just behind the HDD's (second picture up from here) they would take cold air from outside the case and blow it inside to make a better circulation and also I want to install one fan in the back behind the CPU cooler which would help to remove hot air from the case. (I know it is a bit of an overkill, but it gives me so much pleasure to make it as efficient as possible) I will stay out of the water cooling for a moment and wait what new ideas they will come up with in year or two.

CASE SOLVED​

 

[tx00824]

CASE SOLVED​

Guys I have finally found the location of MB sensor!! I have compared temperatures in my PC Probe with SpeedFan and once I knew which one it is I read the components name, which then pointed me exactly to the right spot on the motherboard, in my case it is a Winbond I/O chip. Strange that it gets so much overheated but it must be my Radeon's fault it gets extremely hot during a game and it is very close to it.

This method can be used for the future motherboards to get the exact location of MB sensors. I have tested it and once I directed my fan on to the chip the temperature dropped down massively! Have a look below at the screenshots.

Look below at the temperatures I am getting now, first one is on idle (with the OPT Fan 1 is on 100% which is not necessary but since it is not to noisy I will leave it as it is)

and this one is at the stress during the game (OPT Fan 1 is still on 100%) Temps on the NB and SB are a bit higher than in my previous post because fan is no longer blowing at them, instead it is directed on the Winbond W83667HG chip.

I also included some pictures where is the sensor on my mother board and how I have directed the fan, on the pictures it is screwed into the case on this piece of metal frame as it came with my old abit motherboard. But I found out it works much better when I just place over the chip from the above at the angle of about 45°.

Sensor location is somewhere near this chip

This is how it is all attached

I am thinking about installing two fans in the case just behind the HDD's (second picture up from here) they would take cold air from outside the case and blow it inside to make a better circulation and also I want to install one fan in the back behind the CPU cooler which would help to remove hot air from the case. (I know it is a bit of an overkill, but it gives me so much pleasure to make it as efficient as possible) I will stay out of the water cooling for a moment and wait what new ideas they will come up with in year or two.

CASE SOLVED​