• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

northbridge overheating

T

twoodcc

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 25, 2009
Messages
265
well one of my i7 920 boxes keeps crashing due to the NorthBridge overheating (100 C). the cpu temps stay below 90C.

it's running at 3.822 ghz. this didn't start until i put a corsair H50 in it.

before the H50, i was overheating at 3.65 ghz. i put the H50 in, and i can hit over 3.8 ghz folding easy.

now i was folding with 2 x 260s. right after putting in the H50, the NB would overheat. after taking out 1 of the 260s, it would work okay. i could fold with 1 gpu and the cpu (bigadv). everything has been running great for the past 2 weeks.

until today. now the NB is overheating again. it's working right now with the 260 still in there, but not folding.

any ideas on what i can do about this?
 
What motherboard do you have? You might want to take off the NB heatsink and reapply thermel paste on it.
Also do you have active colling on the NB?
 
^^^ What gkanakis said....also you might just want to point an 80mm fan across that area of the MB if you can find a mounting point, just to provide some extra circulation. I used to focus one around that an my memory areas just to keep things nice and cool.
 
it's an ASUS machine that i bought last year at best buy. similar to this.

the motherboard is very small though. i'm beginning to consider just buying a new mobo and put in there. but if i can get this to work, then i'll save my money.
 
Axdrenalin said:
^^^ What gkanakis said....also you might just want to point an 80mm fan across that area of the MB if you can find a mounting point, just to provide some extra circulation. I used to focus one around that an my memory areas just to keep things nice and cool.
Click to expand...

I did this on one of my other computers and it worked well enough to keep everything happy.
 
oh no wonder its a prebuilt, add some system fans, open the side panel, point a box fan at it. plus Im sure the mobo isnt exactly "high-end" my foxconn mobo has a decent NB heatsink and doesnt overheat when I folded at 100*C cpu temps
 
40mm fans like this work great for a northbridge. As others have noted, all you need is a little airflow.
 
thanks for the replies.

i have a few issues:

1. there aren't many fan connections on this mobo. again, it's a very small motherboard. there might not be any extra connections.

2. i think something weird is going on here. i didn't have this problem before i upgraded the cooler. with 2 x 260s in there, it overheats with stock cpu speeds, and nothing folding. something can't be right there. i would just watch the NB temp go up to 100C, while the cpu temps was very low - it wasn't doing anything.

what if i took out a stick of RAM? would that help?
 
you cant overheat the northbridge without overheating the processor.. intel uses an internal IMC like AMD has used for years..

looks like your using auto voltages and its overvolting some of the voltages that are effecting your chipset.. this is the problem with using boards with nvidia chipsets.. now if you dont have a nvidia chipset on that board then id say you need to reseat that heatsink because theres no way it should be overheating with just an x58 chipset..

the 40/60/80mm fan idea's the best option..


twoodcc said:
thanks for the replies.

i have a few issues:

1. there aren't many fan connections on this mobo. again, it's a very small motherboard. there might not be any extra connections.

2. i think something weird is going on here. i didn't have this problem before i upgraded the cooler. with 2 x 260s in there, it overheats with stock cpu speeds, and nothing folding. something can't be right there. i would just watch the NB temp go up to 100C, while the cpu temps was very low - it wasn't doing anything.

what if i took out a stick of RAM? would that help?
Click to expand...

you have the issue now because theres no longer air going over the chipset heatsink from the cpu heatsink that was originally there..
 
was the previous CPU cooler a directional style? one fan? if there arnt enough mobo headers use a molex connection. the hot air from the 260s isnt been evacuated from the case.
 
the cooler i replaced with just a normal air heatsink and fan.

so you are telling me that since i have the watercooling, and no fan, the NB is overheating. so i need to put an air cooler back on there?
 
twoodcc said:
the cooler i replaced with just a normal air heatsink and fan.

so you are telling me that since i have the watercooling, and no fan, the NB is overheating. so i need to put an air cooler back on there?
Click to expand...

OEM HSFs also cool components around the socket area, stock you had two fans, with a H50 you went to one fan with a rad restriction
 
well with no gpus folding, i'm hitting 34min35sec per frame on p2686 unit (about 30k ppd). so not bad, but i would get more ppd out of this thing by running the 2 x 260s.

should i just try and push the cpu a little farther? (max temp so far is 85C). or try and get these gpus going?
 
twoodcc said:
well with no gpus folding, i'm hitting 34min35sec per frame on p2686 unit (about 30k ppd). so not bad, but i would get more ppd out of this thing by running the 2 x 260s.

should i just try and push the cpu a little farther? (max temp so far is 85C). or try and get these gpus going?
Click to expand...

Goto walmart buy a $10 box fan remove side cover & enjoy.
 
itsrickjames said:
Goto walmart buy a $10 box fan remove side cover & enjoy.
Click to expand...


dont even need that.. just buy a cheap 40 or 60mm fan.. a tube of clear high temp silicone.. put a dab of silicone in each corner of the fan and slap it to the chipset heatsink.. problem solved..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
dont even need that.. just buy a cheap 40 or 60mm fan.. a tube of clear high temp silicone.. put a dab of silicone in each corner of the fan and slap it to the chipset heatsink.. problem solved..
Click to expand...

box fan = [H]

siliconed 40mm fan = semi [H]

:D
 
haha, i might try the box fan. i already have one!

is there a good client to track NB temps?
 
86 5.0L said:
box fan = [H]

siliconed 40mm fan = semi [H]

:D
Click to expand...

box fan = if i have to listen to that thing 24/7 im going to kill some one..

siliconed 40mm fan = i might keep my sanity and not kill some one but something will get broken anyways..
 
well i went ahead and bumped the cpu to 4.0 ghz, took off the side case, and put the box fan right in front of it, and my temps are still lower than before!

but yeah, that thing is loud. i have it cranked to the highest setting. no way that it can stay in my bedroom for long
 
if it doesnt crash with the box fan, you'll know its an airflow issue
 
86 5.0L said:
if it doesnt crash with the box fan, you'll know its an airflow issue
Click to expand...

well i'm not folding with the gpus right now. i'm just excited that it's running at 4.0 ghz and the high temp is 75C!

i might as well try higher tomorrow if this continues!
 
My guess is that you will probably get more PPD if you fold on the GPUs, but it could be close. Some GPU WUs can use a lot of CPU, and that can really hurt your bigadv PPD. To know for sure, you'd have to turn on the GPUs for a while and see what the PPD looks like for various WUs. As long as you don't lose more than 10 minutes on your bigadv TFP, you will come out ahead.
 
SazanEyes said:
My guess is that you will probably get more PPD if you fold on the GPUs, but it could be close. Some GPU WUs can use a lot of CPU, and that can really hurt your bigadv PPD. To know for sure, you'd have to turn on the GPUs for a while and see what the PPD looks like for various WUs. As long as you don't lose more than 10 minutes on your bigadv TFP, you will come out ahead.
Click to expand...

yeah that's what i kinda thought. but if i can reach 4.2 ghz on this thing, then i'm happy with just running the cpu.
 
twoodcc said:
yeah that's what i kinda thought. but if i can reach 4.2 ghz on this thing, then i'm happy with just running the cpu.
Click to expand...


how about turning the GPU clients on right now so we can at least confirm that its an airflow issue and not something else since you have the box fan there anyways.. i still think its an airflow issue though unless the boards cranking up the chipset and IOH(cant remember exactly) voltage insanely high..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
how about turning the GPU clients on right now so we can at least confirm that its an airflow issue and not something else since you have the box fan there anyways.. i still think its an airflow issue though unless the boards cranking up the chipset and IOH(cant remember exactly) voltage insanely high..
Click to expand...

ok i'll try it with the one 260 that's already in there. exact same setup as earlier today that started to mess up.
 
I run 2 gtx-260's on my i5-750@ 4.0 each video card uses it own core. i get 12,000ppd on the cpu 8,000 to 9,000 on each video card. but bigadv takes a much bigger hit when doing this. i also see no points difference between 1 card running or 2.
 
well it's still going, with the gpu folding all night. so it was air flow.

is it okay to run with the box fan 24/7? b/c i'm loving this 4 ghz!
 
I used to have a window A/C unit ducted into the open side of a case. It worked great. Dust and dirt are what you have to watch for.
 
well i've ran a machine naked before, and never really had a problem. i guess with the case, it could capture more dust?

i guess just every so often spray it down with some compressed air?
 
A antec bigboy fan installed in the side door with a filter would be a good long term improvment.
 
twoodcc said:
well it's still going, with the gpu folding all night. so it was air flow.

is it okay to run with the box fan 24/7? b/c i'm loving this 4 ghz!
Click to expand...

I help a company that is broker than broke right now, and their "server" (glorified desktop everything) doesn't have the cooling needed for all the HD's they run. They have had a box fan on it for prob 3 years atleast now. They want to get a new server (when they have money) and don't want to waste any money on the turd they have now. I never see any dust in their system.
 
well i now have both 260s folding in it, and it's running at 4.2 ghz! the temps still around 75-77C! (cpu temp). i installed hwmonitor, but it doesn't give me NB temps
 
SazanEyes said:
Are you monitoring with HFM.NET? How did your SMP PPD change when you started up the GPU clients?
Click to expand...

yes. since i am running at 4.155 ghz now, the ppd did not go down with both gpu clients running. it's still early to tell though.

it ran at 4.2 ghz, but crashed. it also crashed at 4.179 ghz. i'm trying 4.155 ghz now. this is all at 1.26v cpu core.

so according to HFM.NET:

cpu - 31,110 ppd
gpu1 - 6,974 ppd
gpu2 - 6,271 ppd

total - 44,355 ppd

not bad for a store bought machine? (with some mods)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top