PWM IC Cooling.

Lukano

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 11, 2003
Messages
344
I've got a DFI Ultra-D that I know is prone to PWM heat issues. I've been thinking of a few options to try to cool it, but am hoping to find an effective passive solution.

First and foremost - does the PWM IC have a temperature register? Is it in the bios and I've just been glazing over it without noticing for almost a year now?! :confused:

Secondly, and specific to this board but examples from similar others would work - what options do I have? I can't seem to find a picture for my particular board showing the PWM IC location offhand, so while at work I'm having a hard time visualizing it.

Is active (fan) cooling pretty much necessary, or will I be able to muddle out a passive solution (cutting up an old heatsink and finding a way to secure it in such a way that it'll bleed heat from the PWM IC)?

Also a side question only semi-related - for situations where one wants to mount/secure passive cooling / heatsinks to components on a board that don't have pins/slots/holes for mounting with - what can I use? I've seen reference to a few different compounds but my memory is apparently failing at a rapid rate? Am I correctly remembering some sort of conductive epoxy, and/or low-temp but high conductivity solder?
 
You could probably use thermal tape.. Don't see why you couldnt use something like Artic Silver or related as well, would porbably be nearly impossible to remove that way though.
 
you could use Arctic Silver Themal Epoxy, which holds like a bomb, unless you mix it with AS, which reduces the bond strength so that you can remove it at a later point with some force + heat.
 
drizzt81 said:
you could use Arctic Silver Themal Epoxy, which holds like a bomb, unless you mix it with AS, which reduces the bond strength so that you can remove it at a later point with some force + heat.

Hey, that'll work. I didn't want to devote the PWM IC to a one-shot-one-attempt try at passive cooling. Being able to remove the attempt if it fails helps a lot.

Any suggestions on the mixture ratio? 1:1?
 
Lukano said:
Hey, that'll work. I didn't want to devote the PWM IC to a one-shot-one-attempt try at passive cooling. Being able to remove the attempt if it fails helps a lot.

Any suggestions on the mixture ratio? 1:1?
well they recommend 50:50, so I guess 1:1 will do too. Check the instructions that came with ASTE.
 
Location of the PWMIC sensor is here
PWMICsensor.jpg

small yellow thing next to mosfets.

The actual chip is the exposed rectangular chip in the top right corner of the mobo, to the left of the 24 pin power connector.
 
ChingChang said:
Location of the PWMIC sensor is here
PWMICsensor.jpg

small yellow thing next to mosfets.

The actual chip is the exposed rectangular chip in the top right corner of the mobo, to the left of the 24 pin power connector.

Perfect! It's bigger than I had remembered too, so it'll be easier to fix something to it.
 
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