Heatsink for Northbridge chip?

[DesignGuy]

The fan on my Northbridge chip has failed, and in my efforts to reduce PC
noise would like to replace with a larger heatsink such as Zalman's. Problem
is, I can't get the old heatsink off and I suspect it is held on with epoxy.
So my questions are:

Is it possible to bold a larger heatsink to the existing one? Would this eve
be effective given the smaller contact surface area of the fins?

Do I even need to add a larger heatsink, given there will be no fan running?

Motherboard specs (courtesy of Belarc Adviser software):

Board: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. 761-686B
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG 12/13/2000

The machine is a early 2000 vintage Micron with an AMD Athlon processor at
1.2 GHZ. I am not overclocking, nor do I plan to.

As far as I know there is no temperature sensor on the Northbridge that I
can monitor.

 

[Chris Stolworthy]

Not really 100% on this, but if memory serves, the northbridge on a board
that old does not need to be "actively" cooled, shoul work fine with a
passive heatsink.

 

[XXXX]

The fan on my Northbridge chip has failed, and in my efforts to reduce PC
noise would like to replace with a larger heatsink such as Zalman's. Problem
is, I can't get the old heatsink off and I suspect it is held on with epoxy.
So my questions are:

Is it possible to bold a larger heatsink to the existing one? Would this eve
be effective given the smaller contact surface area of the fins?

I doubt it.

Do I even need to add a larger heatsink, given there will be no fan running?

Probably yes. I suspect maybe my ABit 333 board of having inadequate
cooling causing intermittent lockups. Ive torn my hair out
experimenting with various drivers over and over and over again and
swapped evey piece of hardware in and out.

Im going back to the northbridge idea since another older KT133a has
severe problems after a fan went out. One thing I noticed was far from
a casual afterthought to cool the chip just in case it gets kind of
hot - that chip gets HOT !!!! It really needs cooling. I tried putting
my finger on it without a heatsink and it got uncomfortably hot in a
short while , I had to shut it off. Surprised me that it got that hot.

Both the ones Ive seen had plastic clips holding the heatsink fan on
with springs too. All did was clip it off. I had to take it off
because it had a proprietary weird heatsink-tray on it that wouldnt
accept a regular fan. If you have a regular small square htsink just
get a standard chip fan and screw it on right into the fins . Thats
how its done the meal screws go inbetween some of the pin/fins stick
up. That would do the trick.

Theres a pack selling at Compusa some heatsinks and a fan for $12 or
so and probably the samething at Coolerguys and zillions of other
places on line.

If its some weird tray like I had and its not held in by pins you can
do this at your own risk. Ive done it on a video card - many websites
show how. You get something like a plastic card (similar to an old
credit card ) put that under the part next to the chip to protect the
circuit board. You put the screwdriver inbetween the card and the
heatsink and using it like a lever pull the heatsink off. I was very
skeptical about this but many sites say thats how they do it for their
MBs and videocard and I did it on a video card and it worked
perfectly. THe epoxied heatsink just popped off. Some solvent cleaned
the residue off.

Ive tried thermal tape to put the northbridge heatsink on with mxed
success. It works but to get adequate cooling you really have to mash
it on. Ideally Id like to use thermal epoxy + a huge heatsink for
passive cooling you can buy at cooler guys etc. The kind they use on
the ASus deluxe I have so you dont have to worry about the fan dying.


Dont blame me if you crack or nick your MB though.

 

[philo]

The fan on my Northbridge chip has failed, and in my efforts to reduce PC
noise would like to replace with a larger heatsink such as Zalman's. Problem
is, I can't get the old heatsink off and I suspect it is held on with epoxy.
So my questions are:

Is it possible to bold a larger heatsink to the existing one? Would this eve
be effective given the smaller contact surface area of the fins?

Do I even need to add a larger heatsink, given there will be no fan running?

Why not play it safe and just replace the fan?

 

[DesignGuy]

Why not play it safe and just replace the fan?

I'm trying to reduce the noise of the computer, and this particular fan is
one of the main culprits (even a borrowed replacement is noisy). I'd like to
go to passive cooling where possible.

 

[philo]

I'm trying to reduce the noise of the computer, and this particular fan is
one of the main culprits (even a borrowed replacement is noisy). I'd like to
go to passive cooling where possible.

you can probably use a lower r.p.m. fan that's physically
larger (and quieter)
i've done it for cpu's by using a home-made bracket...
although there are commercially made adaptors

 

[*Vanguard*]

"DesignGuy" said in news:GSMXb.186920$U%5.920269@attbi_s03:

The fan on my Northbridge chip has failed, and in my efforts to
reduce PC noise would like to replace with a larger heatsink such as
Zalman's. Problem is, I can't get the old heatsink off and I suspect
it is held on with epoxy. So my questions are:

Is it possible to bold a larger heatsink to the existing one? Would
this eve be effective given the smaller contact surface area of the
fins?

Do I even need to add a larger heatsink, given there will be no fan
running?

Motherboard specs (courtesy of Belarc Adviser software):

Board: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. 761-686B
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG 12/13/2000

The machine is a early 2000 vintage Micron with an AMD Athlon
processor at
1.2 GHZ. I am not overclocking, nor do I plan to.

As far as I know there is no temperature sensor on the Northbridge
that I can monitor.

The trick that I've heard for removing an epoxied heat sink is to use dental
floss. You use it to saw through the epoxy. Some types of dental floss are
less effective (e.g., don't use waxed floss, and flat floss is probably is
worse than using string floss).

 

[w_tom]

Reason for a Northbridge fan would be a 'fear' that normal
chassis airflow might be restricted. Serious systems attach
ribbon cables properly to not restrict airflow - making that
heatsink fan unnecessary.

Heatsink do cooling with a 200 LFM airflow. That means
airflow so gentle as to not be detectable by hand. Locate a
chassis fan to guarantee some airflow over that Northbridge
heatsink. That would be more than enough cooling without that
noisy little fan.

Better designs don't mount fans on heatsink. A larger (and
therefore quieter) fan sits off to side and blows air across
all heatsinks. Should the highest failure rate device in a
system (the fan) fail, then heatsink still provided sufficient
cooling - airflow not restricted by a noisy little fan.

 

[sdeyoreo]

The trick that I've heard for removing an epoxied heat sink is to use dental
floss. You use it to saw through the epoxy.

aw man, whats that doing to your teeth!?

 

[Guest]

The fan on my Northbridge chip has failed, and in my efforts to
I can't get the old heatsink off and I suspect it is held on with epoxy.
So my questions are:

Is it possible to bold a larger heatsink to the existing one?

Not unless you grind off all the heatsink fins to create a nearly flat
surface.

Place a single-edge razor blade or very thin knife blade between the
heatsink and chip at one corner and press and rock it sideways until
the epoxy cracks. It's safe to gently tap on the razor to wedge it in
more deeply, but don't overdo it. Do not try twisting off the
heatsink or prying between it and the circuit board because that can
pull the chip from the board. Clean off all the remaining epoxy
(scrape), and use epoxy or silicone rubber (RTV) to attach the new
heatsink. Silicone rubber (not paste) is preferred because it it
makes heatsink removal easy, and you don't need any special thermal
glue for this chip because it doesn't get that hot. Do not follow the
advice of the ignorant and use thermal grease in the middle and a drop
of super glue in each corner. A heatsink made for a 486 or Socket 7
CPU will cool this chip sufficiently.