MSI K8T Master2-FAR lockups & DDR/Northbridge heatsink?

[scotchfx]

At the advice of one of the guys on the cooling thread I was on I am posting this as a new thread...

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>This may be a bit off topic but I haven't found too many threads regarding modding the cooling (air - not watercooling just yet) on the MSI K8T Master2-FAR. I've been experiencing a couple issues with my workstation since I installed my HPT1540 PCI RAID card:

2 x AMD Opteron 248 (2.2GHz)
MSI K8T Master2-FAR / Award v1.1 BIOS
2 GB of TwinX1024RE-3200LLPT (4 x 512MB)
2 x 74GB WD Raptor (*boot* RAID_0 on VT8237)
Highpoint RocketRAID 1540 PCI card
2 x 250GB Maxtor Diamondmax9 (RAID_1 on HPT1540)
80GB Western Digital (IDE2 port)
Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9700 128MB (AGP 8x)
Enermax EG651P-VEFM (550W 24-pin ATX PSU)
Lian-Li PC-69 Aluminum Mid-Tower Case
WinXP SP2 and all critical updates

In short, I've been getting lockups everytime I attempt to transfer a large amount of data (1GB+) via USB. I was thinking this might be some kind of thermal issue as the 2x250GB Maxtor drives somewhat block the main intake fans on my case. To remedy this situation I'm currently installing another pair of of 5.25 intake fans in my last remaining empty drive bay along with a Cyclone PCI exhaust fan/blower to help provide some additional airlflow.

Now for my most tangible question...

I wanted to replace the stock MSI northbridge DDR heatsink with a more customized Vantec ICEBERQ CCB-A1A (copper) heatsink, however after finally removing the stock heatsink from my mobo I find that the Vantec heatsink will not fit!

Can anyone suggest a heatsink that I might be able to use?

In the interim I am going to replace the stock heatsink (add some Artic Silver 5) and add my other mods. Hopefully some extra intake & exhaust will help remedy some the odd issues I've been seeing...

of course, any advice on this would be Much appreciated.

Thanks!!!

 

[Raje]

Help me help you....

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/product_detail.asp?model=K8T_Master2-FAR

Let me know if this is your mother board, and I have to admit I'm a bit confused as to what you mean by DDR/Northbridge heatsink. Is this a combo like the one I've included.....

As far as I knew Northbrige was your processor which I think is a socket 940 so I would recomend....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835106036

Hope I'm pointing in the right direction. And I'm pretty sure DDR heatsinks are fairly standard.

 

[scotchfx]

That's the correct board - the heatsink I'm referring to is the orange "MSI DDR" heatsink in the bottom left-center of the picture. I was calling it the northbridge fan b/c the manual refers to the heatsink in conjunction with an NBFAN connection (on my board like in the pic it is passively cooled but maybe in the original implementation it had it's own fan?).

I was experiencing lockups with my system under two different scenarios:

1) When I transfer a large (~1GB+) of data from an external 80GB USB drive to the HPT1540 mirrored partition (total lockup - have to reboot)

2) When I bring my workstation out of standby and attempt to access the mirrored partition.

I was able to remedy the 2nd scenario by placing the 2 x 250GB Maxtor's on different ports on the HPT1540 PCI card (there are 4 SATA ports total on the card - using ports 1 & 3 fixed it although I've no clue why) but the 1st scenario is still an issue. I thought it might be due to some thermal issue - I've read on other threads that this board has some issues w/ DDR so this is why I was mucking around with the cooling & heatsinks on the board.

Any idea how hot I should expect my DDR to run?

 

[Raje]

I have personally never messed with that fan before. But for now to test it, you may want to remove the door and use an actual home fan to cool it and see what happens. As far as temperature causing lockups, it is possible, but normally lock up like that have to do with MEM. Try unseating and reseating the ram. Also --- you could mad a fan into your case that would blow directly onto that DDR. In my case I have one intake fan on the side that is basically for video.