Northbridge temperature at 63 Degrees centigrade normal?

[tommylux]

Hi there

Built a computer last week:

E6600 Processor,
Gigabyte Motherboard (960 I think)
2GB DDR2 800FSB Ram (2x1GB Dual Channel)
80GB & 400GB SATA II HDD
160GB & 80GB IDE HDD on PCI IDE Controller
2x DVD Writers on Motherboard IDE controller
ASUS EN7950GT Nvidia chipset HTDP 512MB DDR3 Graphics.

I was concerned about the HDD Temperature running up to 65 degrees C
under formatting 400GB. Mainly due to all 4 drives stacked together,
Installed a noisy Fan for the front which took the temp down to 35
degrees C.

Please take a look at the images:
http://www.luxton.us/public/pc/temp2.jpg - All Temperatures Look OK.
http://www.luxton.us/public/pc/temp1.jpg - Changed the FAN SPEED
CONTROL METHOD to Intel QST and notice there is now a new line for MCH
Temperature at 63 Degrees C.

1. Why does the motherboard tell you the temp of the MCH only under
intel's Fan Setting?
2. Is this too warm? Considering so many devices plugged into the
mainboard and passing through the northbridge could heat up the temp.
I'm worried what temp it could be when I play World of Warcraft.
3. My Graphics card hits about 50 degrees just loading up. Is this
normal? Despite the Windows GUI, fan setting on AUTO runs at 6% on
Startup. When the graphics hit 75, the fan is programmed to go full
speed as default. I thought 50 is too warm.

Advice please?
Also, take a look at my box: http://www.luxton.us/public/pc/case.jpg
The chip under the copper heat thingy by the processors fan gets HOT.

Thanks guys for putting up with my large post.

 

[Paul]

Hi there

Built a computer last week:

E6600 Processor,
Gigabyte Motherboard (960 I think)
2GB DDR2 800FSB Ram (2x1GB Dual Channel)
80GB & 400GB SATA II HDD
160GB & 80GB IDE HDD on PCI IDE Controller
2x DVD Writers on Motherboard IDE controller
ASUS EN7950GT Nvidia chipset HTDP 512MB DDR3 Graphics.

I was concerned about the HDD Temperature running up to 65 degrees C
under formatting 400GB. Mainly due to all 4 drives stacked together,
Installed a noisy Fan for the front which took the temp down to 35
degrees C.

Please take a look at the images:
http://www.luxton.us/public/pc/temp2.jpg - All Temperatures Look OK.
http://www.luxton.us/public/pc/temp1.jpg - Changed the FAN SPEED
CONTROL METHOD to Intel QST and notice there is now a new line for MCH
Temperature at 63 Degrees C.

1. Why does the motherboard tell you the temp of the MCH only under
intel's Fan Setting?
2. Is this too warm? Considering so many devices plugged into the
mainboard and passing through the northbridge could heat up the temp.
I'm worried what temp it could be when I play World of Warcraft.
3. My Graphics card hits about 50 degrees just loading up. Is this
normal? Despite the Windows GUI, fan setting on AUTO runs at 6% on
Startup. When the graphics hit 75, the fan is programmed to go full
speed as default. I thought 50 is too warm.

Advice please?
Also, take a look at my box: http://www.luxton.us/public/pc/case.jpg
The chip under the copper heat thingy by the processors fan gets HOT.

Thanks guys for putting up with my large post.

GA-965P-DQ6 is P965. P965 has a built-in thermal sensor. An Intel code module
may be used to monitor it. Since the retail Intel CPU fan also provides
cooling for the Northbridge and its heatsink, it could be that the Intel
QST BIOS code, is the only code that knowa about the Northbridge sensor.
The catastrophic failure temp (where GMCH uses clock throttling) is
118C. There is a "trip point" register, with recommended setting of
95C to 105C, and that may be tied into the setting of the Intel CPU
fan BIOS code logic. If the Northbridge hits 95C, that might cause
the CPU fan to go faster. See PDF page 358 here:

http://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/31305302.pdf

Are you using a Lian-Li computer case ? Or another brand of case
which inverts (turns 180 degrees from normal) the motherboard
orientation ? Some heatpipe motherboards are sensitive to the
orientation of the heatpipe, and running them upside-down
reduces cooling. There are a couple ways to make heatpipes,
and a sintered finish inside the pipe, encourages capilliary
action and better cooling. A pipe with a smooth internal finish,
may not operate very well when inverted.

If you disable Intel QST and allow the Intel fan to work at
full speed, the Intel fan itself should be sensitive to the
computer case temperature. If you allow the CPU fan to do some
work, I bet the Northbridge temperature will fall to a more
respectable temperature. See my other posting, where I recommended
disabling that stuff.

A metal surface of 63C, is hot enough that you can only hold your
finger on it for two seconds, before the pain is enough to cause
you to remove it. If the Northbridge heatsink was not making
good contact with the Northbridge, that could account for
the Northbridge getting hot. But first, I'd make sure that
the CPU fan is providing enough cooling action for the heatpipe
motherboard cooler. Since your "system temperature" reports 32C,
chances are your computer case temp is not the cause of
the high readings.

The current Northbridge temperature is not near any "danger zone"
temperatures as listed in the above Intel datasheet. So the
current temperature conditions are not a reason to panic and
turn the computer off. But you may want to look at the tradeoffs
between noise and cooling, and increase the cooling in the processor
area. The easiest way to do that, for testing purposes, is to
disable fan speed control in the BIOS.

Paul

 

[tommylux]

Hi Paul,

For the past couple of days, Starting the computer from cold until
norton loaded up, took 1 min 10 sec, (I have raid controllers and stuff
which slow the booting down). But, when restarting the computer from a
heavy use, timing from the POST screen, would take 4 mins to load:
Blank monitor would appear before the welcome screen and just the
wallpaper after the welcome screen for 1-2 mins each.

I changed the fan speed control method to Intel QST and it now runs at
1036 RPM rather than 760. Each time the computer restarts now, it takes
1 minute to load. The temperature would appear to be always 63 degrees
despite shutting down the PC for ages. Could the temp gauge has melted
and stuck at 63?

Motherboard monitor doesn't appear to be compatible with my board?

Switching the Control method to Disable puts the fan speed to 1600RPM.
The gigabyte GUI software in windows displays a warning when in QST
mode possibly because the fan speed is low. For some reason, cant
override the fan speed in GUI in QST Mode.

Do I have it as disabled knowing the extra speed could cool the
northbridge? Or leave it as QST? Why is it saying 63 degrees and why
cant i find a program which monitors the Northbridge temp?

Thanks

Tom

 

[Paul]

Hi Paul,

For the past couple of days, Starting the computer from cold until
norton loaded up, took 1 min 10 sec, (I have raid controllers and stuff
which slow the booting down). But, when restarting the computer from a
heavy use, timing from the POST screen, would take 4 mins to load:
Blank monitor would appear before the welcome screen and just the
wallpaper after the welcome screen for 1-2 mins each.

I changed the fan speed control method to Intel QST and it now runs at
1036 RPM rather than 760. Each time the computer restarts now, it takes
1 minute to load. The temperature would appear to be always 63 degrees
despite shutting down the PC for ages. Could the temp gauge has melted
and stuck at 63?

Motherboard monitor doesn't appear to be compatible with my board?

Switching the Control method to Disable puts the fan speed to 1600RPM.
The gigabyte GUI software in windows displays a warning when in QST
mode possibly because the fan speed is low. For some reason, cant
override the fan speed in GUI in QST Mode.

Do I have it as disabled knowing the extra speed could cool the
northbridge? Or leave it as QST? Why is it saying 63 degrees and why
cant i find a program which monitors the Northbridge temp?

Thanks

Tom

First of all, do you see any change in the reported Northbridge
temperature, with the fan at 760, 1036, or 1600RPM ? If not, it
could be that the BIOS is not really reading the temperature.

Development has stopped on MBM5, some time ago.

Current tools are

1) Speedfan (almico.com)
2) Intel Thermal Analysis Tool TAT - http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo
3) Coretemp (http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com/CoreTemp/)
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=103638
4) Asus Probe (a couple versions). Gigabyte Easytune. Probably
other motherboard specific packages.

In the pictures here, TAT and Coretemp are only for the CPU and its PECI
(digital temperature) interface. Scroll down nearer the bottom, where
there is a picture of both in use.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112980&page=2

Speedfan may be a possibility, but the almico.com website makes things
hard to find. When I look through the supported motherboards, there
are no 965 boards I can find in a quick search, listed on almico.
Almost as if new sensor development stopped, so more time could be
spent on making a Vista version.

Since I don't have a Core2 Duo or a P965 to play with, I cannot help on
testing the above programs. You might check some of the other
motherboard maker web sites, in case they have a program for reading
out the Northbridge temperature.

I found an interesting description here:

http://www.intel.com/design/intarch/manuals/315664.pdf

"Intel Quiet System Technology

Intel ICH8 incorporated a new integrated Intel Quiet System Technology
(Intel QST) interface to provide a low cost solution for a better system
thermal/acoustic management solution. Intel QST architecture consists of
a Simple Serial Transfer (SST) bus, Platform Environment Control Interface
(PECI), four TACH pins and three Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) output pins
to monitor, control and manage the system target temperature through a
sets of thermal sensors.

QST is run by the manageability engine (ME) residing in MCH and requires
SPI flash to host the QST firmware. Detailed of the QST configurations,
please contact your nearest Intel representatives for the QST OEM Bring
up Guide.

That implies that the fans on your motherboard, may actually be controlled
by the Southbridge. A processor of some sort, inside the Northbridge, and
running code provided by a serial chip, controls it. Or could. I suppose
even the BIOS could control it, if Intel made a BIOS module available. The
Gigabyte manual even mentions that DIMMs should be installed in certain slots,
if QST is running, implying QST even uses system RAM ? In a few quick searches,
I'm not finding anything publically available on this technology. Intel
apparently makes an SDK with a HECI driver, to access info from this
subsystem, but that is the only mention I can find of interfacing to it.

HECI is mentioned here. Apparently the HECI driver is on the Gigabyte
motherboard CD. Are you sure there isn't a temp monitoring utility on
the Gigabyte CD as well ? The datasheet for the Northbridge mentions HECI,
and there are several HECI devices on Q965 version, but only one HECI
device for P965. Maybe that is why the motherboard CD includes a driver.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/...ID=1959&ProductID=2314&ClassValue=Motherboard

OK. Try installing Easytune from the Gigabyte CD. There is a "PC Health"
button. Perhaps the temperatures are listed in there ? But a picture
here, doesn't suggest you'll see anything interesting. Looks pretty
basic. Maybe if you download the latest Easytune version from
Gigabyte, there would be more info.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/mainboards/ga-k8nxp-sli/shots/et-3.jpg

Paul