cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

North bridge overheating

Retired
Not applicable
I love my board, but lately I've been having pretty bad northbridge overheating problems. It used to be an occasional issue while gaming, but now it seems to happen while idling too. I've even go so far as to add a 92mm high speed fan for when I'm gaming, but it's too loud for normal usage. While the fan worked for a while, it's not as effective as it once was. The random shutdowns are getting quite annoying... Any thoughts on what might be causing this, or how to fix it? I've heard others complain of similar problems, yet some are not affected at all.

I do have a set of MIPS waterblocks to install at some point, but I'm not ready for that part of my build yet...
51,611 Views
20 REPLIES 20

xeromist
Moderator
I know you're a seasoned veteran but is it possible that the heatsink just isn't mating properly anymore?
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

Retired
Not applicable
That's one of the first things I checked. From what I can see, all looks well. It's secure, and the system doesn't move off of my desk, so it's not like movement could have knocked something loose. It's literally gotten worse over time, but nothing has changed physically. I suppose I may have to break down and pull the board completely out for a more thorough inspection.

xeromist
Moderator
Well, good luck. I'll be interested to hear if you figure out what is causing it. It's not normal for computers to have a progressive hardware disease.
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

Retired
Not applicable
Thanks. It's definitely not normal, and not something I've ever experienced in the past, that wasn't a simple fix.

Retired
Not applicable
Well, last night I took the time to pull my board out. All looked good. Everything was seated as it should be. There was minimal dust, but I cleaned things up anyway. After reinstalling the board, I rechecked temps. There was no difference. I should mention that according to AI Probe, it sits around 97C while idling. Shut down occurs at 100. Obviously not much headroom there. My case also has pretty good airflow. What is interesting is that active cooling really drops temps. I can get it down to the low 70's. However, that comes at the cost of a lot of extra fan noise, as only a high speed fan gives me the cooling I need. I still can't figure out why it's so high in the first place...

xeromist
Moderator
Overvolting then? Maybe a bad VRM?
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

Retired
Not applicable
Voltages and clocks are default. I've not bothered to change anything as long as I'm running stock cooling on my CPU (i7 920). I suppose a bad VRM could be causing issues. Especially when you consider that it's something that's been gradually getting worse.

xeromist
Moderator
Oh, no I wasn't saying that you've changed anything. I just meant a bad VRM could cause an increase without your intervention. Unfortunately I don't know enough about motherboard architecture to know whether voltages reported would be accurate in such a scenario.
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

Retired
Not applicable
Gotcha. Yeah, I'm not sure what a normal voltage would be. Anyone else have any insight?