I asked this on HWC but didn't get an answer...

Aunty Em

Aunty Em

Well-Known Member
... has anyone been foolish enough to use one of these (thermaltake crystal orb) on their mobo northbridge and what effect did it have on board temperature, if any?
 
Similar has been done. I used a blue orb on my chipset for awhile when the fan failed on it. It'll keep it cool, but as I remember, not much better than the stock 'sink/fan. I don't like them--I'm a anti-noise freak. :p
 
i would take a P2 or a small P3 heatsink and fan, use AS3 adheisive to attach it to the northbridge. that should keep it perfectly cool. it's worked lots of times for me in the past with great results.

sam.
 
sam_fisher said:
aunty em? how well does your athlon heatpipe work? what are you temps at idle and load?


sam.
Click to expand...
Now that's an interesting question... I'd better give you some background first.

My heatpipe does not run with the stock 60mm delta fan... it has an aluminium akasa 60 to 80 mm adapter and a coolermaster 80 mm blue led fan running at 25 dBa pushing 29 cfm as opposed to 14cfm with the delta. This lowered the temp by 4C idle.

My mobo, an Abit KD7E (333MHz), records 2 temperatures in the bios... the cpu socket/surface temp with the sensor in the socket below the cpu and the cpu core temp with the sensor in the cpu diode. The board alarm is set to go off when the cpu socket/surface temp reaches 60C. Since most of the previous boards before XP only recorded the cpu surface temperature and that is the critical temp as far as overheating goes I'm assuming that is still what most people go by. Also, on the AMD site they quote a temp that is taken from the top surface of the cpu as their maximum operating temp... in the case of this cpu it's 85C. I was confused about this for a while.

Anyway, having rattled on, the socket/surface temp varies between 37C idle and 41C maybe 42C at a push under load. The core temp varies between 51C idle and 59C under load... also depending on the ambient temp of my room.

Unfortunately with the lastest bios flash Abit saw fit to include a correction for the core temp when recorded by outside monitors eg MBM5, but I have determined that it is always 6C in my setup. The socket/surface temp is unaffected. So at the moment, recorded by MBM5, in an ambient temp of 20C the socket/surface temp is 37C and the core temp is 46C (really 53C). I hope that answers your question adequately. :D

I might add that I don't often play games and the most advanced ones I have are alpha centauri and half-life. My video card is an ATI Radeon 7500 64MB DDR, soon to be ATI Radeon 9200 64/128MB DDR (haven't decided which yet. :)
 
The reason I'm asking about replacing the northbrige cooler with the orb is that I'm thinking of overclocking this cpu. But as I have to do it using FSB the temp of the northbrige will rise. At the moment my board sensor which is very close to the northbridge(see pic - top of triple grouping) records a temp of 43C and has been as high as 46C. I would prefer it not to rise any further. Plus the crystal orb is copper based as opposed to the aluminium abit cooler and I aready have it, whereas I don't have a PII or III heatsink. It also pushes 12.4 cfm @ 26.4 dBa - about the same as the 92mm Ys-tech intake fan - and I have plenty of AS3 as well as the silicon grease and double-sided thermal tape that came with it.
 
Go for a Zalman ZM-NB32J Northbridge Heatsink. Those puny lightweight HSF combo's are frankly crap.
 
aunty em,

i've installed a couple of these on a nf7 and a nforce2 running at 215-217 fbs. they work really well.
Supported Socket Type: Socket A and Socket 370
Thermal Performance 0.47
HS Dimension (mm) 70 x 64x 57
Fan Dimension (mm) 60 x 60 x 20
Speed (RPM) 3,000
Airflow (CFM) 13.3

35-104-108-04.JPG


at new egg for 9 bucks. its made for socket a and 370 so its small enough to go on your northbridge. i attached these with as3 adhesive.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&catalog=62&manufactory=1478&DEPA=1&sortby=14&order=1


does that KD7E northbridge chip have a copper pad on it? if so you could lapp it. that always brings the temp down a good bit just by itself.
 
SexyMF said:
Go for a Zalman ZM-NB32J Northbridge Heatsink. Those puny lightweight HSF combo's are frankly crap.
Click to expand...

Is that the tall gold one? Another vote for it....that is the only way to go. :headbang:
 
I took a look at the zalman, and then ordered one from the cooling shop for £5.28 post paid... less than half the price that overclock.co.uk were asking £12.74 on 1-3 day delivery. How the hell do some of these places make money when they over charge so much? I shall try it out on the o-ced thunderbird and if I like it get another for the thoroughbred.


does that KD7E northbridge chip have a copper pad on it? if so you could lapp it. that always brings the temp down a good bit just by itself.
Click to expand...

I am totally clueless as to what that means! ?(
 
Well, I just installed the zalman heatsink on my KT7A (1.0) and it seems fine. I had a look to see if the crystal orb would fit and unfortunately it won't unless you glue it as the holders where the push pins go aren't quite long enough and they aren't adjustable. One for eBay I think.

System temp at the moment is 5C lower than it would normally be at 33C but it's probably just warming up. :)

Actually it's the TBird I'm surfing with at the moment as my TBred isn't hooked up as I checked to see if the orb would fit in that one... it doesn't. :(

So now we know orbs don't fit on KD7-Es either unless glued and no way am I doing that. I'm just wondering if they fit on any ABit board?
 
Well, it didn't take long to get rid of the crystal orb... I put it up for sale on eBay yesterday and got a buyer this morning.... :)
 
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