Very often, owners of budget and medium-cost motherboards encounter a problem when the chipset is very hot. This happens because the cooling system installed by the manufacturer does not cope with its task 100%. Ultimately, strong heating can cause the chipset to simply burn out, and you will either need to buy a new board, or repair the old one for a lot of money. But all this can be avoided if you make good cooling of the chipset. Actually, this will be discussed today.
Thermal Paste Replacement
The first way that can help with cooling is to replace the thermal paste. Many people mistakenly think that there is no difference between thermal grease as such, but this is not at all. Each thermal grease has its own specific properties, which greatly affect the heat dissipation. When buying, it is very important to pay attention to the thermal conductivity parameter - the higher it is, the more efficiently the high temperature will be removed, which will ultimately have a positive effect on the cooling of the chipset.
The following are the most popular thermal greases: MX-2 and MX-4 from Arctic Cooling, DC1 from beQuiet !, Liquid Ultra from Coollaboratory and Aeronaut, Kryonaut from Thermal Grizzly.
Installing a new radiator
If replacing the thermal paste does not help in cooling the chipset, then you should think about replacing the regular radiator with another, more efficient one. Getting a new radiator is not as easy as it might seem. Even in large computer stores, they are rarely sold. Fortunately, there are flea markets and foreign online stores where you can find a suitable option for yourself at any price.
At one time, the following models were one of the most popular heatsinks for the chipset: Noctua NC-U6, PCCooler NB-400, Thermalright HR-05 and Zalman ZM-NB47J. As for the first, the U6 is very hard to find anywhere, but there are no problems with the rest. The cheapest radiator - Zalman, will cost 250-300 rubles. PCCooler will cost about 900 rubles. The most expensive, Thermalright, will cost +/- 1000 rubles, but the price is fair, since the radiator is really good and removes heat to the maximum.
Home-made cooling system with a fan
If you can’t find a radiator or don’t want to spend money, you can make a chipset cooling system yourself. All that is required is a small fan 40 x 40 mm or 50 x 50 mm, but no more.
Some heatsinks on the chipset have a flat surface, so installing a fan on it with a pair of screws will not be difficult. As for those motherboards where the radiator is non-standard and has a certain shape, then you have to tinker with it. In such cases, "craftsmen" often resort to special spacers, which are first attached to the radiator, and then a fan is screwed to them.
One stop solution for everyone
In the end, I would like to mention another universal method of cooling, which combines the two previous ones - this is the installation of a ready-made Deepcool NBridge 2 cooler on the chipset.
This cooling system is a small radiator with a set of different mounts, on which a small fan is mounted on top. All this works very efficiently and, most importantly, allows the user not to bother with searching for other radiators or think how to install a fan on the chipset.
NBridge 2 is easy to find in any computer store, and it costs only 250-300 rubles. Also, another advantage of this cooling system is that it comes with all the necessary mounts for different motherboards. Thus, no matter what the chipset is - Intel or AMD, NBridge 2 is guaranteed to be on any and will do its job efficiently.
Conclusion
That, in fact, is all that I wanted to tell today about the cooling of the chipset on the motherboard. Which of the described methods is best used - here everyone should choose for themselves, based on their needs. If you need to lower the temperature a little, then replace the thermal paste, and if the heating is too high or you plan to overclock the system, then you should use other options.