Northbridge cooling, Is Zalman any good?

koninc · Post by **koninc** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 10:28 pm

Hi All,

I'm looking at getting a Canterwood board, and damn those things are expensive. The Epox and the ASUS boards have passively cooled northbridges, but they are horrendusly expensive (at least the ones i have found). There is an ABit board which has a reasonable featureset... but it has a damn little fan on the northbridge. It is still a lot cheaper though if i buy it and buy a zalman sink for it.

Does anyone have any experience with the zalman northbridge coolers? Or better yet with the noise level of the new Abit canterwood/springdale fan?

There appear to be 2 different types of zalman cooler
http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/nb32j.htm
http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/NB32.htm

Whats the difference? Are these things good? Hard to install? Help me!

thanks

nick

Bean · Post by **Bean** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 10:57 pm

I haven't tried it but this very cooler was discussed on the abit forum as a replacement for the NB heatsink and fan combination as found on an NF2 motherboard. (not an Intel board but maybe give you something to chew on)

http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.ph ... genumber=4

Basically what I got out of it (besides the three pages that say there's very little thermal paste on the NB) was the preferred one to get is the brass color one, its newer and it has adjustable mounting whereas the black one doesnt. and someone mentioned a heads up on how to mount it.

and people who are overclocking are using it without a fan successfully

aphonos · Post by **aphonos** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 11:18 pm

A quick search in the Cooling forum helped me find this thread... Better Zalman Northbridge Heatsink Alternative ? from a couple of weeks ago that kicked around a similar question. Hope this helps.

mudboy · Post by **mudboy** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:08 am

I have the NB32J on my Biostar M7NCG and it gets the job done quite nicely. Installation took about 20 minutes, but that's because I had to pull the mobo in order to remove the old HS.

Pete

elitezoid · Post by **elitezoid** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 4:01 am

I've just installed a ZM-NB32J on my Abit NF7-S v2.0, and it works great!

Here's a link to where I got mine from, it was the lowest price in UK that I found: http://www.thecoolingshop.co.uk/tcs/com ... ategory=35

Boomerang Rapido · Post by **Boomerang Rapido** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 4:18 am

I'm running the NB32J on a Gigabyte SINXP1394, and it runs very well. No problems so far.

kamina · Post by **kamina** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 6:12 am

I have the NB32J (the golden one) on my epox 8kha+ and can run high fsb's without problems. I think that it should be adequate for the canterwood if somebody is allready producing motherboards with passive cooling using the same chipset. I would imagine that the heat produced by the northbridge is more chipset specific rather then model specific... You might run into problems when you raise your fsb really high. (200 and above? [just a guestimate])

counterpt · Post by **counterpt** » Mon Jun 09, 2003 1:38 am

I have a fanless Zalman (the golden one, with adjustable mounts) running with no problems as well. I was worried at first though because the via northbridge chip is bigger than the base of the heatsink. But I've had no problems (ASUS AV266 board).

Gandalf · Post by **Gandalf** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 9:48 am

elitezoid wrote:I've just installed a ZM-NB32J on my Abit NF7-S v2.0, and it works great!

Here's a link to where I got mine from, it was the lowest price in UK that I found: http://www.thecoolingshop.co.uk/tcs/com ... ategory=35

I just bought a NF7-S 2.0 myself today .. Is the northbridge still fine? I'll probably yank of the cooler today ..

elitezoid · Post by **elitezoid** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 10:06 am

Yo Gandalf,
Don't worry, the Northbridge will be just fine, in fact the first thing I did was to remove the fan off the Northbridge before I even fired the board up. I've had no issues and I’m running a 200Mhz fsb and the zalman only gets warm. I would suggest using some better paste than zalman supply, although the zalman paste should be fine, unless you really want to push the fsb well over 200mhz.

Also are you planning on using the Zalman heatpipe to cool your graphics? I'm probably gonna do that next, although it looks like it may make contact with the Zalman on the Northbridge...?

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 10:38 am

bend the nb fins?:)
im using the stock fan on my abit nf7-s :$

Fabool · Post by **Fabool** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 12:14 pm

From what I have read the overall impression on the fan is that it's quite loud and may emit even more sound after some use.

Abit apparently thinks so too, as there's a new revision of the IC7(G) boards coming, check this swedish site for a glimpse of what the new fan looks like: http://www.64bits.se/recensioner/ic7-g/index2.php#1

No idea of the availability of the new boards though. I'm currently interested in the same board, but I don't want to start searching for the newer revision (the only improvement in the new revision is the fan as far as I know), so there's the Zalman alternative.
But as always there's a catch. You need to modify the heatsink for it to fit the board as the mounting mechanism is different (unless you use the thermal goo, though that isn't an optimal solution in my opinion).

Luckily the modification is quite easy to pull of (I haven't tried since I don't have the board yet, but many have done it). You basically cut three pins out of each corner of the Zalman and then take the mounting "ring" from the IC7 fan and slip it onto the Zalman heatsink, apply a bit of arctic silver or similar to the NB and attach the modded heatsink.

For some pics of the mod done by.. err, someone, go here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre ... did=259673

Xinco · Post by **Xinco** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 5:15 am

koninc wrote:Hi All,

There appear to be 2 different types of zalman cooler
http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/nb32j.htm
http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/NB32.htm

Whats the difference? Are these things good? Hard to install? Help me!

thanks

nick

The nb32j is newer, and has adjustable mounting holes. I've used both. I had to glue the nb32 to my a7v133, which fell off after six months, as I only used two tiny dots so I could remove it later. The nb32j adjusts to fit just about any mounting holes.

Easy to install.

quokked · Post by **quokked** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 11:31 pm

of course u could go the ghetto option and stick a old pentium class heatsink on it, u can get them for very cheap at computer swap meets, I used thermal expoxy (artic silver thermal epoxy) to glue it on, or you can drill holes into the heatsink or use frag tape

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 4:33 am

new p4 nbs use a crappy hook system for some reason :\

Gandalf · Post by **Gandalf** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 6:55 am

I only have a GF4 MX so I'm using the non-heatpipe vga cooler. Works like a charm too.
There's not exactly a lot of space for the AGP card between the north and southbridge (and yes, I also threw a ZM on my southbridge

. )

- Bram

koninc · Post by **koninc** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 5:19 pm

Hey all,

I ended up dancing around the issue, and got an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe. Good ole' asus have gone with passive cooling on the NB, so I dont have to worry about it. However, this board puts the sink pretty close to the AGP slot...

(see pic in this review)
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainbo ... 800_5.html

If i wanted to put a zalman heatpipe cooler on my video card, how much room on the back-side of the video card is required? How much thicker does it make the video card?

The board, by the way, is excellent. It is faster than the more expensive canterwood board (because asus guys found out how to re-activate PAT on the cheaper springdale boards) and it cost me $325 AUD. Im pretty happy with it. If anyone else is thinking of upgrading to a i865/i875, this is the way to go.

cheers

nick

Badashmods · Post by **Badashmods** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 12:46 pm

This looks like the new Zalman northbridge cooler coming out. It would look good in my case.
http://www.mamut.com/3dfxcool/subdet585.htm

Northbridge cooling, Is Zalman any good?

Northbridge cooling, Is Zalman any good?

Re: Northbridge cooling, Is Zalman any good?