TYCOON

Today I’m going to over a generalized “HOW TO” for replacing your Northbridge cooler/Thermal paste (pertaining to the push in NF7-S) style attaching.

IÂ’m sure any person that has dealt with stock cooling has found a thermal pad, bad application of thermal paste, or neither! I have heard a lot of about how little is used under the first revisions of the NF7-SÂ’s Northbridge. I wanted to check mine out.

Pic1 – The NF7-S Northbridge heat sink, a little wiener fan.

Pic2 – I used “needle nose pliers” they seem not to wreck the push-in clips and do a good job at taking these out, you should be able to do this without taking the motherboard out, just grab the end and carefully pull, be gentle…

Pic3 – This shows what I found underneath, not NEARLY as bad as I thought it would be. They applied there own thermal paste decently, Abit has obviously addressed this problem. But as you can see, it’s still not making the best contact.

Pic4 – This shows both the Northbridge and the cooler cleaned off, I used some alcohol patches (moist toilette style) to clean both.

Pic5 – These are the things used in the process, just for reference.

Pic6 – This shows my re-applied thermal paste, I used an razor blade to spread it evenly.

Pic7 – After so test fittings (don’t push the pins in, just apply some pressure. It will most likely stick from suction, this is good) to make sure there is good contact. As you can see, both a covered perfectly by the newly applied thermal paste.

Pic8 – The finished product, lign up the holes, push the pins in. Now wiggle the cooler side to side (wont be much more than a millimeter) to make sure it makes good contact.
Put your side on, and your done!

Anyways...

Attached Thumbnails

     

     

   

__________________

elitelilnoyd

I don't have any experience with NF7 boards but is that a thermal pad on the bottom of that heatsink? If so the AS5/Thermal Grease isn't going to do a thing for it, as the thermal pad will just stop the usefullness of the grease. In some cases I have heard it even making worse temps. I couldn't tell for sure though if thats a thermal pad. Either way nice guide!

After looking at pic3 it appears that it's thermal grease and not a pad... Nice job!

__________________

Caspertg

You sure used a bunch of thermal paste.

Edit: Sorry, very nice write up as well.

__________________

Demon Made

yeah, good job. the only thing i do differently is i put the paste on the chip itself, that way if the bottom of the heat sink is larger than the chip (wich it should be) there should be less waste.

__________________

Kage

For NF7-S boards, you may just want to take that fan off while you are fiddling around with it. Both mine and a customers board started whining and died about a week of 24/7 running.

Just a suggestion, instead of applying the thermal paste to the heatsink, put it on the chip

Best thermal paste to use for these applications would have to be Arctic Silver's Ceramique.

TYCOON

Quote: Originally Posted by Kage For NF7-S boards, you may just want to take that fan off while you are fiddling around with it. Both mine and a customers board started whining and died about a week of 24/7 running. Just a suggestion, instead of applying the thermal paste to the heatsink, put it on the chip Best thermal paste to use for these applications would have to be Arctic Silver's Ceramique.

I did take it off I didnt mention that. FYI I dont have enough money to buy ArticSilver. I would have applied it to the core first, but I didnt really care about the waste (does it change the contact?). Putting the thermal paste on the heatsink first is much easier IMO.

__________________

danbanger

Good write up hehe, I remember when I first took mine off it had almost half the thermal paste you had

__________________

carbongraphite

my NF7-s chipset fan died too. it made noises and i didnt bother replaceing the fan untill it died. now i suppose i should pull of the entire HS assembly and just get a fanless one to get rid of some more noise.

__________________

Kage

When there's thermal paste on all over the heatsink, it could eventually drip down and cause a mess. Nobody wants the aesthetics of dried up thermal past in their computer, now do they?

The heatsink with the fan has been doing just fine for me, and plus I have a two side intakes that blow air directly on the mobo. Always wanted one of those aluminum Thermalright ones though.

TYCOON

Bump for the night crowd...

__________________

Dimazz

Nice write up......But I think thats wayyy to much paste.......

I just bought a NF-7 (not -s).......The fan is still going strong.....hehe......

__________________

TekXoID

Next time, put the paste on the NB itself and very little or none on the chipset cooler, speaking
of which, don't use the stock cooler, they are so unreliable that I replace them on even my
lowest end systems with passive MicroCool heatsinks attached via AS5 epoxy.

Caspertg

Quote: Originally Posted by TYCOON I did take it off I didnt mention that. FYI I dont have enough money to buy ArticSilver. I would have applied it to the core first, but I didnt really care about the waste (does it change the contact?). Putting the thermal paste on the heatsink first is much easier IMO.

Too much paste can hurt performance instead of help.

__________________