How come the CPU temp shows the case temp and the PWM IC temp shows the CPU temp in ITE Smart Guardian? At least, it does on mine.

The chipset on the mobo gets REALLY hot to the touch, almost burning, what sort of cooler can I get for the chipset? I saw one on some review site, but the name of the cooler/fan was not listed.

Well I've had 2 of these boards. I had the first one air coolded using the Swiftech MCX159-R. The second one I water cooled.

I'm currently running one of these boards. If you haven't flashed to a newer bios, try that for the temp reading probs (somewhere on PR there's a link to some swanky bios for this board...i'll post a link if i can dig up the thread). If you've already flashed the bios, i don't know what to tell you.

My chipset usually runs at least +10 C over case temp when at a mild load, and higher when at load (temps measured with a digidoc 5+ thermal monitor - that's with the stock HS).

2 things about upgrading the passive cooler on the chipset:
1) with your video card, i believe (could be wrong) that you have enough clearence to go with whatever your heart desires (don't take my word for this, verify this before you buy an aftermarket cooler ). However, if you plan on upgrading your videocard anytime soon, you will probably need to go with an uber low profile chipset cooler. The newer videocards are longer than the older ones (Nvidia definitely...ATI - i've read that they are longer as well, but i don't have exact dimensions for you): The HS (both stock and aftermarket) on my BFG 6800GT OC completely crosses above the chipset cooler (necessitating a low profile chipset cooler). So if you are planning on upgrading, you might want to wait until you have the new videocard installed before you dump some money on a new Chipset cooler (or at the very least, take some very careful measurements).

2) i actually started to mount an aftermarket cooler on my chipset (vantec - http://www.vantecusa.com/product-cooling.html# product# CCB-A1C), and that's when i discovered that the NF3 chipset is concave (it is on my mobo, at least). That is to say: it's lower in the middle than it is on the edges (which also explained the tremendous amount of thermal grease that was factory applied...they had to have something to fill the gap between the center of the chipset and the bottom of the factory HS, and thermal grease - lots and lots of it - was what they used). At that point, i just said the heck with it and remounted the stock HS. I didn't want to have to completely disassemble my rig if, for some reaseon, the vantec didn't work as well as i hoped it would. What killed me on the idea of the vantec, was that the majority if the HS would not be making contact with the chipset at all (only a big glob of thermal grease), and i was unsure that it would perform as well/better than the factory HS...apathy was the word of the day

The max temps i get on my chipset when at load are in the upper 40's C (with my case temps ranging from the mid 20's C to the low 30's C). I haven't been able to find any mfg guidelines on the acceptable temp range for this chipset, and have long since quit trying. I also haven't experienced any trouble with the stock chipset HS on this mobo (i've been using it for over 5 months). Granted, i now have a big glob of AS 5 instead of the factory thermal grease between the HS and chipset.

As far as feedback on the chipset cooler that i posted a link to, one of the members here (i'll be darned if i remember who it was) recommended that cooler to me. He also has the same mobo, and he liked the vantec. However, he was not using a thermal monitor at the time, so i don't have any empirical comparisons between the vantec and the stock HS.

If you are planning on upgrading your videocard, drop me a PM and i'll measure the actual clearance that i have between the edge/HS of my videocard and top of my chipset (that'll at least give you an idea of the dimensions that you'll have to play with).


EDIT:

ok, finally found the post i was looking for: http://forums.pcapex.com/showthread....ighlight=oscar (post #8 has a ton of useful links...the first 2 links will steer you to groovy bios downloads - however, you will have to run a search to find them on the first of the 2 links)

I'm currently running one of the Oscar Wu bios (what the heck is the plural of bios?) that's listed on the second link, and it rocks. Although i'm not much of an overclocker, i still love this bios because it lets me disable thermal throttling (prior DFI bios wouln't let me do that without locking up on boot ).