Doh!!! Need advice about northbridge thermal compound

[Waynehead]

Alright, so my Gigabyte motherboard showed up a couple days ago and today I decided to put it down in my case to scope some things out and get ready to order the remaining components. Well when I went to pull the board back out of the case I used the northbridge heatsink along with the pci-e slot to pull and the northbridge pulled away from the board. I was not aware that it was fastened on a spring loaded base. So I am guessing that I need to clean the existing compound and apply new right? I have never messed with a northbridge before. I have applied thermal compound to older cpus and have always thought if the sink broke contact you should clean and re apply. I have tuniq tr-1 cleaner and tx-3 compound on the way so I guess I am probably just going to re do, is there any thing that needs to be done differently than to a cpu.

 

[Fat.Clown]

no difference

 

[S0ULphIRE]

yep, the paste is there for the exact same purpose as when it's on the cpu.

Something needs cooling, but the contact between the heatsink and component isn't as good as it could be (because both are rigid metal objects incapable of 'morphing' to fit the other, e.g. like soft plastic would). So thermal paste is used to fill the resulting gaps and pits.

 

[CrazeD]

The only difference is that the whole chip must be covered with paste. On CPU's some people (myself included) only put a dab in the middle.

Otherwise, no difference.

 

[baron5]

I'd be most worried about the tx-3 no holding the heatsink down, the stock pastes they use are usually pads which have adhesive properties . Aftermarket pastes like as5/tx series don't, slightly but a little pressure can easily brake the seal and move the heatsink. You may want to look into a way of fastening the heatsink down. I cant think of anything atm, unless you bodge it with tape, which i wouldn't recommend.

 

[Waynehead]

It has a bracket and is held down pretty well, but it is spring loaded so there is alittle give. I dont think it will be a problem now that I know not to use it as a handle lol.Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

So I didnt realize until just now posting this link that there is a heatsink on the southbridge as well. I dont know if Ive ever had or seen a mobo with a sink on the south. Think I should go ahead and re paste that as well?

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Nah, the south bridge doesn't really come into play as much during OCing. It handles slower stuff like the audio, sata ports, PCI slots, etc.

 

[Waynehead]

See I was under the impression that the southbridge had something to do with the processor because I was told the 710's and 750's were the ones that could "unlock" the dual and triple cores. Which is what I was planning on doing with this board when I have the funds to build a better rig.

 

[wafflehammer]

south bridge communicates with sata, audio, usb....then the northbridge communicates with basically everything else :\ then the CPU does all the processing