Should you reapply thermal paste on the north-bridge?

[stoggs1]

Hey guys, so I recently bought a slightly used motherboard off my buddy, its about a little over a year old i know this since I was with him when he bought it, well anyways should I re apply the paste in the northbridge or would it not make a difference?

By the way its an msi 970 43g am3 board.

 

[stoggs1]

Hey guys, so I recently bought a slightly used motherboard off my buddy, its about a little over a year old i know this since I was with him when he bought it, well anyways should I re apply the paste in the northbridge or would it not make a difference?

By the way its an msi 970 43g am3 board.

And sorry for misspelling thermal in the title i am typing from my phone and the touchscreen is really sensitive.

Edit: Fixed that for ya - Mussels

 

[eidairaman1]

Its not a waste, I did it on a Dell Inspiron 9100 Laptop moons ago.

It does help considerably.

 

[AsRock]

Yeah it's worth it, some MX4 is probably better be better than what is on it.

 

[eidairaman1]

Yeah it's worth it, some MX4 is probably better be better than what is on it.

As5, AsC, MX2, MX4, Gelid etc.

 

[R-T-B]

As5, AsC, MX2, MX4, Gelid etc.

MX2 is dirt cheap right now too, and works pretty darn well under low contact pressure in my experience (some laptop coolers suffer from this in my experience, which yeah, is strange considering the vertical space limit)

 

[stoggs1]

I just got some arctic silver 5, been using it for years, I recently put some on my 960 brought my load temps down about 7 degrees c from the stock paste under load, max temps even when overclocked are about 58 degrees c.

Ok I will do it before I install the board into my new case I will be putting it all together over the weekend.

Now the heatsink is mounted to the board by those plastic clips not screws how easy is removing those? And what would be the best method? I have never done thermal paste on the southbridge before.

 

[Caring1]

Now the heatsink is mounted to the board by those plastic clips not screws how easy is removing those? And what would be the best method? I have never done thermal paste on the southbridge before.

Look at the underside of the board, you can see the plastic clips, simply squeeze the two parts together and they push through.

 

[stoggs1]

Look at the underside of the board, you can see the plastic clips, simply squeeze the two parts together and they push through.

Would my fingers work or would i need a pair of needle nose?

 

[Caring1]

I've done lots using just my fingers

 

[Mussels]

Late to the thread so:

Yes, its worth it
Fingers first, pliers second choice. You break one of those pins and you'll be rather sad.

 

[silentbogo]

Now the heatsink is mounted to the board by those plastic clips not screws how easy is removing those? And what would be the best method? I have never done thermal paste on the southbridge before.

Good set of tweezers (not the flimsy chinese type, which bends under pressure).
Pliers do work, but they also damage the plastic "ears" which hold it in place.
Fingernails also work, but you need to wait about a week until they are long enough for this procedure (or ask your wife to do it)

I use my granpa's tweezers on daily basis for stuff like this: solid, heavy nickel-plated steel with very fine points; made in USSR.

 

[Ferrum Master]

I use my granpa's tweezers on daily basis for stuff like this: solid, heavy nickel-plated steel with very fine points; made in USSR.

Funny, I have my set gotten from grandpa too. USSR made tools mostly have proper sturdy metal and alloys.

 

[Vya Domus]

Unless you get some throttling happening which can occur on on these boards if the north-bridge overheats , I would not bother with it. I have done it on a board that worked fine and as expected nothing happened. It can't hurt though.

 

[jboydgolfer]

Would my fingers work or would i need a pair of needle nose?

I remember on my old Z 68 extreme three and had a little push down pans on either side and you just depressed them I would come right off. But in the end they all have two prong plastic latch thing that sticks out on the bottom of the motherboard like everyone else has mentioned

 

[stoggs1]

I looked at the board, it looks likes its mounted with screws which is good. I will doing my build later tonight also the mofsets dont have a heatsink. I have seen some aftermarket heatsinks for them.

If i added them would it make a big difference? I plan on overclocking my cpu a little bit and I purchased a cooler master hyper t4 heatsink.

 

[Mussels]

I looked at the board, it looks likes its mounted with screws which is good. I will doing my build later tonight also the mofsets dont have a heatsink. I have seen some aftermarket heatsinks for them.

If i added them would it make a big difference? I plan on overclocking my cpu a little bit and I purchased a cooler master hyper t4 heatsink.

heatsink isnt a bad idea, but airflow is the key. If you can get air blowing directly on them, that'd be for the best.

 

[stoggs1]

heatsink isnt a bad idea, but airflow is the key. If you can get air blowing directly on them, that'd be for the best.

What it is considered safe temps for monsters? I know I sound like a noob here lol, but I have never monitored or worried about them before. I know you need to keep them cool for overclocking.

 

[eidairaman1]

MX2 is dirt cheap right now too, and works pretty darn well under low contact pressure in my experience (some laptop coolers suffer from this in my experience, which yeah, is strange considering the vertical space limit)

For some systems where it used a generic thermalpad and had a wide gap between hs and die, i would just stack akasa shinetsu thermalpads till it filled the gap thoroughly, they worked great for that even lol

 

[Mussels]

What it is considered safe temps for monsters? I know I sound like a noob here lol, but I have never monitored or worried about them before. I know you need to keep them cool for overclocking.

they dont overheat to the point of danger, but they can thermal throttle. basically run something heat-intensive like intel burn test for a few passes and see if performance drops over time - or do a comparison with a fan blowing over it, vs no fan.

 

[QuickQuestion]

I realise I'm unlikely to get a response, but...
Did this work, did it lower your NB temperature?
and did you just use paste and remove the pad that came with it, or did you leave the pad and add thermal paste?
Thanks

 

[John Naylor]

@ QuickQuestion

When we build a new system, I record baseline temps before and after overclocking ... look at them again after 3, 6, 12, 18.... months. So in answer yo the question "Should i reapply ?"., the only logical answer is ... "if temps changed, ..... and they changed enough to cause you concern, then by all means do so.

Of course, coming in late to the game so to speak with this board, you don't have that opportunity. few reviewers look at anything but CPU temps. But if it's not too much trouble getting the HS off, hard to say it's not worth the cost / T & E. If a pad is used, finding out the proper thickness can be a challenge.

There are better TIMs (i.e. Grizzly) but we're still using Shin Etsu G751 for chipsets ... Benchmarkreview archives have disappeared but this was our reference 10 years ago

80-way TIM shootout

Check it out over at Benchmark Reviews.

www.techpowerup.com

AS5 and Shin Etsu tied for the lead, thermally but AS5 lost ground due the curing and capacitance issues. Still can be had for < $4 and also bought in bulk up to 1 KG

Thermal Grease G751 |

Shrinking die and increasing power demands continue to make the thermal solution a critical part of IC package design. Shin-Etsu […]

www.microsi.com

For pads we use Fuji-Poly which as time I looked came in 3 different performace levels and all typical thicknesses.