Mobo and CPU cooling strategies are at odds with each other

[MadMacs2020]

Hi guys, I'm new but I thought I would register this observation to see if maybe someone important might see this and eventually decide to do something (heh! well you can always hope!)

If you peruse my computer spec I HAD a reasonable gaming rig

P4 Core2Duo E6850 3GHz
3Gb DDR2 Corsair Ram
ASUS P5N32-E SLI Mobo
500Gb Sata2 HDD
NVidia 8800GTS

I assembled this rig together with a Titan Amanda TEC CPU cooler in an Antec 1200 Gaming case and for a while all was happy. Then the machine started to go a bit funny, my colleagues suggested that it was overheating as the unit was in the corner of my living room and the filters may have been clogged. Well, after a serious declogging and relocating the machine to my "study" and then turning the fans up to improve air flow, things didn't seem to improve. Eventually the predictable happened and the mobo gave out.

I've since found out that this particular mobo ran unusually hot, which brings me to my point, after trawling through the internet looking at motherboards to replace the dead one it occurred to me that currently Motherboard manufacturers and processor cooling manufacturers don't seem to be talking to each other.

Currently a lot of motherboard manufacturers are making their motherboards with heatpipes that guide the heat towards cooling fins located around the cpu, yet most aftermarket cpu cooling manufacturers are making the cpu coolers to force air-flow through cooling fins that are directed at the exhaust fans of the case, 90degrees to the motherboard. This means that as with my setup, which sadly I wasn't aware of until the worst happened, very little airflow from the cpu cooler reaches the mobo cooling fins.

I thought having a case like the Antec 1200 would provide more than enough airflow across these fins, sadly it turns out that having one of these "across mobo" coolers can actually inhibit air-flow through the mobo cooling fins.

I've had a look through the online catalogues for "top-down" coolers that actually direct air-flow towards the mobo cooling fins but there are only a handful of them and most have a worst rating than the Intel stock cooler, either that or their looks are sorely lacking. The only one that I have come across so far that even seems to stand a chance of ticking all of the boxes in this, rant I suppose you can call it, is the Noctua NH-C12P SE14.

I wonder if even the water cooling crowd are having similar issues as you're removing the fan completely from this area of the mobo.

How much longer are we going to have to put up with this before these manufacturers start talking to each other and work out a proper cooling solution for both the CPU AND the mobo?

I'd really like to avoid another toasted gaming rig, this one cost me enough when I bought it!

[Disturbedguy]

Tbh, all the CPU cooler manufacturers care about is that the coolers they produce, fit the required socket type and cool the CPU. The CPU COOLER manufacturers have an aim to cool your CPU as much as possible, not the rest of the motherboard.

Motherboard and CPU don't have to talk to each, all they care about is there respective product/s.

If you want extra motherboard cooling, either by adding heat spreaders to the North and South bridge, if they dont already have them or add more/ better fans, that provide a higher airflow to the case.

Decent airflow can and will cool your PC, including the mothboard.

To be honest, I haven't heard of this motherboard running unusally hot, not to the point where it would fry it, so to speak, as most motherboards and computer components have safety cut off points, it gets to hot, it cuts off.

[Pob255]

yes the chipset on the 650i did run hot esp when overclocking, which is why you could get additional blowers for it.


As to air flow, yes without a top down cooler there's not as much air flow however there's still generally enough unless you're heavly overclocking.

there's quite a lot of top down coolers that are very good, not just that noctua and for a e6850 you shouldn't need anything that high spec.
For a cheap option, have a look around for a 2nd hand ThermalTake big typhoon they where and are still very good coolers originally designed to cope with the far hotter running Pentium D

[crossy82]

Sorry to hear about your mobo,maybe next time try using some DELTA 220cfm fans,at frozen cpu they even do the 250cfm model.However you may need a seperate psu to run them safely as they use @30amps each,just dont plug into mobo or you'll fry it by overloading it.One of these on there own strategically placed should be sufficient.

[Pob255]

I do hope that was sarcasm

[MadMacs2020]

yes the chipset on the 650i did run hot esp when overclocking, which is why you could get additional blowers for it.
{See image in orginal post}

As to air flow, yes without a top down cooler there's not as much air flow however there's still generally enough unless you're heavly overclocking.

there's quite a lot of top down coolers that are very good, not just that noctua and for a e6850 you shouldn't need anything that high spec.
For a cheap option, have a look around for a 2nd hand ThermalTake big typhoon they where and are still very good coolers originally designed to cope with the far hotter running Pentium D

Pob255, yes I was aware of these fans, it always puzzled me as to why they weren't supplied in the box. As it is the left hand fan wouldn't have fitted between the Titan Amanda and the exhaust fan anyway, so I'm almost probably as much at fault with the death of this board as the manufacturer. I have never claimed to be a hardcore overclocker but I know enough when building these machines not to make silly mistakes. This was more to highlight the seeming flaws in the cooling strategies of the parts rather than try to hide my mistake

Tbh, all the CPU cooler manufacturers care about is that the coolers they produce, fit the required socket type and cool the CPU. The CPU COOLER manufacturers have an aim to cool your CPU as much as possible, not the rest of the motherboard.

Motherboard and CPU don't have to talk to each, all they care about is there respective product/s.

If you want extra motherboard cooling, either by adding heat spreaders to the North and South bridge, if they dont already have them or add more/ better fans, that provide a higher airflow to the case.

Decent airflow can and will cool your PC, including the mothboard.

To be honest, I haven't heard of this motherboard running unusally hot, not to the point where it would fry it, so to speak, as most motherboards and computer components have safety cut off points, it gets to hot, it cuts off.

DisturbedGuy, I realise that the manufacturers of the CPU Coolers are really only interested in their own products, this was more of a general rant towards the industry - mostly directed at the Mobo manufacturers as they don't seem to be taking note of the current trend of these CPU coolers, I noticed even the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9 diverts all of it's cooling fins (without the snazzy cooling bolt-ons to the CPU chip area (See img.hexus.net/v2/news/gigabyte/X58A-UD9_1-big.jpg). It just doesn't seem to make much sense is all.

Sorry to hear about your mobo,maybe next time try using some DELTA 220cfm fans,at frozen cpu they even do the 250cfm model.However you may need a seperate psu to run them safely as they use @30amps each,just dont plug into mobo or you'll fry it by overloading it.One of these on there own strategically placed should be sufficient.

Crossy82, sadly the beast passed away before I could figure a way of ducting my room A/C unit into the case, I'm stuck with a budget ASRock board now but I'm already planning the next incarnation of my gaming rig so I'm not that griefed by the loss

[Pob255]

Well that's sort of my point it's more down to the 650i chipset running overly hot, the later intel chipsets don't run so hot (p35 or later) and don't suffer this issue, as long as you're not going extreme which requires the voltage to be increased.
Even then with most of them the northbridge is liked to the pwm/mofet cooler via heat pipe which does tend to get some cooling from the cpu>reaar case fan air flow, not as much as a top down cooler but still enough for most overclocks.