Very Hot Northbridge

[namelesssquid]

I recently (yesterday) built myself a new PC, and everything seems to be working very smoothly, so I wanted to see how it would perform under load.

The system has an ASUS P5B-e motherboard (not a deluxe, alas), an Intel E6600 with an Arctic Freezer 7 on and the case has two 120mm fans which seem to blow the air through it pretty well. To check the various system temps, I installed a monitoring program (SpeedFan), which gives me a cpu temp of about 48-50C when idling, and about 60C (with a MB temp going from 35-40) when I get both cores working flat out on Prime95. Which I think is just fine.

But there's a third (well, 4th counting the HDD) temperature sensor shown in the readouts, which is called AUX and is reporting a temp of (at time of writing) 127C. Which seems worryingly high, so I set out to investigate. Touching my finger inside the case, I found that the Northbridge seemed to be VERY hot, so I'm wondering if it might be that.

I've also tried googling, and a few forums have said that the sensor isn't used, and in support of this, the system seems to be stable, with no crashes or glitches that you might expect from a northbridge that is massively overheating.

So I'm vexed.

Any advice or clarification you can offer?

[charleski]

My 975 Northbridge certainly runs hot. The 127C reading is clearly rubbish, any chip would fry quickly at that heat. If it doesn't crash, don't worry about it.

[htid]

Yeah a thread here recently, people were saying they have stupid readings from speedfan, like -4 cpu temps and stuff, so I wouldn't take it as gospel.

[namelesssquid]

I'd mostly figured 127C was impossibly hot, but sometimes it just helps to have someone else say it too. I was more concerned about the physical (touch my finger to it) Northbridge temp, but if they tend to run hot and since it's stable, I guess I wont worry.

Thanks for the answers