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CHIPSET MODIFICATION
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Chipsets come with many different features and options for users to tweak, edit and enjoy, however not all features are equal and often a chipset feature will determine whether or not you buy this or that motherboard. Chipsets are a pair of chips which contain the instructions for specific functions on your motherboard, for instance, RAID (Redundant Array of Independant Disks) which as a way to combine the performance of two or more hard disks together for an even better storage solution, is commonly integrated into the 'Southbridge' of todays motherboards. A chipset is simply two pieces of silicon chips which receive the signals from peripheral components like PCI devices and IDE devices and CPU and RAM components and channel their data between the rest of the system components and most often to the CPU and RAM. The most important of these chips, and which is often 'modded' (modified) is the Northbridge. Both AMD and Intel have north and south bridges because they literally 'bridge' the individual components together. All systems these days in the x86 compatible platform have north and south bridges. The south bridge controls all system components on the PCI bus, and DMA and IRQ data, whereas the northbridge controls access to the AGP/CPU/RAM systems and so it could be called the 'higher system functions' chip. Having a look inside your system, you'll see that the northbridge has a heatsink on it, and possibly a fan too. When overclocking a system, or running it with aggressive memory timings, it is quite important that this particular component be kept as cool as possible (heat=enemy). So the best cooling is effective cooling, and often the NB HSF combination just doesn't cut it, especially when you consider overclocking. This presented a challenge to me, to replace my current and factory made overclockers heatsinkfan with another effective cooler. By this time my northbridge was becoming less and less effective at its job and problems started occurring when I tried to edit my fraps avi's. The upgrade was becoming essential with every rpm of that old Northbridge fan. It had worn itself out and the oil reservoir I had made for it was in danger of leaking over the NB itself. The old heatsink was slightly bent which meant a poor contact between it and the chip it was supposed to cool ... thus I needed a replacement. The northbridge is essential for CPU to RAM data transfer and because it's such an important part, it needs some decent cooling. I got an old titan video card cooler that had some form of clamp. The clamp was useless in this situation, so I drilled 2 holes into the corners exactly 58.75 mm ( 1/2mm) apart diagonally across the heatsink, these holes became mounting points for the custom nut and bolt setup I was about to use. With some pliers, both of the corners where I drilled holes had to have some fins removed and with much care and wiggling the fins came off. It was a simple case of applying some arctic silver grease onto the top of the northbrige (to act as heat transfer material between the CHIP and the HeatSink) and from there the heatsink was placed (using insulated pads between metal bolts and motherboard) onto the NB and carefully screwed down (evenly that is) semi-tight onto the greased chip (NB). I am now able to run my Corsair Platinum XMS3200 at 183 FSB using FAST ram settings (2-6-2-2) which I was never able to do before without crashes or lockups. But the best thing about it is that it runs quietly and stable. Fantastic result. |