Question Can I use a SSD heatsink for VRM?

"Idle" temperatures are generally irrelevant. And are ESPECIALLY irrelevant when talking about VRM temperatures. The need for a VRM heatsink would imply you need it because you are seeing high temperatures or throttling under load conditions and those are the temperature readings we'd need to know about. Under a full load, what are your VRM temperatures looking like? And "VRM" temperatures are NOT the same as "motherboard" temperatures. Totally different sensors and totally different way of calculating those temperatures based on the relevant sensor values.
 

nakedtons

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"Idle" temperatures are generally irrelevant. And are ESPECIALLY irrelevant when talking about VRM temperatures. The need for a VRM heatsink would imply you need it because you are seeing high temperatures or throttling under load conditions and those are the temperature readings we'd need to know about. Under a full load, what are your VRM temperatures looking like? And "VRM" temperatures are NOT the same as "motherboard" temperatures. Totally different sensors and totally different way of calculating those temperatures based on the relevant sensor values.
Is there a way to measure VRM temperatures?
 


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nakedtons

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As you can see, VRM MOS is not present.
I would have gotten the ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-PLUS WIFI instead had I knew that ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-E WIFI had no VRM heatsink above the CPU. I didn't knew much about VRM back then.

AMD Ryzen 5 5500
ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-E WIFI
Alseye M120D CPU Cooler
4 x 8GB Klevv Cras X RGB
Gigabyte 1070 GTX
AORUS Gen4 7000 1TB NVME SSD
Transcend 240GB SATA SSD
Samsung 860 250 GB SATA SSD
Seasonic Focus-GX 750W
Coolermaster TD300 Mesh


Upgrading my CPU soon as I bought this Gen 3 CPU without realizing it can't support my Gen4 SSD at full speed.
 
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AMD Ryzen 5 5500
ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-E WIFI
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Asus does not report VRM temperatures on their mid and low tier boards. I have a TUF B550M Gaming Plus and it doesn't either, but it does have a monstrous heatsink. You'll have to figure out temps the old fashioned way...how quickly it burns your finger when you touch one of the FET's or capacitors. JK...but seriously, use an IR thermometer.

But also...according to pictures on the Asus web site your board SHOULD have a fairly robust heatsink on your board's VCore VRM too so I'm not sure what your concern is. Did you buy a used one that someone took it off before selling to you? The Vsoc VRM is uncovered but that is never under any stress with a CPU. Only "G" model APU's load that heavily as they have an integrated GPU.
 
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Actually, seems I recall Martin over at HWinfo saying they DO report it but you won't see it if you've chosen to disable the "EC sensor". Most people do this because I think this is the sensor that most people with ASUS boards get "warned" about on first startup of HWinfo. Click on the gear at the bottom of the HWinfo window to open the settings and look for a setting called "EC support" and enable it. If there is no such setting for your configuration then it's either not monitored, which would be extremely unusual for a modern board, or it's being called something else other than "VRM".


If Martin says ASUS boards show it, then they should be there, but drea.drechsler might be right that some of their lower and mid tiered boards might not include monitoring for it. I know my Z170 Hero VIII showed it but I guess we're calling that a high end board even though it only cost me 150 bucks brand new at the time I bought it back in 2015. My ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 also show VRM temperature.

And actually, he does say some of the lower VRM configurations don't show it.


Part of the VRMs do not have a heatsink on that board, at the top of the board above the CPU. The most important section does, so if yours doesn't then somebody has taken it off. Can you post a picture of YOUR board? The part that is not covered with a heatsink isn't nearly as important as the part that does come heatsinked. Especially since you are only running a middle of the road CPU and not a high end model with a lot of cores and a higher TDP.

What speed are those Klevv modules supposed to be?
 
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If Martin says ASUS boards show it, then they should be there, but drea.drechsler might be right that some of their lower and mid tiered boards might not include monitoring for it.
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When i first set up my B550m Tuf PLUS I sent Martin an email asking if he could look at adding the VRM temps sensor for the board. His response was that ASUS does not expose the temperature for monitoring on the low and mid-range boards he'd looked at. I don't know if he was referring to their AMD / AM4 boards only or not.

It certainly is strange not to on modern boards. But what makes it even stranger is the VRM controller almost certainly has to monitor DrMOS power stage (equipped on the PLUS boards) temperatures in order to adequately control them. It must be a choice on Asus' part since it's a no-cost thing to do to expose the temperature for monitor software. Just one other reason I'll probably not buy Asus again. Sad because they make good hardware, just terrible marketing decisions.
 
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Well, they GENERALLY make good hardware. I've had problems with several of their boards over the last five years or so and then discovered that their customer service is total crap compared to what it used to be. Several others around here have had similar experiences. Mainly, all regarding RMA and warranty issues and a lack of willingness to properly fix or address those issues on the part of ASUS. In fact, on the other side of the fence I've posted THIS a few times, basically every time somebody new discovers that ASUS "ain't your daddy's ASUS anymore". LOL.


AaR98sG.jpg
 

nakedtons

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Actually, seems I recall Martin over at HWinfo saying they DO report it but you won't see it if you've chosen to disable the "EC sensor". Most people do this because I think this is the sensor that most people with ASUS boards get "warned" about on first startup of HWinfo. Click on the gear at the bottom of the HWinfo window to open the settings and look for a setting called "EC support" and enable it. If there is no such setting for your configuration then it's either not monitored, which would be extremely unusual for a modern board, or it's being called something else other than "VRM".


If Martin says ASUS boards show it, then they should be there, but drea.drechsler might be right that some of their lower and mid tiered boards might not include monitoring for it. I know my Z170 Hero VIII showed it but I guess we're calling that a high end board even though it only cost me 150 bucks brand new at the time I bought it back in 2015. My ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 also show VRM temperature.

And actually, he does say some of the lower VRM configurations don't show it.


Part of the VRMs do not have a heatsink on that board, at the top of the board above the CPU. The most important section does, so if yours doesn't then somebody has taken it off. Can you post a picture of YOUR board? The part that is not covered with a heatsink isn't nearly as important as the part that does come heatsinked. Especially since you are only running a middle of the road CPU and not a high end model with a lot of cores and a higher TDP.

What speed are those Klevv modules supposed to be?


Klevv speeds are just the same as any other RAM whose full speed needs to be activated by XMP. I chose Klevv as it seems very affordable and reliable. My brother has been using Klevv ram for close to two years without failing.