High MCH Temps

[spooky2th]

My comp MCH temperature seems to be getting too high lately. I thought there was a lot of heat coming from the comp last night, so I rebooted and went into bios and check the temps.
System 46C
CPU 47C
MCH 87C

All I was doing was watching a DVD I made of the World Series of Poker, The Main Event from the other night. I've had this comp since May, 2009.

MoBo GA-EX58-UD3R
CPU Intel i7 940
8 gigs of Kingston ValueRAM 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (4 x 2gigs)
Graphics Card GeForce GTX 295
Heat Sink Asetek Liquid CPU Cooling System

Can anybody tell me what's going on or going wrong or what's up?

Thanks ...

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi there,

Well, that is definitely a problem! If you are overclocking the system, set it back to the standard settings and see if the X-58 MCH is still hot. You are keeping the CPU temp down with the Aseteck liguid cooling unit.

Since you have been running the system for over a year without a problem, there's got to be a problem with the MCH heat sink.

Can't tell from the manual or diagram, but does the heat sink on the MCH come off for attachment of a liquid cooling head? Looks like there is an attachment phillips screw at each end of the heat sink. Could it be loose. Worth a close look.

I always double check my component temps with a fluke IR electronic thermometer which is within 1-2 degrees of the bios readings, and makes pinpointing and confirming thermal problems fairly rapid.

 

[spooky2th]

Thanks for the reply. I am not sure where the MCH is. It's not listed in any of the diagrams. Is it the under the CPU? Or where? I've since turned my top fan on high and so far no extreme heating yet.

 

[John_VanKirk]

Thanks for the reply. I am not sure where the MCH is. It's not listed in any of the diagrams. Is it the under the CPU? Or where? I've since turned my top fan on high and so far no extreme heating yet.

Hi there,

The X-58 i-7 Motherboards use a different nomenclature than the classic boards. You MB has the memory controller directly on the CPU rather than the Northbridge chip sometimes called the MCH (Memory Controller Hub). I am assumming the X-58 chip under the blue "Gigabyte" label with the heat pipes leading from it, is what GA is labelling the MCH. Intel calls it the ICH. It's at 6 o'clock just below the CPU area. There is another chip under an isolated heat sink lower and to the right called the I/O controller chip, or ICH10R. That handles the I/O ports, like PCI, USB, Networking, SATA.

To the left of the X-58 heat sink is a "Northbridge fan header" used to connect a fan cooling this chip if needed. It's on most of GA boards however and not specific to this MB.

The CPU has its own thermistor, so they wouldn't put another thermistor there.

Check to see it the "Gigabyte" heat sink comes off for installation of a water cooled device, or if it is loose for whatever reason. It might need new thermal compound if it has been removed previously.

Do you have access to one of the inexpensive Infrared thermometers? You just laser point it at a location on the board and it can isolate the hot spot immediately.

 

[spooky2th]

I don't have access to an infrared thermometer but I have used them on the job. They are a great tool to have! I cannot find anything wrong on the board. The over heating has stopped since I turned the top case fan up all the way. Am looking to install another fan specifically for the MCH. I think that will help.

 

[John_VanKirk]

I don't have access to an infrared thermometer but I have used them on the job. They are a great tool to have! I cannot find anything wrong on the board. The over heating has stopped since I turned the top case fan up all the way. Am looking to install another fan specifically for the MCH. I think that will help.

Hi again,

The GA motherboards have a "Northbridge Fan Header" possibly called an MCH, or on my MB PCH header. I emailed Gigabyte asking them about this fan header. They said it is for the chipset, runs at full speed, and the speed (RPM) does not show in the BIOS PC Health.
They also said they don't make the fan holder adapter but they are readily available. Sort of like the small fans and bracket Corsair supplies for some of the hotter running RAM chips.

Check closely to see if the heatsink over the X-58 controller hub comes off, with phillips screws. If so, you could consider adding a water cooled block in series with your Asetek Liquid CPU Cooling System. I have a GA-P55a 1156 GA motherboard and it comes with a water cooling block over the NF200 PCI-e bridge chip, (which I don't use) so I know they expect that chip to run hot with fast or SLI video cards.

Keeping the heat down will prevent wierd thermal problems down the road, like a video card intermittantly going black, or the system rebooting spontaneously, or errors when the chips get hot after short use, but not at startup, or trouble in the summer when the ambient temp is warmer.

Hope that's helpful.

 

[spooky2th]

Thanks, John! I took the heat sink off. It was spring-screw loaded onto a bracket on the back of the mobo. I ended up having to take the board out to reinstall it. There is a back plate in the way. There was a cut-out for the cpu & heat sink but nothing for the x-58 heat sink. The factory application of the thermal compound was poorly applied and was more towards one side of the chip and had squished out onto some metal contacts on the board. I cleaned it all up from the chip, board and heat sink with some Magic Goo Gone (great stuff.) Applied some Freeze thermal compound (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3522883&CatId=503) with a good and even coat on the chip and put it all back together and it's been running cooler now. Haven't seen MCH temps over 54C so far. Just idling used to put the MCH temps into the high 60s.

I still might be getting a small fan and mount it inside the case and point it at the x-58 chip.

Thanks again!

 

[spooky2th]

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