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 Home > Gallery > ASUS A7N8X Northbridge cooler swap |
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Shortly after installing the A7N8X, I upgraded the stock CPU and Northbridge (NB) cooling to an Aero 7+ and a Zalman passive heatsink. Pictures can be found here. This time, I swapped the Zalman passive heatsink for a Vantec active HSF (from the Vantec Iceberq kit). I'd seen a lot of forum activity regarding the removal/swap of the NB heatsink, so decided to snap a few pictures to try and help others see that it's quite a simple process. The most common problem people have with removing the stock (and Zalman) cooling involves understanding/explaining the "push-pins" used to mount it. The push-pins go through the motherboard, so you need to have access to the rear of the board to remove them. This will generally involve removing the motherboard from the case/tray to expose the pins, as seen in the 2nd and 3rd shots. You need to squeeze the 'flare' to push it through the board, at which point, the heatsink is held on by the thermal compound only. The stock heatsink uses some hideous pink "bubble gum" compound. To remove the heatsink from the NB ship, you need to apply some heat. I used a hairdryer and gave it a good blast before prying the heatsink loose. You have to use quite some pressure to get it off, and I found a twisting motion seemed to work best. Once the heatsink is removed, you'll have a NH chip exposed, but caked in compound. I use Isopropyl Alcohol (available from Maplin here in the UK) to clean up any reside, which should leave you with a (near-)perfect finish as shown in shots 5 and 6 below. Once you have the NH exposed, you almost reverse the process; apply the thermal compound of your choice, seat the cooler and re-push the new pins through to secure it. Note: In a few of the shots below, the nForce2 Southbridge is also clearly visible (labelled "MCP-T"). I attached one of the heatsinks from the Iceberq kit to the SB using a thermal pad (also included!).
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