Overheating chipset.

[NotHarry]

I have had a lot of trouble with my new 'Asus rog strix z690-A Gaming wifi D4' motherboard. My latest problem is a chipset that idles at 60c+.
I want to strip the heatsink for chipset in order to reseat it but you have this daft piece of plastic over the heatsink that has a cable tie attached to it, and I don't know how to remove it.
Have any of you guys striped the northbridge heat sink from one of these boards, how do you get the piece of plastic off first?

[reddeath]

santi0797 wrote:

2. Undervolt the chipset. This made a massive difference. I went full deep and set the 1.05V to 0.8V. And the 0.8V to 0.6V. I know that not all the boards will do this and be stable. I was lucky to be able to use such undervolt with no issues at all. This dropped the temps from the high 70's into the high 60's. But i still thought i could do better.

Can you share more details about how to undervolted the chipset?

[JohnAb]

If you remove the PCH heatsink I think that the warranty will be voided (unless you do a good job with no trace lol). Anyway, like I said it's a good but slightly more difficult method. You will find more information in these forums if you do a search, some people have included images as well, but I can't say if they are of your motherboard...

If you are 'handy' then removal of the heatsink should not be a major problem, just take care and don't rip it off with too much force! As far as I know, ASUS motherboards hold down the heatsink assembly using screws on the reverse of the motherboard. Some people mention cables and other complications, so just take it slow if you are going to try it.

[IT_Troll]

Also, if you do remove the heatsink, it is a good idea to remove any decorative plastic shroud that may be acting as an insulator.

[JohnAb]

I agree that high PCH is not good in a perfect world, but like Murph says, that's just the way it is. I've seen reports of 690 chipsets running at 70-80C even in Windows, higher in games.

If you can get it below 60C then you're doing well. You could add a small fan pointing towards the chipset as well if you want. That can reduce temp by a further 5-10C. The 'best' way is to strip out the heatsink, remove the plastic cover and replace the thermal pad with a better one. However, you might not have a warranty left, so to be honest, try to avoid doing that unless out of warranty.

I've added a fan and my chipset now rests typically at 56-59C and rises to 65C in games. I'm happy if it stays below 60C most of the time, but really, even if it's higher then don't be concerned. These chipsets can run hot without problems and I've never heard of one failing (although I'm not sure how you would tell, apart from not booting?)

[JohnAb]

Undervolting the chipset (PCH) is a great suggestion and really does help. You will find the settings in advanced settings/tweakers paradise. Then you use the + and - keys to adjust the voltages.

In my case, I could only go down to midpoint voltage settings without getting WHEA errors (HWInfo is an easy way to see if you have any).

If you can use minimum voltages then you will probably reduce the chipset temperatures by around 5-10C, so worth a try. When I tried minimum voltages the system still booted OK, but to eliminate the errors I just went back up to midpoint values. Some people can use minimum voltages just fine, have a go and see what works for you...

[jkendall]

I was having the same issues rather high temps on both the pch and the ram actually with a 3090 fe and a z790 hero board. The positioning of components on the board was a perfect combo for the 3090 fes back fan to blow hot air straight up onto the ram and onto the pch set. The ram was getting very toasty when the gpu was under any load. I didn't replace the thermal pads or anything on the pch but I did end up getting a water block for my gpu which solved all the heat issues from the ram and the pch. Now the pch under idle is at 55c.. which under load gets a little cooler due to the fans in the case ramping up and blowing more air across things.