So my brother’s mobo heatsinks were getting insanely hot. Nothing else was overheating like the CPU or anything and the PC ran fine. It was just those heatsinks. Was kind of hard to find info on the subject online. Most people shrug it off with something like “those chipsets are meant to withstand more heat” or “some mobo manufacturers go for look over practicality with those and they sometimes get hot”. Always a non issue according to anything I found. But when I’m saying they were hot I’m talking HOT. Like heating up the room over the course of a day hot.
Contacted ASUS and their very first recommendation is removing the heatsinks and reapplying some thermal paste and resetting the heatsinks. I mean I’m not afraid to try it personally but I found it odd that would be the first suggestion. A lot of people wouldn’t know how to jump right in to that. I replied to make sure it wouldn’t void the warranty so I had that “in writing” from them. Awaiting the reply. If the issue persists after I still want to be able to RMA afterall haha.
Anybody ever do this project of resetting chipset heatsinks before or have a similar issue before? Any other ideas?
You mean chipset like North/South bridge? I did do that, only well after the warranty period, just to be on the safe side. Also a friend had a computer that was constantly crashing and only by accident I touched the heatsink on the northbridge and found it cool to the touch while the temperature monitor was saying around 90 degrees… After applying fresh paste and a small fan it went down to 60 degrees and no more crashing 
To me a hot heatsink would mean that it’s making good contact but need more air moving over it
Yeah, that was my thoughts as well too with it being a cooling problem. But I put it in a case I knew was ventilated correctly and well and still hot hot hot. Just an all around odd situation. Like I said, its causing no stability issues and temps on everything are fine. :shrug:
schlitty Ventilated correctly or a fan directly blowing onto the heat sinks are completely different things 
Never heard of this issue before. However, will keep this information in my back pocket. Thanks for the education.
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milkywayman I mean there’s an exhaust out of the back literally right next to em and the aftermarket CPU cooler blowing right over them. In his actual case there is even a side intake blowing right on them. I’m not gonna like zip tie a tiny 20mm fan directly to them or something haha.
schlitty oh ok still strange that they are so hot… maybe try to undervolt the South/North bridge?
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schlitty hahahaha - I hate customer service reps who read off a list of answers without listening to the issue.
Am I wrong in my thinking that if the heatsinks are getting really hot, then they are actually doing their job & re-seating them would possibly make the already working thermal connection worse? After all they are supposed to be drawing the heat from the underlying chip & radiating it out. You say that the system is stable, so the issue would be that either there is not enough cool airflow across the heatsinks to allow them to dissipate the heat quickly - putting directional airflow over them would help to relieve this as previously suggested. Maybe with the air set up you’ve described all the different airflows are cancelling each other out?
Other queries would be - has someone custom painted the heatsinks & therefore reduced their ability to radiate the heat; did someone forget to remove the plastic film from them when they were first installed?
As the cause of the heat is the chip underneath do you have photos or model number of the motherboard? Maybe there would be a way to undervolt specific chipsets. Does it get hot when simply idling? Or only when under load, what kind of load?
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Its the M5A99FX PRO R2.0
linky poo
Just idle. And stock, no customization to the motherboard. Plastic film was a good thought, made me do a double take just in case! But alas, no plastic. Troubleshooting can seem insulting but you really should start with “is it plugged in?” basics. So the straight jump to taking it apart seemed odd.
ASUS did reply just a bit ago saying it doesn’t void the warranty so I might play with it out of curiosity. Its my brother’s gaming rig I made for him, he’s got a laptop and stuff for school/daily. So I can survive an RMA if I must. I definitely believe this amount of heat is too much and eventually harmful even if everything is stable at the moment.
PC’s never cease to amaze me with their quirks! But its worth it I suppose. 
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schlitty I’m guessing its the heatsinks surrounding the CPU? The two that are connected by heat pipe?
Sgt_T8ie Yeah, those two bastards haha.
schlitty Those are the CPU VRM heatsinks & what appears to be the 990FX Chip.
From what I can see online, it’s not an uncommon issue (as opposed to problem) as 1) the heatsinks aren’t that great(across a lot of manufacturers) & 2) the AMD CPU & chipsets run hot natrually.
Most common solution is a small fan placed directly over them to remove the heat quickly. Only other option would be to play around with voltages & clocks to reduce the heat produced.
Have fun!
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Thanks for looking into it, you may have found a little more than I did. I do have an identical board in my rig right now and this other one’s heat is well well beyond mine. Its a supernatural beast from hell! I know a RMA is time consuming but I’m not into the idea of having to jerry-rig a fan any closer than they already are or playing with voltages since I just keep things stock in most cases. Especially since this is a build for someone else. But since they gave me the all clear in writing that I’m not voiding a warranty I am going to play around with it first!
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