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I have this gigabyte motherboard AMD 970A that only knows how to get extremely hot if turned on, it has up to 5 PCIe slots that can be used for crypto mining but the temp issue is scary, here is a view

https://i.imgur.com/9Z1AaoB.jpeg

Those heat sinks, the one that has gigabyte written on and the one beside the first PCIe x16 slot are getting extremely hot, I don't know what might be the problem here.

what is extremely hot? 100c? or 50c?

50c is about 122f
100c is about 212f

50c wont be an issue
100c is wrong.

if you do not have an infrared meter to measure.

100c will give you a burn 🔥 on your finger 50c won’t.

That's a AM3+ motherboard, I checked online and some people are complaining about the same thing, I couldn't see anyone getting this issue fixed but I have some things in mind that may help if you don't mind.

1. Did you change the CPU recently? Install old CPU back and check if the heat sink will have a high temp again.

2. Install or flash the latest BIOS update, since its an old AMD motherboard its possible that the team might have released a fix through BIOS update.

3. You can open that heat sink and look if its pad or paste is still intact, try reapplying some paste.

4. Do some google surfing on NorthBridge hot temp and try looking for fix online maybe you might get lucky if all these doesn't work.

Thanks for replying, the Northbridge heat sink is the issue, it burnt my finger if I put on the sink for just 4 seconds, im guessing its up to 100°C because its the exact type of hotness I get from the backplate of my RTX 3080 graphic card, is there any solution in mind?.

take termometer and see whats temps? you cant say or guess by touching it.

pop the heat sink very carefully and repaste it.

get a small fan

https://www.newegg.com/noctua-nf-a6x25-flx-case-fan/p/N82E16835608032?

small grills
https://www.newegg.com/bgears-fan-grill-60mm-silver/p/N82E16811995042?

Figure a way to mount this on the freshly pasted heat sink


btw here is a good thermometer

https://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-Lasergrip-1080-Non-Contact-Thermometer/dp/B00DMI632G/ref=sr_1_3?

There is even a more effective solution to this because this problem isn't affecting small numbers of people, your motherboard is higher-end old AMD motherboard so its worth spending extra dollar on,  do you know that there are heat sinks built specifically for North Bridge temp? Check this out

https://i.imgur.com/KbItUSH.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/ygZC0K7.jpeg

They works beautifully, you can also add a fan.

that looks really good

This is a masterpiece 👍 I never knew something like this exists until now, hope it's not scarce to get from online stores, I try to always avoid AMD motherboards at all cost unless they are the latest Ryzen CPU motherboards, I've also never seen where an intel motherboard have a heat issue on its North Bridge and South Bridge parts.

Its not that hard to get, this heat sink is available on Aliexpress and Alibaba website, you can head to the website and use the search engine to find North Bridge Heat Sink you will get positive results, just scroll down until you see your taste but the one above is the best I could found since you can apply a cooling fan which has a big advantage over others.

It's an old board. If it has always been like that just let it be. If it's a new issue it's probably about to fail anyway
so don't waste money on that cool heat sink.

These motherboards like to get hot when mining. Buy a fan 40x40 or more and install it on the radiator.
This will solve your overheating problem for a few dollars.But these old motherboards can work for a very long time in this mode.

This motherboard is a high-end gaming motherboard that supports many features that normal motherboards dont have, I am willing to spend some money on this issue just to get it fixed, I just ordered this heat sink and I hope it will work if the heat reduces the motherboard will last longer, thank you all for your responses, I will drop feedback if it works.

merited for follow up you should make a new rank.

once you get it.  remember to test it with a heat gun.

btw here is a good thermometer

https://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-Lasergrip-1080-Non-Contact-Thermometer/dp/B00DMI632G/ref=sr_1_3?


and of course consider a fan 40x40 or 60x60 maybe 80x80

That's the spirit, you will never know what you will get if you don't try, people like seeing others doing something before they give it a try but in your case, you are willing to give this a shot, I am sure the result will be positive.

Both chips are heated on this motherboard, heatsinks are expensive to buy. I had a built-in network card burned out on one of these motherboards, possibly due to overheating of the chip. I bought a usb network card. But know that on aliexpress such a motherboard costs 45-50 dollars.

There are many PC components out there unless you dont want to spend money, if you have the cash you will get the best modding your heart desires, I like computers from a very young age not on the software part but the hardware parts, fixing heatsinks, CPUs, RAMs, let me just say I like messing with desktop PCs, here are few heats sinks for north ridge and southbridge, the cost is 5$ -20$ 

https://i.imgur.com/G6ejLeJ.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/9EPSL9U.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/VxNHxAm.jpeg

years ago I got into btc because It made a little money enough for me to be able to build lots of rigs.

I basically was addict to build modding and upgrading pcs.

Much like a guy that would make hot rod cars.

Damn a lot has changed.

There were times I had 11gh out of 21th .

yeah my hash rate was 11 gh in gpus and the whole btc network was 22th.

that means I was mining 1/2000 of the worlds btc network in my garage.

not because i believed in btc
but because i was feeding my pc build addiction. 😀

I look back at it and smile 😃 at how naive I was.

:D Any other philipma is a counterfeit, if one isn't addicted to what they love doing then its not addiction, you have my respect man, I am still 34 years old and I hope I can be as good as you are in crypto mining someday, every stories starts from somewhere.

This motherboard has a good aluminum heatsink and does not need to be replaced. It is enough to install an additional cooler for cooling on this radiator.It will be cheaper and the result will be almost the same.

@ FP91G Copper is better than aluminium and also the heat sink you are referring to is southbridge but OP main issue is in the Northbridge, which is not fully shown in the picture above.

https://i.imgur.com/cqVkQbt.jpeg

You got into BTC at a very good time, my story is different from yours, year's ago I was busy mining shitcoins instead of bigger popular altcoin, I thought this move will get me richer than mining top altcoins.

I ran into the similar problem last month. It turned out because of my CPU fan was clogged. The hot air blows quickly spread from the CPU area to parts that absorb heat, including motherboard heat-sink and ram metal plate. It confused me at first, but I manage to locate the culprit. After that, I bought a cheap Deepcool CPU Fan, and it fixed my problem. Also, check your case air flow, try to open the case to see if the problem still exists. Since the major source of heat is usually CPU and GPU, check your GPU air flow as well.

I know that this motherboard has a southbridge and a northbridge. Naturally, the northbridge will heat up more, because it is responsible for the exchange of data between the GPU, CPU and RAM.If you find such a radiator in a store, buy it for your peace of mind. These motherboards have been working for me for 6 years and I use only additional fans. There are a lot of additional 3 pin connectors on this mobo.

OP you are just stressing yourself

NorthBridge getting hot can't kill the motherboard, its the way things should be but feel free to change the heat sink for better result if you have the money, I just want you to know that Gigabyte confirmed that Northbridge safe temp can reach 115°C.

https://i.imgur.com/cUgylJH.jpeg