Asus A7N8X Deluxe Thermal Images

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Tue, 05 Aug 2003 20:53:46 Post Subject: Asus A7N8X Deluxe Thermal Images

Check out the Bigbruin.Com feature: **HERE**

And share your comments / questions in this thread... Thanks!

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 18:16:21 Post Subject:

This ultra cool feature was written by Spire, and I appreciate him letting me publish it here at BigBruin!! I'll be announcing it to the rest of my tech contacts later tonight, but wanted to make sure everyone in here took a look...

I know we have a few ASUS A7N8X owners on the board that will appreciate this article, and even people without one will probably like to check it out!!

Thanks!! Sun

trekrider · Posted: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 18:24:08 Post Subject:

Those are some great shots Spire. It gives me something to think about when cooling down my mobo. And that won't be long cause I just picked up an SKU 800U and TT Smart Fan II. ll get a chipset cooler for active cooling on the Northbridge and I have some old heatsinks to cut up for the other hot spots.

Thanks Spire!! Smile

Hobbes68 · Rated PG Joined: 07 Aug 2003 Posts: 1

Interesting article... I'm running the following setup:

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
Athlon XP2700+ with Coolermaster Aero 7+ sink/fan
3 x 512 PC2700 DDR Ram with heat spreaders
ATI All-in-Wonder 9700 Pro
Antec SB1040II case with 2 rear exhaust fans & 1 front intake fan
Antec 400W power supply
Western Digital WD1200 120 GB HD
round cables for better airflow
onboard sound and NIC
NEC FE2111SB 21" monitor

I'm having problems with my system shutting down when playing Rise of Nations. When I have lots of units on the screen and I'm assaulting the enemy my computer screen goes black, the test pattern comes up and the monitor goes into power save mode. Usually it reboots at this time. I initially thought the cpu was getting too hot and the board's thermal protection was kicking in, but I installed the Aero 7+ fan and I never see the temps go above 43 deg cel for the cpu and 21 deg cel for the board. Of course I have no way of monitoring them during gameplay as RoN plays full-screen.

After the last meltdown yesterday, I opened the case, turned off the power and felt for hot spots. The cpu heatsink was warm, but not too hot. The ram heatspreaders were luke warm, cooler than the cpu. The video card was blazing hot on the back of the board behind the gpu!!! It was almost too hot to touch!

Has anyone else had this experience? Has anyone tried any of the video card coolers on the market? The card has the stock fan and sink, but I don't think it's up to the task. Would an additional case fan in the side panel blowing directly on the card help? Or would it not help much at all?

I've also been thinking about putting in some kind of LCD display to monitor temps while playing games such as one from Matrix Orbital. Any recommendations?

Any help is greatly appreciated! I'm getting very frustrated with my supposedly killer new system that's only 4 months old.

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 17:07:11 Post Subject:

Welcome Hobbes68... I have the A7N8X, too, and after seeing these pics I wonder if my unexplained reboots during Folding@Home are related to any heat issues... My cpu, ram, and anything else I thought to check before are all fine... But it still isn't reliable... Bang Head

tazman171 · Posted: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 18:17:19 Post Subject:

Hmmn, interesting. That's why I have my A7N8x - Deluxe rev.2 with 2 80mm side panel fans, 2 fronts, 120mm on the bottom, 45mm for my 60g Hdd above, Thermaltake mem cooler, Vantec AeroFlow HSF, Antec True Power 400W Dual fan PSU, and 2 80mm fans at the rear, best I can do without going to a water system.

@Hobbes68 - You can track your temps while playing your games, turn on the Asus PC Probe and click the "History" tab on the right side of the GUI then select what you want to monitor and hit the record button. Cool

poohbear · Posted: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 19:28:32 Post Subject:

hey all,

First of all, that's a kickass article and we need to see more inquiries like that in the modding community!!!! I'm new to these forums, linked here from an overclocking site, but let me tell ya this article is fo sure raising some eyebrows in the overclocking community.

Is that lil chip that reached almost 100c present on all nforce2 mobos? I imagine it is as Asus usually sticks close to nvidias reference designs. Have you found out what some of these chips are responsible for? Also, what camera did you use to get those thermal images and are they expensive? Thanks alot for any replies and please update the article as many of us are interested. Cheers.

trekrider · Posted: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 20:05:46 Post Subject:

Spire...DUDE! 10K hits in a day!!!

Raise some eyebrows INDEED!

Way to go man!

Spire · Posted: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 20:33:54 Post Subject:

Pooh, Trek, Thanks huge!!! I thought it would be "popular" but I never thought anything like this.

The camera that took the thermal images is a Mikron thermal Imager and they are somewhere in the $8500 to $10,000 and up. You can search for Mikron and see some of theirs.

BeerCheeze · Posted: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 20:59:16 Post Subject:

Good Job Spire... and GREAT Article!!