Fix Zalman Heatsink

Clean chipset

To ensure good heat conduction from
the northbridge chip to the heatsink / fan,
the base of the original fan had a small
piece of thermal tape stuck on it.

The thermal grease from this is also
over the Northbridge chip and
 needs to be removed.

 A suitable solvent to remove
 the thermal grease is Isopropyl
 Alcohol. This is used to clean
 the tape heads of cassette
 tape recorders and sold with
 a cleaning cassette.

“Cleaning Solution. Put 2
 drops on each felt pad.
 Use your cleaner every 10-15
 hours of playing time.
 Isopropyl Alcohol 15ml”

Use a small piece of paper towel with
 1 drop of Isopropyl Alcohol and gently
 rub over the surface of the chip and
 plastic and remove the thermal grease.
 This is the nVidia nforce 4 chip.

Put thermal grease on chipset

You now need to cover the surface of the chip using the tube of thermal grease that came with the heatsink.

You need to use enough to ensure that any slight discrepancies between the surfaces of the chip and heatsink will be filled. Do not use too much - you do not need to use the whole tube.

This picture makes the layer of
thermal grease look thicker than it was.

Fix heatsink on mainboard

The heatsink has two fins lower on one side and one fin lower on the other.  To give maximal clearance with the graphics card, place the heatsink on the chip with the two lower fins on the left near the SLI sockets. Trying not to move the heatsink around, position one of the pins over the mainboard hole and push the pin down through the hole. Do the same with the other pin through the other hole.

Look at the back of the mainboard and check that the ends of the pins have opened out.

Zalman heatsink fixed over northbridge chipset.

Back to: Assemble heatsink - Next stage: Replace mainboard

You can use the thermal compound that comes with the Zalman ZM-NB47-J but you may get reduced temperatures with a thermal compound with better transfer qualities like Arctic Silver 5. 3.5g is sufficient for a number of heatsinks.