Active vs passive cool for NB chipsets

[tgxiii]

I've heard many complaints about Abit's decision to use active cooling on their chipsets and that many would rather prefer passive cooling instead. I was under the impression that active cooling is better. Why do some prefer passive instead?

[nukes]

Its quieter.
It doesn't really do the job well though. They could probably get around it by nusing AS3 or something underneath the Heatsinks rather than that crappy tape, but it would probably still need a fan.

[JPMiller]

From what Ive seen and read you may as well not even put a heatsink on the chipset if it is going to be held on by tape...it makes virtually no thermal connectivity through a layer of adhesive.
I ALWAYS rip off the heatsink and clean it, lap it, and reapply it using AS3. I do the same with my video cards.

[tgxiii]

Originally posted by nukes
Its quieter.
It doesn't really do the job well though. They could probably get around it by nusing AS3 or something underneath the Heatsinks rather than that crappy tape, but it would probably still need a fan.

Whoa... that's new to me. I didn't realize that anyone used tape to hold anything down in terms of computer parts.

[JPMiller]

You would be amazed!
I always reapply all chipset heatsinks and videocard HSF's.
The ones with clips are easiest, the taped ones I just twist and pull...clean off the gunk from both chipset and heatsink and lap the underside of the heatsink...( that is if your reusing the stock one)
If your reusing the stock HS then you must lap it...these ridiculous things aren't even flat and when you sand it down it will become obvious how poorly this made contact with the surface of the chip.
I personally always replace it with a better heatsink and a small fan as well.
Use a Very thin application of thermal goop ( whatever you choose to use)...and only apply it to the chipset...I leave two opposite corners free of goop and use just a dot of superglue gel ( the gel works better and doesn't get as messy as the runny standard kind)
then immediately center heatsink and press very firmly onto board...place some thing with some weight on it and leave it alone for 20-30 min.
when your confident it has set, give it a bit of a tug to make sure it worked well...Ive had to redo 1 or 2 in past for various reasons.
Good luck!

[tgxiii]

Hmmm... seems like I got a lot of work ahead of me. Thanks a lot!

[nukes]

The Voodoo3s were the best: pull them off, clean them, and replace them with a blue orb! you could get those things up to like 220-230mhz!

[Atomic Rooster]

The Abit boards use thermal compound on their NB chipsets. No tape is used. Their active cooling works very well. It's just that on some of their early KT7-A mobo's, the fan died within a few months.

[tgxiii]

Oh, okay, thanks for telling me, Atomic. So does anyone know how the Prolink Pixelview GeForce FX 5600 256 MB Golden Limited (damn, that's a long name) video card HSF unit is attached onto the GPU? Do I need to apply some thermal compound on it, or does Prolink use quality grease?

[Xtreeme]

If you noticed active HS are small usually. So when you get one with a mighty big massive NB sink like Asus a7n8x thats passive all you need to do is add fan to it (or have one blowing at it) and wolla very cool. It also wont burn up if fan fails which is #1 reason manufacturers prefer passive.