gomorrha

Yeah I don't like how flimsy the mounting system seems for this. In general I don't like to spend too much on a custom heatsink for a part that may already be failing, I got burned by that last year on my 8800 GTS. This was a Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3 board, it's kind of a shame, since it has the other features I wanted on it (specifically RAID support and ample PCI-E slots). Heh...funny, I have the exact same motherboard and my northbridge is running at 80°C as well. I've been googling for this for a while now and it seems to be pretty common. Must be a design flaw. I think the chipset can handle up to 100°C (worst case), but the high temperatures still concern me (and might be the cause of your problems). I agree with you on the mounting system, it's a joke lol, you shouldn't be able to move the cooler around like that. One question btw: Since you do a lot of video and audio work on your computer (duh), do you have all 4 memory banks equipped with RAM? I bought another 4gb kit a while ago, when they were cheap, cause I thought I might need it in the future. However, when I put the 2nd kit in, my computer randomly blue screens or applications fail. Happens mostly when there is heavier load on the system, like when playing games. I did memory testing on all banks and it didn't come up with any errors. Maybe I wasn't being thorough enough, but I think the RAM itself is fine. Maybe the board doesn't like it when it's fully equipped? I've read about errors like that before. Some boards also tend to undervolt slightly when all memory banks are used, but that doesn't seem to be the case with this one. Things, for some reason, have been working fine for me since I removed 2gb of RAM, so now I'm running on 6 instead of 8 gigs. Anyways, I hope your northbridge didn't fry itself and that the new cooler will fix the problem. Good luck! I was using an Intel system before this one. ASUS P5WDH Deluxe. It was rock stable for me. I would probably get another ASUS if this Gigabyte should bite the dust some day.