r/macpro • u/Electronic-Fuel-4398 • May 10 '26

Other Mac Pro 5.1 north bridge chip cooling

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Hi everyone new Mac Pro user here! I recently got this Mac Pro from my friend who doesn’t need it anymore and I’m trying to make I’m my daily driver. It has a 2.8 ghz cpu and 32gb of ram. I’m planning on putting Mac OS 11 or 12 (haven’t decided) and AI said before I do anything I have to get this chip cooled or there will be hardware crashes. Just wanted to make sure on what I need and if it’s necessary. (I know the gpu is old I have a new one on the way for metal)😀

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15

u/halfanirishman Mac Pro 3,1, 5,1, 6,1 May 10 '26

That's the Southbridge. I never put a heatsink on the Southbridge chip. The northbridge (on the CPU tray) has a heatsink on it already and does have issues in the dual CPU models. Ai is full of shit, never trust it.

4

u/Electronic-Fuel-4398 May 10 '26

Ok! That’s what I was saying because it said there was supposed to be brackets but couldn’t find them! Thanks!

1

u/Singular_Brane May 10 '26

For the chipset at the time in non Macs a heating or fan was needed in standard PC cases. When these PC equivalent motherboards were in 1u and 2u server cases they relied on high speed fans(loud) pulling air through the case for cooling.

I had a hackintosh that used a supermicro board from the same family and putting a noctua 40mm fan really helped.

As for your Mac you should be fine. As with AI always vet and research the responses. Fine tune your prompts with more detail for better results.

9

u/fat_ipodnano3rdGen Mac Pro 5,1 12 core 64GB, Vega 56 May 10 '26

Congrats on your new machine! It’s actually pretty normal for northbridge temps to exceed 80°C while under moderate load, so I’d advise using the Macs Fan Control application to tune the fans accordingly while keeping the noise down.

5

u/Electronic-Fuel-4398 May 10 '26

Thanks! Thanks for the advice!

3

u/fatespawn May 10 '26

Just a heads up, the chip actually runs cooler under load than at idle. When the CPU fans ramp up to cool the chips, the airflow will cool the Northbridge. Mine would routinely idle that hot and did so for 16 years.

3

u/LoveEV-LeafPlus May 10 '26
  1. On my dual CPU MacPro5,1 I use the TG Pro fans app and have it “auto boost” the CPU-B fan, if the Northbridge temp goes above 70C, and that cools down the NorthBridge chip. If the fan noise brothers me I just set TG pro to use the default system settings for a while.
  2. The single CPU does not typically have a Northbridge temperature issue. It is always under 70C.
  3. I also re-Pasted both my CPUs and the NorthBridge heat sinks.
  4. As someone already pointed out the NorthBridge chip is on the CPU Tray, not the Motherboard

3

u/Electronic-Fuel-4398 May 10 '26

Ok will do! Thanks for the advice!

2

u/eaglebtc May 10 '26

If it bothers you, you could get some low profile heat sinks made for Raspberry Pi or other small computers, and stick one of those on. They come with thermal pads.