Norhbridge ?

[rainman202]

Hi, what does a northbridge chip control or work ?

Only why im asking is that ive just replaced the lil fan that was on my northbridge chip, and replaced it with the quiet motherboard heatsink from www.quietpc.com, and used artic silver 3.

but now im starting to have problems with my keyboard (logitech) sometimes it wont work wen i boot up and i have to unplug the ps/2 mouse conn from its socket and plug it back in again to get my keyboard working,

Thanks for any help on this

mike :t

[omega31]

http://www.plasma-online.de/index.html?content=http%3A//www.plasma-online.de/english/help/almanach/northsouth.html
Northbridge
This refers to the major bus controller circuitry, like the memory, cache, and PCI controllers. The north bridge may have more than one discrete chip. The entire chipset is named after the numbers on the primary or largest north bridge chip.

Southbridge
This refers to the peripheral and non-essential controllers, like EIDE and serial port controllers. The south bridge usually has only one discrete chip, and has the benefit of being interchangeable on many different chipsets (e.g. SiS 5513 or Intel PIIX).

http://www.plasma-online.de/bilder/help/n_s_bridge.gif

[Peter M]

Diagram's nice, but horribly outdated.

Top to bottom. L2 cache now hangs off the CPU on a separate ("backside") bus, and is inside the CPU in most.

AGP and SDRAM each are separate busses on the north bridge, not attached directly on the CPU front side bus. (And AGP is essentially a 32-bit 66 MHz PCI bus with a couple of extensions.)

North and South bridges, with few remaining exceptions, are connected through a non-PCI, proprietary, much faster bus.

The PCI expansion bus nowadays is a function of the south bridge (like the ISA bus in that diagram).

XD bus has been replaced by LPC, to attach legacy I/O chips and BIOS ROM.

And of course modern south bridges integrate lots more stuff than shown.

Lookee here:

http://www.sis.com/products/chipsets/oa/socketa/746.htm

[Ammok]

I think its pretty good, for newbies anyway, you can see the northbridge caters for the cpu mem and agp and the southbridge for most of the rest of the stuff ide, usb, usual i/o functions.

Do for me.
:)

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Peters right. That diagram is whacked and yes it does make a dif. If they were still deseigned that way, it would be horribly slower. Specially the L2 cache and the agp.;) :t

[Ammok]

I know Peter's right, but I don't see many chip designers in here. nort equals agp mem and cpu south equals most i/o functions. How this is actually acheived will be way over my head, so diagram,even if outdated, will do for me, i get the gist of it.

On a more technical note, i have been told that the new Nvidia chupset for nort and south kicks ****. Can anyone elucidate?

Now that's where the detail will probably be crucial, but if it's too in depth I'd need to go back to college to know what was going on.:)

[$1500-P4 gamer]

The northy is dual ddr mem. Like rdram is dual on !850 chipsets. So its doubling the bandwidth of the current ddr mem. Thats pretty kick **** **** its far from ddrII or dual ddrII ='s drool!:D I still think the most original today is the SiS 735 chip. As its both north and south in one.:t

[Ammok]

Now thats where the diagram would deviate enormously. I am interested in the southbridge, as I have a VIA version which conflicts horrendously with my usb devices. I got it all working now, but the amount of people with usb problems and have a VIA southbridge is aamzing.I believe sis is a bit better but still with problems in some configurations. So I was thinking of buying a new mobo for Christmas, and the Nvidia one is interteasing to me.

I have also found that almost nobody has a problem with usb and intel chipsets, which is a bit unfortunate as i like amd.:rolleyes:

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Yea, thats true. I have never had a problem on Intel chipsets with usb driver or large file transfers (zips/networking etc.) over the usb port. No dont help much with a XP chip in your hand does it. I like the 735 for that. But I'm in the process of building my (live-in) girlfriend a new pc. Thinking nvidia's new chipset (dual ddr) and a XP 2000+ with about 512mb ddr. That and a ti4200 should make her happy after x-mas I think. Thats another one I have to add to the network but, I get to play with another pc-hehe.;) :D :t

[Ammok]

That would make ME happy for Christmas. She's a lucky girl.:)

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Hehe, she wants my p4 system insted. OK no prob. Ill make that trade.;)

"She's a lucky girl."
Im always good to the women in my life. Shes just the first to not take advantage of that fact. Every one always asks when we are getting married. Hehe been 6 years now. Im happy just living together, well untill she starts pushing for marrage and all. Her mom right now is on the "get married already" fit! Makes me call her mom and the hole 9 yards:(

[Ammok]

When i married i moved city. Wife came with me.:confused:

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Originally posted by Ammok
When i married i moved city. Wife came with me.:confused:
LOL:x Funny how life works like that aint it.:D :t

[Rugor]

I've found VIA to not only have issues with USB but also that VIA based systems even have compatibility issues with parallel port devices.

Nvidia on the other hand seems to have solved the compatibility issues. Given a choice I'd take their chipsets over VIA's.

My simple explanation would be that the Northbridge controls Memory access and components with direct access to RAM connect through it. (AGP and CPU) While the Southbridge controls how everything else connects to the motherboard and then the system.

It's grossly simplified but I think it gets the idea across.

[Ammok]

Luckily, I don't have any parallel port devices but I have had to disable it to get my usb working. VIA has serious issues to resolve before they claim they are southbridge proficient. You even have to register to view the forums on the VIA site.