Wow you two fellas are fantastic If you are running stock, and not overclocking, then ok. The new southbridges are relatively cool. But the previous versions for Nvidia's southbridges had heat problems. One of the reasons Epox threw in southbridge cooling for their early 8rda3+ revs is becos they used both older and more current southbridges, so they just threw a passive heatsink in.

If you are overclocking and aiming for a high fsb, u need to use higher vdd. (Abit default VDD settings allow only up to 1.7vdd - if u using this, then no worries about SB cooling). Ppl who want to do above 235+ fsb need to do the VDD mods. I'm running 2.03VDD. This generates a shiteload of heat. High VDD + high FSB = I/O problems if your southbridge is not cooled. Very prevalent cases are those people who use USB mouse and keyboard and overclock FSB kao kao. Their mouse and keyboard dont accept input, or they type in something, their characters appear as ASCII symbols. You may have pop and crackling noises when u use the onboard sound. The NF7-s r2 actually gives much better sound than most PCI soundcards (including SB Audigy 1).

Try putting some ramsinks on your mosfets and feel them 5 minutes later then tell me if u still think they don't need cooling. Almost all NF2 ultra 400 boards have fluctuating vcore problems. Those boards using dual combination of philips mosfets in a triple phase mobo power supply usually kantoi the worst (8rda3+ rev 1.2, NF7 rev2 included). Cooling these mosfets can give u a stabler Vcore. Fluctuation is still there but the range is more limited = higher Prime95 passable OC!

Mosfets make the Vcore fluctuate.

If the thing is stuck on (no pegs/plastic legs that go through PCB board to hold heatsink in place), try heating the heatsink with hairdryer, take pliers and slowly yank it off. Do it at your own risk.