South and North bridges are very important components of the motherboard. Each of them is responsible for special processes, without the implementation of which the normal functioning of the computer is impossible.
Sometimes there are situations when your computer stops working and you have to carry it to a service center. In some cases, you can hear that the South Bridge has burned out and the entire motherboard needs to be replaced. The diagnosis seems to be clear, but not every user knows what the terms South Bridge and North Bridge mean. These two devices of the computer, or rather the motherboard, are the main functional controllers responsible for the operation of all other components of the motherboard. Together, these bridges form a chipset, but each of them is still responsible for its own functions. These square-shaped chips got such an unusual name due to their location on the mother card: North - in the upper part under the processor, and South - in the bottom.
North bridge
The Northbridge is a control device that is responsible for how the motherboard interacts with your computer's RAM, video card, and processor. In addition, this chipset element not only interacts, but also controls the speed of the above described components. One of the parts of the North Bridge is the integrated video adapter found in some modern motherboards - the so-called integrated video card. Accordingly, this bridge additionally controls the bus of the device responsible for transmitting the image to the monitor and its speed. Additionally, the North Bridge connects all of the above devices to the South Bridge. As a rule, this chip has its own passive cooling, that is, a heatsink is installed, less often you can find active cooling with a cooler. This is done because the temperature of the North Bridge is about 30 degrees higher than the temperature of its South Bridge. This is due to the processing of commands of the most active components of the system and the close proximity to the processor, due to which heating occurs from the outside.
South bridge
The South Bridge is a functional controller, the main function of which is to implement the so-called "slow" connections, which include various buses, USB, SATA and LAN controllers, power supply system, BIOS and even clock, in general, the list is quite long. That is why the failure of the South Bridge leads to the need to replace the entire motherboard. Considering that this controller interacts directly with external devices, ordinary overheating, provoked, for example, by a short circuit, can become the cause of a breakdown.
