Dead DFI sli dr expert during TEC-test

[c.freak]

Hey! Guys. A couple of month's ago i asked for some sugestions about 226w TEC and a descent waterblock, and i ended up with Apogee GTX. I made myself a good cooling unit and everything worked fine when the block wasn't mounted to the motherboard.

I put vaseline on the board just around the socket like this:
http://xpm-server.podzone.net/Chassiebilder/Nybygge/IMAGE_406.jpg
And the gaps inside of the socket was also filled with it.
After putting this on i isolated with neoprene all the way around and this i what i ended up with : http://xpm-server.podzone.net/Chassiebilder/Nybygge/IMAGE_408.jpg
**Other side of the motherboard was also isolated with neoprene**

Under at the coldplate-side: http://xpm-server.podzone.net/Chassiebilder/Nybygge/IMAGE_404.jpg


The TEC was fired up with a meanwell 320W PSU and worked good.

Recently i powered everything ON and whent into BIOS which lasted for about 2min's geting down to around 14C and suddenly the screen frezzes and i can't controll the keyb.

CPU: amd opteron 165 and mobo DFI SLI DR EXPERT (been working great for 2 years)

Please!!! I really whana know.. what did i do wrong and what could have happen. I might guess it's ordinary short-circuited but what's the explanation??

[tylerdustin2008]

Well i don't know, but the pics don't work.

[Holst]

Did it ever work or was this the first time you tried to use it? (with TEC)

Was the mount on the CPU good? (check TIM contact)

How long did you run the TEC before you powered on the system?

I think you have probably shorted something, but it seems very odd that it booted at all initially, normally if a board is shorted it will die instantly.

[littleowl]

with pics not working it kind of sounds like water killed it. or bad mount. hard to say without pics

[c.freak]

Sorry about the pics.. i Think my web-server was down during the time. They should work now.

The thing is.. i have powered up the TEC together with the meanwell 320W PSU and it worked great. The temp went down to somewhere around zero and -10.

Soo.. i monted everything with isolation and stuff and right when the system was on i went into bios to check the temperature which was decreasing, but then fun only lasted about ~2.5min.
I turned the 230 volt pumps on at first and seconds later the power for the meanwell PSU.

The mobo has been working for 2 years with high overclock chilled by water so there hasn't been any problems at all.

But still.. how could the board brake at all, i was so serious isolating as much as necessary. But i read somewhere that screws can be the problem sometimes.

[AliG]

Did you put vaseline (I don't know if vaseline is safe to put in your socket like dialectric grease is, then again the composition is close enough) on the back side of the socket? You may have had some condensation on the back side, not as likely on a simple tec, but still possible, because unlike phase or ln2 that the temp is so low that you'll almost instantly see ice, from what I've seen, a 226w tec will take you to around zero (plus or minus a few degrees depending on operation) at idle, so as the cpu was idling in the bios and the temp was dropping, some condensation could have formed on a spot that wasn't properly insulated. As the others said until the pics work we can't really tell, but if that's the case, then that would explain why it didn't die, as the temp went down with time.

my $.02

[c.freak]

WHAT! So you say that vaseline ain't good for the socket. Then that could have been the reason for everything. But what i've heard from people they say vaseline work out just as great as dielectric grease.
And yes, some spot might have caused condensation too. Maybe i should have put on bigger layer on the PCB (and in the cpu-socket??)

I feel so bad about this.. i should have checked this up more closely and asked the experts.. I thought my experience was enough

I have to reegret though.. i didn't put that much vaseline on the back, just around and onto where the components were soldered.

Hope the pics work

I'm gona buy an DFI SLI DR pretty soon but i think i'll hold for some month's about this peltier-cooling. I really whana play some games under the summer.

[AliG]

WHAT! So you say that vaseline ain't good for the socket. Then that could have been the reason for everything. But what i've heard from people they say vaseline work out just as great as dielectric grease.
And yes, some spot might have caused condensation too. Maybe i should have put on bigger layer on the PCB (and in the cpu-socket??)

I feel so bad about this.. i should have checked this up more closely and asked the experts.. I thought my experience was enough

I have to reegret though.. i didn't put that much vaseline on the back, just around and onto where the components were soldered.

Hope the pics work
Well, I'm not sure on that, it probably works just as well, so I wouldn't worry too much on that since you said others have used it. My guess is the back is where the condensation occured. At least on the bright side, this gives you an excuse to buy a conroe (I need one to get off am2 myself, k10 doesn't look too great at this point) and it will be a learning experience for you.

My thoughts, do what I did when I bin some pins on my cpu and thought it was dead (fixed it once I could think straight), go out and watch a movie with some friends and just hang out with them for at least a few hours so you can get your mind off it. Trust me on this one, it'll help you think better once you've relaxed a bit. Once you feel a bit better, try to fix those images (just imageshack or photobucket them for now) and we'll try to find the culprit:)

[c.freak]

Ok! I put them up on another place.

Hold!

http://img248.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image406ah8.jpg
Something tells me this is way to little vaseline. jiax! It even looks to be to little
http://img520.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image408xj6.jpg

http://img329.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image484gl1.jpg
Backside. And i did not put on that much vaseline, maybe this was what i did wrong ?

[AliG]

To me it seems like you didn't put enough on either side, although I've never done it myself to really have a fair say, from what I've seen on the guides, next time you may want to get at least a full 2" from the socket front and back. Here's a great guide from the phase section (don't know if you've seen it or not, but my guess is no since you have a tec loop and this is in the phase section, but I really think it should be a universal insulation guide, almost no chance of condensation if you do it this way)
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=105834

[c.freak]

Yeah! I've seen alot of guides over the past ~4-5 years and i tried to use the experience i taken to me.

I may have seen that guide before. But a BIG thank's for showing i to me. I'll be using that in the next try. Another thing i noticed is that they applied conformal coating at the sides of the CPU-CORE.. i didn't i guess it works either way but this time i'll do the same. And looking at the electric grease they splashed out the backside was a bit more than i used.

Anyway.. one mobo or two mobos into the woods is something you'll have to live with i guess. But there's been a Socket A card too.. it didn't like extreme clocking.

[littleowl]

How is the tec mounted in there? Just so I can say yes I am right or not.

Here is what I see. (I did this also)

You used the water block hold down to hold down the water block to the mobo as well as used it with 4 other bolts to hold the pressure to the cold plat.
that is you used 4 bolts mounted to the hold down to keep pressure on the tec and then the 2 939 bolts to hold it all down on the chip..
screw threads on the screws and the holes that let them through lets in just a little bit of air.
IMHO you fried the chip. mobo may still be good. As for your Vaseline it looks good.

I have a nice 3200 key chain from this same mistake

[c.freak]

Hey wait a minute. I fried the chip!!.. what chip are you actually talking about ?
Just as long as the opteron/chip is still ok i'm good with it.. But you say the mobo may still be good.. i ain't. So you really mean the chip may be damage then ?

You described my mounting exactly as it is done.

[p8ntslinger676]

Make sure your mount did not interfere with any of the capacitors on the board, being the brilliant person i am, forgot to mill a spacer first and :banana::banana::banana::banana:ed up a couple of capacitors on the mobo because of the coldplate and how the coldplate was mounted to the wb.

[littleowl]

Hey wait a minute. I fried the chip!!.. what chip are you actually talking about ?
Just as long as the opteron/chip is still ok i'm good with it.. But you say the mobo may still be good.. i ain't. So you really mean the chip may be damage then ?

You described my mounting exactly as it is done.

Yes I am saying the mobo maybe good because believe it or not they can withstand more water then a cpu... I would guess that the cpu chip got a small amount of water and well they just don't like that at all. :(

you may have something else going on but I would have to guess water because your mounted just like was, :D

Here (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=98451&highlight=coldplate) was my error. a few of the pics are dead but you can still get the idea. I was a little backwards on what you did but still the same concept either way.

[c.freak]

I saw you're pics for a couple of weeks ago and they looked nice. But actually.. i don't think the CPU is damaged, i just hope not. But if aint the mobo is kaput i'll be wondering. Cause i reseted it 2-3 times during long periods (nights) and there's no life in it at all.

In any case.. believe it or not :D.. i've recently ordered an Asrock s939 dual-sata, but i'll be doing vcore + vdim-mod to increase the clockpotential of it and change to another bios. Sorry!! but i couldn't afford anything better for the time being.

Hold the thumbs up for a fully working Opteron 165 or else the 146 is just around the corner.

[Brother Esau]

Wish I had of know I am parting out my bad ass expert system still runs like a Raped Ape of Steroids and is server stable and reliable! Also Opty 170 that does 3.ghz on air and 2gb Mushkin Redline XP DDR 500 that do DDR 590 @1:1

[AliG]

Good luck with it, just know that asrock boards tend to be notoriously bad at ocing

[littleowl]

Good luck with it, just know that asrock boards tend to be notoriously bad at ocing

I don't think I agree with that AliG.

I Had an asrock that oced quite well but I ended up killing it.

[c.freak]

Hahaha.. "ended up killing it" Yeah! that's something ;)

There's been some changing and i'm currenly waiting for an ASUS A8N32 SLI DELUXE. Ofcourse i would have done everything to smash up that asrock if it wouldn't be for out of stock and not worth the price thingy. I got'a say Sweden is a bit expensive with components :D

Another thing i haven't mensured is that the 4 LED's (red one's) is all dead on the DFI.. So just by telling that i'd could surely guess the cpu is working, grrrr!!! Friday is gona be the final day to tell.

But besides all talk of a dead mobo.. wouldn't it much likely be just a damaged BIOS-chip ? or might the whole mothercake be fried in any case..

Hahaha!! You won't believe this.. NO!! the DFI mobo sadly ain't working yet but i've started a proper *bring IT back from the dead procedure* actually i got 3 mobo's in operation

MSI K8N Neo2 Fx (a friend had a sudden mobo-death)
ASUS A7N8X E Deluxe (also sudden death)
Lovely DFI Expert (:upset:)

Ohh what fun it'll be if these upcoming 2-3 days (48 - 72h) wont help at all.