[guide] how to install any cooler with the stock blackops cooler

so since u cant get a top in the US and the blackops stock cooling pot has an aluminum top and overall looks cheap IMO. here is a guide on how to use your own cooler. i will be using the swiftech mcw30 but any should work and the more converge the better, and more restriction might be better but that hasnt been tested

the 1st 4 pics are thanks to Wotcher

[start]
step 1
remove the heat pipe assembly (from now on heat is HP)

screws are on the back located here, and the back plate on the MB dosnt come off
http://i42.tinypic.com/vnh285.png

step 2
remove the NB pot and its screws from the bottom of the NB HP assembly
http://i43.tinypic.com/2hphf9x.png

it should like this on the top, but make sure that u take all of the screws out (unlike the pic)
http://i41.tinypic.com/15ev5tc.png

step 3
if u have the top of the NB base taller more than the heat pipe by more than 1/64" i would advise lapping using 800 then 1500 then 2000 grit, and a guide can be found here
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...19&postcount=2

http://i39.tinypic.com/20gie78.jpg

step 4 (also end of Wotcher's pics and here are mine)
reattach the HP assembly without the NB screws and make sure to use the plastic washers (black screws for the SB, silver for the mosfet). and change the TIM on the NB/SB, but leave the mosfet alone

http://i42.tinypic.com/x27wg5.jpg

step 5 (may vary with cooler im using an mcw30)
use the long screws from the amd kit and the washers from the stock screws and run them through the bottom of the board. then use the black round nuts to secure the block. for the mcw30 i inverted the mounting bracket by unscrewing the hex bolts on side flipping hte bracket then reattaching and doing the same to the other side, it greatly increases the coverage area and centers the block

http://i40.tinypic.com/51uk9e.jpg

and note to use the credit card method (on the water block) for the thermal paste so it gets max TIM coverage on the HP assembly

step6
admire that u have saved $30 over a new top and that u wont have galvanic corrosion from your NB, and thank cooler masters (the people who make the block) and foxconn for changing the design affter the test boards to make it cheaper on the CNC but not using delryn for having to do this.

http://i41.tinypic.com/ruxuzd.jpg

[/end]

finished

wow, awesome! thanks so much for taking the time to post this guide and share your infos/results man! :toast:
and yes, i agree, the BlackOps 4in1 cooler was def no beauty queen :D
And its too bad they went for a copper alu mix... :(
Was before i joined foxconn...

EDIT: this might be interesting for people wanting to mod their BlackOps cooling.
The mounting holes are 55mm apart from each other, so the swiftech universal waterblock and i think the dangerden universal waterblock will fit, since they have adjustable mounting hole diamters up to 60mm iirc :)

and to make things easier, you can use a snap plier to carefully cut the heatpipe at the pwm heatsink, and at the sb heatsink, and then remove only the nb part of the 4in1 block and replace it with a universal waterblock. Thats the easy way... tho the sb and pwm wont benefit from the waterblock then. the best would of course be to remove the whole cooling system like your doing zanzabar, and then remove the waterblock only and replace it with another full copper waterblock. that way you keep the copper base plate and the heatpipe connection and cool the nb, sb and pwm at the same time :D

yah it looks like there shouldent have been the 4 mounting holes from the base to the pot that way u wouldent have to take the HP off and u could use whatever

also if i took off the thermal tape from the mosfet would it still make contact it since looks like it compresses the tape alot. and with the dfi my pwms dropped by like 10c with mx2 over the clay goop and they look vary similar but with a different controller

also can i get a sticky and or am3 sample ;)

edit - and not really related but what do the holes on the side of the NB pot do

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zanzabar

yah it looks like there shouldent have been the 4 mounting holes from the base to the pot that way u wouldent have to take the HP off and u could use whatever

also if i took off the thermal tape from the mosfet would it still make contact it since looks like it compresses the tape alot. and with the dfi my pwms dropped by like 10c with mx2 over the clay goop and they look vary similar but with a different controller

also can i get a sticky and or am3 sample ;)

edit - and not really related but what do the holes on the side of the NB pot do

---

yes, thats why we reworked the whole thing for BloodRage :)
There you can change the cooling all the time without having to take anything apart, just remove the top screws and you can switch between air and water and extreme cooling :)

id def keep the thermal pad on the pwm heatsink!
Those digital pwm mosfets are way sensitive and break easily, not to mention that when you mount a heatsink the pcb will bend slightly, if it bends too much and there is no thermal pad to compensate for it, the center pwm mosfets will lose contact to the heatsink and overheat. thats what happened on some dfi boards iirc.

once this guide is done ill move it to the guides and tweaks section if you want :D

am3... wait a bit for that, afaik amd will only really push am3 from summer onwards once their 890 chipset is out, and there is no big perf boost from ddr3 anyways, so if you want to play with 45nm amd, just go and do it now :D
but id recommend you to wait a bit until prices came down, they are a bit high right now imo, almost 300$... i think they will drop in a few weeks to 250 or so.

regarding the holes, those are for adding another heatpipe with fins for improved aircooling, in the end it helped little and wasnt worth it so it was never included.

Thanks guys. Excellent info.

Agreed top marks for effort

i updated it with all but the final pic of it un my system, im still waiting for ups to get my my ram. im about to get a $25 512MB stick of crucial from frys

edit

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by saaya

am3... wait a bit for that, afaik amd will only really push am3 from summer onwards once their 890 chipset is out, and there is no big perf boost from ddr3 anyways, so if you want to play with 45nm amd, just go and do it now :D
but id recommend you to wait a bit until prices came down, they are a bit high right now imo, almost 300$... i think they will drop in a few weeks to 250 or so.

---

i really do want a p2, but affter this blackops and the build quality i would want another QF board, and i would expect that there would be an AMD based board and not another mistake of a 780a or other NV chipset with the ddr3, and now that i have a nice kit (or will when i get it from UPS) i want to take it with me and replace the blackops for a server with ECC ddr3 in may like i had planned before newegg sold me a blackops for $69.99 + tax affter a $60 rebate. and will the am3 WF board be digital pwms if it comes out

dont know about the am3 board actually, but all this pwm talk is really overhyped, clockspeed, digital or analog, what parts are used, how many phases etc... in the end what matter is how good the pwm works and how high you can clock the cpu with it! :D
QuantumForce has a history of having very very beefy pwm solutions since Blackops and the AM3 board will definately not be an exception :D

when the phenom came out and somewhat still i have heard people complaining about not getting enough power and vdroop, and i dont want to deal with it

also the guide is done

Thanks Zanzabar, I followed your guide and it went without a hitch.
Slyde

its good to hear that there was no problems, did u need to lap

here are the temps with 1.5V NB 1.320V cpu @ 333x9 and 1.9V ram @ 1600mhz 7-7-7-21 pl7 t1, and the liquid cooling in my sig, and 12c ambient fans at 900rpm
http://i44.tinypic.com/a9tes9.png
http://i44.tinypic.com/10gy980.png

No I didn't, I think I was lucky. Now that I look back, I guess I could have lapped the Foxconn NB heatsink(between the heatsink and the NB chip, not the HP side), it wasn't a mirror finish. I think that the thermal paste does help in that respect tho. Temps are the same as before. But I'm not voltage O/C'd much.
Slyde

Hey Zan, while you were in there to you happened to check and see if the pwm sink could be replaced with an aftermarket? Would love to pull all of this off of my board and use solid custom cooling.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saxile

Hey Zan, while you were in there to you happened to check and see if the pwm sink could be replaced with an aftermarket? Would love to pull all of this off of my board and use solid custom cooling.

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It looks like a Type 2 Thermalright mosfet cooler might do the trick. I've been looking to do the same. I do like the idea of the heat pipe from the pwm getting some water cooling though. The temp delta that Zan posted looked very good at 1.5V NB.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sailindawg

It looks like a Type 2 Thermalright mosfet cooler might do the trick. I've been looking to do the same. I do like the idea of the heat pipe from the pwm getting some water cooling though. The temp delta that Zan posted looked very good at 1.5V NB.

---

Lmk if you install one, and if my board works correctly after I install my new bios chips I'll do it. I'm not worried about the heatpipes as it would get plently of airflow.

MIPS makes a foxconn PWM waterblock as well.

might look into, just more tubing to add to this spider web I have already tho lol

Just saying, chilledpc.co.uk has a blackops nb block tops made of delrin and ships worldwide, anyway, nice guide:up:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by naokaji

Just saying, chilledpc.co.uk has a blackops nb block tops made of delrin and ships worldwide, anyway, nice guide:up:

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it ends up at $50 though and this is a better system its got less restriction and compared to my dfi with the same or simmilar mosfet modules and NB the NB is 1c hotter and the pwm is 20C cooler (not sure on how the mosfets are compared) but it its now 2C over liquid temps and thats about the same as with my x38LT

Thanks for the guide, this helped out lots. I used an Enzotech SNBW-SLI Sapphire Northbridge Waterblock, great fit for this board. I did not lap, just removed the old paste and put on some AS5. NB temperature is 41-42 deg C, room temperature is 27 deg C.

Ok, so I used the guide above and finally ended up using a Xigmatek Porter NB Cooler, It fits like a dream, I did not do the lapping anymore though. We all once had a little talk about using HR-05 SLI-IFX but it seems that wasn't a very nice fit. The Xigmatek though doesn't protrude too far, I used a thin 80mm Fan that came with what used to be a Thermalright V1-Ultra, thanks to Boris Alden Avergonzado for that, the screws on the Zalman GPU Cooler cuts it a little too close to the fan though and we might get in trouble for that, but so far it's working nicely. Click the photo to see the rest of the pictures, Kudos to all who made the guide possible, nice consolidation Zanzabar.

Envy64HT thanks for helping me with the installation. Your Fuji S6500FD camera is awesome too.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3429/...6d31945d4b.jpg

I see you are using the Blackops 120mm, fan - that thing is as loud as the mosh pit @ a Metallica concert!
I am using mine too, in the optical drive bays - set to %40 by duty cycle, it's too noisy at any higher than about %45. Can't remember, is it a pwm fan?

Also - is that an aftermarket PCI soundcard? On My Bops, the included soundcard is above the top PCIe slot, preventing me from fitting my 9800 in the top slot due to one of the screws that holds the HSF on wanting to occupy the same space as the sound card...

Would that NB cooler fit with the stock soundcard in that location?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spork!

I see you are using the Blackops 120mm, fan - that thing is as loud as the mosh pit @ a Metallica concert!
I am using mine too, in the optical drive bays - set to %40 by duty cycle, it's too noisy at any higher than about %45. Can't remember, is it a pwm fan?

Also - is that an aftermarket PCI soundcard? On My Bops, the included soundcard is above the top PCIe slot, preventing me from fitting my 9800 in the top slot due to one of the screws that holds the HSF on wanting to occupy the same space as the sound card...

Would that NB cooler fit with the stock soundcard in that location?

---

The Bops 120mm is indeed loud, I'm waiting for my Scythe fans to arrive.

Soundcard is a Creative Xtrememusic, I haven't tried with the included soundcard but I will try to see if we can still fit the Porter with the included audio solution.

If it doesn't fit, and you by any chance get interested in aftermarket audio, I would suggest Asus Xonar DX. Compatible with X1, X4, X8, X16 PCI Express slots, so it can make use of the last PCI-e on the BoPS, while continuing to do a crossfire configuration.

$64.99 after a $25 dollar rebate @ newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Tpk=xonar%20dx

Can't go wrong. :)

yeah shamino wanted cfm, not a silent 24/7 fan... he built this board for benching after all :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Spork!

Would that NB cooler fit with the stock soundcard in that location?

---

Thought I'd revive this old thread with a answer

Yes It will,
I have the same set up on my Blkops with a Xigmatek Porter NB Cooler and the stock xonar audio card with plenty of clearance. I don't run a fan on it and it stays around 41 but I do have it in a NZXT Zero case with 7 low speed fans
" 5 in 2 out " 4 on the door blowing directly on the cooler 1 upfront on the HD. 2 out the back door

Also paired up with a Prolimatech Megahalems /Scythe Kama PWM 120mm fan on the cpu no clearance issues there either