Water cooling the Asus Maximus SE X38

[Pete]

3rd bord has died! Ops! Next one will get some Vmods, but im tempted to get P35 again to be honest! We'll see

[Talonman]

Sorry to hear that buddy...

[deepcover]

3rd bord has died! Ops! Next one will get some Vmods, but im tempted to get P35 again to be honest! We'll see

Wow, I'm sorry to hear that you lost that expensive hardware. I'm about to watercool my Maximus Formula (non-SE), so I'm curious as to how you think your hardware was damaged. You're much more experienced than myself, so maybe I can learn something.


Also, I was wondering if it may be easier to use the SB heatsink that comes with the maximus by detaching the heatsink from the heatpipe. Here's a pic from Exahertz

Thanks

[Pete]

1 - don't leave a suction line from your cascade fitted to the bord

2 - don't let your kids near ya stuff

3 - don't let your kids have friends over

4 - no kids partys at all what so ever

5 - there are locks on doors for bloody good reasons, start using them

3rd bord was snapped in half, my youngest and his new love were playing kiss chase and ran through my pc workshop/room thingy and caught the suctionline on my brand new uber cascade and it tore the bord off the bench table and snaped it.

No worrise, i will just take £200 out of his account and tell him when he is 18.

Other 2 gone via abuse to be fair, one died after BIOS flash withing the EZ BIOS due to powercut (out of my control) and lastly no idea on 2nd, just went pop..meh

SB on water was showing around 35c on mine, then again it was last thing in the loop after

CPU>NB>MOSFETS X 2>GFX

I also did remove the SB at one point and i think there was a lack of TIM there.

Screwdriver under the copper end will do the job, it's only firction and doubble sided tape holding it in location!

I'm no expert but i share my findings and what not. Thats what forums are all about. I just dont give a toss to what happens too much if it's me killing my stuff

[ChaosAD]

After about 1 1/2 months of usage i decided (late tbh) to remove the stock M/B heatpipes so as to reapply some thermal paste to see if it would make any difference. I am up to 20 mins atm heating the nb with a hair drayer and the hs doesnt even move 1 mm. Shall i try more or shall i give up? Do i have any chanche to take it off?

[Fitseries3]

damn... i can't believe it's that hard. both of mine practically fell off the board. somebody at the asus factory must be playing games.

[ChaosAD]

Fell off after usage or just out of the box?

[Fitseries3]

after about a week of use on both. all i did was pull the mounting hardware off and it came off before i even finished removing the pins. that was before overclocking on both boards. my friend has a P5E and it did the same.

[ChaosAD]

Did u reapply any thermal paste?Did u see any temp difference?Heating for more than 35-40 min atm.

[Fitseries3]

temp difference was substantial because i went with the EK waterblocks to cool the NB, SB, and VRMs. i used MX-2 on the NB and SB and used thermal pads on the VRMs. temps are the same as everyone else has reported.

i'd be careful heating your board up too much. have you tried the above mentioned idea of prying the heatpipe out of the SB cooler? a lot of people that have had the same problem you are having did that and it made it a little easier to get them off.

[ChaosAD]

Have a link to check this out?

[supa-fly]

Nice

[Fitseries3]

this?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=933

[Monkeywoman]

Durkadurka (best name ever) nice set up, did u remove the IHS off the north bridge?

[neo_rtr]

After about 1 1/2 months of usage i decided (late tbh) to remove the stock M/B heatpipes so as to reapply some thermal paste to see if it would make any difference. I am up to 20 mins atm heating the nb with a hair drayer and the hs doesnt even move 1 mm. Shall i try more or shall i give up? Do i have any chanche to take it off?

take a look at my log page about the removal of the fusion block.¨¨

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...1&postcount=23

I did try the hot air but i manage to remove it with compressed air meaning "cold".

[Durkadurka]

Durkadurka (best name ever) nice set up, did u remove the IHS off the north bridge?

Nope, the IHS is still on.
The only thing I struggled with was cleaning the IHS.
That stock TIM is some rugged stuff.

[ChaosAD]

Thanx for the replies guyz. I finally managed to take asus hs off.It took me over 1 hour of heating the mb.You would be amazed on how much thermal paste (more like cement i would say :P) there was under the hs. So far so good. I just hope no damage on the mb from all that heat.

[Raver]

Mine popped right off after 20min in the freezer, no need to heat it up.

To remove the ASUS TIM, nail polish remover melts that stuff right off.

[deepcover]

1 - don't leave a suction line from your cascade fitted to the bord

2 - don't let your kids near ya stuff

3 - don't let your kids have friends over

4 - no kids partys at all what so ever

5 - there are locks on doors for bloody good reasons, start using them

3rd bord was snapped in half, my youngest and his new love were playing kiss chase and ran through my pc workshop/room thingy and caught the suctionline on my brand new uber cascade and it tore the bord off the bench table and snaped it.

No worrise, i will just take £200 out of his account and tell him when he is 18.

Other 2 gone via abuse to be fair, one died after BIOS flash withing the EZ BIOS due to powercut (out of my control) and lastly no idea on 2nd, just went pop..meh

SB on water was showing around 35c on mine, then again it was last thing in the loop after

CPU>NB>MOSFETS X 2>GFX

I also did remove the SB at one point and i think there was a lack of TIM there.

Screwdriver under the copper end will do the job, it's only firction and doubble sided tape holding it in location!

I'm no expert but i share my findings and what not. Thats what forums are all about. I just dont give a toss to what happens too much if it's me killing my stuff

Hilarious. I guess you can't blame the the MB being snapped in half on Asus. Thanks for the tips. I think I'm going to go ahead and make my purchases, watercooling the NB while leaving the SB to be air-cooled.

[C'DaleRider]

Well, I started building my WC loop on my Maximus Formula. Since I don't have an SE, I had no choice but to remove the NB block if I wanted better NB temps on OC'ing than I've been getting while air cooling. (I've been using the board for a month now.)

I went with cold to remove the NB.........but instead of 20 minutes in a freezer, I bought a can of circuit freeze spray (it's used to trace down circuit problems that occur when the circuit heats up....spray the circuit to cool/freeze it down, etc.)

20 seconds of spray onto the block and the NB block popped right off.....no drama at all. I left the SB block in place and will aircool the SB.....the heat pipe lifted out very easily from the block using a small flat blade screwdriver under it and lifting it carefully.

In total, I spent maybe 1.5-2 minutes getting the entire NB heatpipe assembly off the board.

Going onto the board is a Q6600 cpu, 2 x 2GB Mushkin DDR2-1000 RAM, Asus Radeon HD3870 video card....well, it already has those components, actually.

The water cooling loop consists of D-Tek FuZion cpu block, DD Maze 4 for the NB, DDC2 pump w/an XSPC top, Thermochill 120.3 radiator, and a Swiftech MicroRes.

[deepcover]

Well, I started building my WC loop on my Maximus Formula. Since I don't have an SE, I had no choice but to remove the NB block if I wanted better NB temps on OC'ing than I've been getting while air cooling. (I've been using the board for a month now.)

I went with cold to remove the NB.........but instead of 20 minutes in a freezer, I bought a can of circuit freeze spray (it's used to trace down circuit problems that occur when the circuit heats up....spray the circuit to cool/freeze it down, etc.)

20 seconds of spray onto the block and the NB block popped right off.....no drama at all. I left the SB block in place and will aircool the SB.....the heat pipe lifted out very easily from the block using a small flat blade screwdriver under it and lifting it carefully.

In total, I spent maybe 1.5-2 minutes getting the entire NB heatpipe assembly off the board.

Going onto the board is a Q6600 cpu, 2 x 2GB Mushkin DDR2-1000 RAM, Asus Radeon HD3870 video card....well, it already has those components, actually.

The water cooling loop consists of D-Tek FuZion cpu block, DD Maze 4 for the NB, DDC2 pump w/an XSPC top, Thermochill 120.3 radiator, and a Swiftech MicroRes.

Sounds like a good start for me. I looked quickly for circuit freeze spray and it seems like something I'm going to have to get mail-ordered. http://www.chemtronics.com/products/product.asp?id=80 Thank you for your help.

[Talonman]

C'DaleRider, I liked your instructions...

A section of your text has been put in the 'Tips' section of the OP.

[Creek Tha Gray]

On the way from ek i have

EK-NB/SB ASUS 4 for the SB so i can get a 3870x2 in

also
2 x EK-Backplate Mosfet ASUS 1, 3, 3a
1 x EK-Supreme - Plexi (universal socket)
1 x EK-Backplate LGA 775
1 x Metal plate 775 - Supreme

removing the phase change and only using it for benching in the future.
Yes you say wTF it takes some time to turn on and is using some 300w of power and I love it but the ek water block is looking like the way to go. will post updated pics with all the parts on the mobo when there in so to post a updated setup of ek waterblocks in the first post.

[Talonman]

I will be looking foward to it!!

Then I want some temps put of you withought the phase change unit!

There is a spot in the OP just waiting for a picture of your new blocks mounted on your mobo.

[Pete]

Hilarious. I guess you can't blame the the MB being snapped in half on Asus. Thanks for the tips. I think I'm going to go ahead and make my purchases, watercooling the NB while leaving the SB to be air-cooled.

No worrise. Get shot of the stock NB cooling, pop the heat pipe off the SB and use a proper block on NB and get some uber cool temps to big FSB