Water Cooling Asus Maximus Extreme with Crosslinx

[Giuliano]

The initial impressions:

• The positioning of the mounting holes in the upper right and lower left is perfect.
• However, the position of the mounting screw hole in the middle (not shown here) is off by about 1/2mm to 1mm. The mounting hole is used to provide a tension point across from the SB chip.
• The paper gap test between the Crosslinx chip and the block is perfect - zero gap.
• However, the gap between the SB chip and the block has a very thin gap - I used a business card stock to check. The card was a loose fit towards the center of the block, but a tight fit towards the right edge.
• Also, the screw provided to anchor the middle mount point is a few mm long - it bottoms out in the block before the screw head reaches the motherboard.

Possible fixes:

1. Reduce the thickness of the block section that covers the Crosslinx chip (the raised part) by a few tenths of a mm (0.1-0.2mm).
2. Adjust the alignment of the mounting holes in the plexi top so that the screw hole in the copper bottom is aligned.
3. Find a shorter screw for the middle hole.. I believe the screws are M3 metric. Easy fix.

Fix #1 can most likely be accomplished by wet sanding the raised portion of the block with 800-1200 grit paper on a plate of glass.. the name for the technique escapes me at the moment.

Fix #2 may be accomplished by some slight dremeling, but this should also be an easy fix for EK to adjust. Much easier to adjust the plexi top than the copper bottom.



The bottom line right now is that the block is a decent fit right now, with only some minor changes required for a perfect fit.

The extra gap above the SB chip can easily be filled by the TIM - Ceramique or AS5 would do fine.

Update:

Fix #1 is not required - the step height on the bottom of the block is correct.

The thin gap (0.2 - 0.3 mm) is being caused by the spring tension forcing the board underneath to bow a tiny bit.

That should go away with use of the threaded hole in the middle.


A shorter M3 screw is requred for use with the hole underneath - any fine-thread computer screw (M3x0.5) will do, such as ones used with DVD drives, floppy drives, etc.. Thread length of about 5mm is ideal.


To correct the hole alignment problem, Eddy has suggested making the mounting holes in the plexi top slightly elongated so as to form a slot.

The block only needs to shift by about 1-2 mm to get the hole to align.


I'm going to take my block tonight and gently widen the holes with my Dremel tool.


For those of you who have ordered the block but haven't received it yet, the new top should come pre-modified for you as shown: