hi all,

must say this is one of the most informative threads which I have just read from page 1!! Big thankyou to all involved and congrats on some beautiful machines.

My situation is that I got the Maximus SE back in Nov 07 and have been running it on air since then. Now this machine has not been running all day and in fact has not been used for the last 2 months or so due to work etc. I have finally decided to try my hand at a water cooled build and was originally going to use the stock cooling but the more I read the more I want to replace the nb with an aftermarket block.

I am however concerned that having been using this board on and off for a few months will make the removal of the stock cooling almost impossible or result in the destruction of the motherboard.

Should I even attempt to remove the stock cooling or should I stick with it?