Quote Originally Posted by Zeus View Post
A little warning to people who will install this block: i'm using 8mm-11mm compression fittings with the o-ring that comes with those fittings but it leaked like mad.

I had to use the o-rings that come with the swiftech barbs as well to stop the leaks.
Now it's all nice and tight.
I lost two motherboards due to these flimsy barbs: one Rampage Extreme and one Maximus Extreme. After the lose of the ME, I thought I knew what to check for in avoiding a repeat. The problem is that the leaks can be insidiously small -- an almost imperceptible trickle of coolant. Cases with inverted mobo mounting are particularly problematic, as the NB sits inline with the CPU socket beneath it. This last leak took out a QX9650 CPU along with the mainboard. I'm super careful setting up loops, leak testing before running any power to the board, etc. When the worm clamps aren't tight enough -- leaks. Then they are too tight, barbs are easily crushed -- even worse leaks.

Quote Originally Posted by 3oh6 View Post
The 1/2" barbs though are worth the price of admission for the NBMAX if running a 1/2" loop.
While I think many of us here are in agreement that Swiftech's solution misses the mark, it's still a far better solution than the native NB block for this very reason. The Swiftech's 1/2" barbs actually hold up to a little torque from wormclamps: you can get a decent seal, if not decent temps.

Quote Originally Posted by Stelios View Post
I'm having strange lockups in boot process . The computer hangs at "Checking NVRAM" , just before it begins to boot from HDD . The problem is only happening when i have raid mode enabled in ICH9R and have a plextor 760sa plugged in one sata port (5 or 6) .
Removing the sata burner , everything works properly .

Anyone else with this problem ???? Raid mode and optical (ROM or burner) in sata ports ???
Yes, I went through this nightmare too. Keep your RAID setup as simple as possible when installing the OS. Make sure the Silicon Image controller is disabled if running Intel RAID (at least during setup). Preferably, chuck software RAID and get yourself an Adaptec or Areca RAID card. Problem solved!

Note: Wtf would they sell a $400 motherboard with only two PCIe 16x slots? Someone, please? LOL. For those of us that are hardware RAID junkies but need both PCIe 16x slots for Crossfire, this is a real problem. On the Maximus Extreme, I could run Crossfire and still have a spare 16x slot to run my 8x Areca card from. Makes life so much simpler. While not a complete solution, a partial fix is to use Areca's 1200 RAID card -- a RAID card that runs from PCIe 1x slot. Not ideal, but a nice alternative from ICH9R for two OS boot disks in RAID 0.