Quote Originally Posted by tiborrr View Post
MrToad, I've just checked everything and there is enough 0.5mm thermal pad encased with the water block to fit all power regulation chips. You need to trim the thermal pad in smaller pieces and cover individual PWM chips if necessary. Just follow the manual and you should be OK. I would really suggest you to remove the gray spongy shim, mentioned in previous posts and do a 'dry run' mount. By 'dry run' I mean install the block as per instruction manual, remove it and inspect the contact. When everything is OK, re-mount the waterblock the same way as before. If there are problems with the contact inspect the mobo/block assembly and troubleshoot the source of bad contact. Take a picture of the possibly problematic spot afterwards!

EDIT: Install the tubing on the water block prior to the final installation of the FC waterblock on the motherboard! There is a chance you have chipped off the SMD elements on the X58 organic packaging in previous attempts.
I'm "starting fresh" again tonight (brand new mobo and block) and I've worked out an easy way to put the tubing on the block BEFORE mounting it, so no excessive pressure (or torsion/traction) is applied to it after is seated.

I will indeed mount it WITHOUT the "spongy shim"

I still can't see how that caused so many problems, however is the only major difference between my trail of unsuccessful mounts and hardware failures and other people's successes...

Maybe if that's the source of the issues the very first mount on each motherboard caused the damage and then it didn't matter how many attempts or changes I did afterwards, with or without the shim, the damage was already done so the outcome was always the same...

Either way, thanks to everyone for your suggestions (and to Gregor for replying to my ticket)

Wish me good luck