Shame on ASUS, this heatsink contact is terrible!

[afireinside]

So I got my P5B Deluxe in yesterday but no conroe yet... Anyway it looks nice right?



So today I'm staring at it and I notice the NB cooler looks kind of uneven. I was going to pop it off and remount anyway, lets see what's going on...



Wtf I can't even tell the mosfets were being cooled...



ALMOST 3/4TH THE CHIPSET WAS NOT MAKING CONTACT WITH THE HEATSINK. I thought my Foxconn AM2 board had some bad contact but this takes the cake by far. The heatsink hardly touched the chipset. Look at the contact:



Then there's the wonderful mosfet TIM:



I'm pretty disappointed. Time for a swiftech chipset cooler and some mosfet sinks.

[_Eduard_]

Hhmm that's weird.

I have built about 4 systems with this mobo already at my work (both deluxe and non deluxe) and none have seem to have any problems, allthough I of course did not check NB/SB HSF contact

[bing]

Watch those pink dots, those are high temperature and too bad Asus didn't put any heatsink on those right side array of mosfets.

Those unsink mosfets at right side will be too hot to touch when cpu on high load. Fyi, by cooling those mosfets will improve vcore droop.

[afireinside]

So in otherwords the board will droop a lot less on dry ice Only problem is I have no idea how I'll cool those AND insulate now.

[NickS]

Time to pick up some Microcool heatsinks

[foch3 -USA-]

So what are you going to do about it? I have the same board and mine looks crooked too the heatpipe looks like its tweaking the nb up a little.

[Gautam]

The reason you have no contact is because you haven't fired the board up yet. The stock TIM needs to be heated to work.

DI cooling the mosfets, I hope you're not serious. Just do the pencil droop mod and forget about it. I personally did no mods AND covered the mosfets with insulation. They're rated to run at at least 80C so no big deal.

[afireinside]

Yeah I played with the heatpipe and when the mosfet part is even, the NB is crooked. I'm going to use my own heatsinks for mosfets and NB.

[pcdoc1]

The reason you have no contact is because you haven't fired the board up yet. The stock TIM needs to be heated to work.

DI cooling the mosfets, I hope you're not serious. Just do the pencil droop mod and forget about it. I personally did no mods AND covered the mosfets with insulation. They're rated to run at at least 80C so no big deal.

And where might you find this "pencil" droop mod? I haven't seen it yet...

[foch3 -USA-]

Could it be that asus miscalculated the thickness of the mosfet TIM?

[politenessman]

google p5b pencil mods. i googled p5w pencil mods and found vmch and vmem pencil mods at vr-zone. possibly they have p5b also.


very truly yours,
politenessman

[CrazyXP1700]

basically the problem is the heatpipe...

the heatpipe needs to be bent a little inorder to get the chipset to sit on the NB properly... (i had this problem with my A8N SLI Premium, and it was a )

now the fun part is... half your fets aren't being cooled and half of them are...

the ones up by the sink... half of its not being cooled... my A8N wasn't any where near that bad though...

id bend that heatipe away from the board... and put down some little microcool heatsinks...

definetly going with your own sinks up there is the best option...

[Gautam]

AFAIK they're the same mod, but I'm not 100% sure.

[pcdoc1]

google p5b pencil mods. i googled p5w pencil mods and found vmch and vmem pencil mods at vr-zone. possibly they have p5b also.


very truly yours,
politenessman

I understand but a vdroop pencil mod doesn't exist... Since Gautam was offering that as advice I thought maybe he'd share it with us...

[Gautam]

Actually I confused myself with the Gigabyte for some dumb reason. :-/

But...you can always just pencil across the resistor shown below instead of putting the VR across it.

[pcdoc1]

Fixing the heat pipe issue is a slam anyway.... I just removed it, put a Swifty 159 on the NB, cut the pipe where in goes into the mosfet cooler and put a small black cap over it...

The mosfets on the north side of the board near the cpu barely get warm under full load, so I can't see any reason to do anything with 'em...

[Dani]

@afireinside, I know your feelings, it's very sad...
Here is my P5WDH, hehheh, changed original s.H.i.T to AS Cèramique and wondered a while why my stability is worse after this "mod"

Here is the answer:

[pcdoc1]

But...you can always just pencil across the resistor shown below instead of putting the VR across it.

Nahhh, I don't think so... It's there for a reason: Modifying its value is one thing, but eliminating its value is something else… Thanks anyway.

[Sanborn]

This worries me....has anyone check out the heatpipe system on thier Gigabyte motherboards ?

[Dat Ei]

now the fun part is... half your fets aren't being cooled and half of them are...

the ones up by the sink... half of its not being cooled... my A8N wasn't any where near that bad though...

AFAIK the cooler on the MOSFETs is just for cooling the heat of the NB via the heatpipe, but not for cooling the MOSFETs. While we see 8 phases on modern boards, the MOSFETs don't get as hot as on 4 phase boards, because each phase hasn't to handle as much load as the ones on 4 phase boards. If you look at the bad axe (or other boards) you won't see any coolers on the MOSFETs at all.


Dat Ei

[Shpoon]

Dat EI is right, look to FCG's post about the heatpipe (think in the preperation thread of P5W). The heatpipe/sink over the mosfets is actually just used to wick away heat from the NB, and get it cooled by the CPU cooler...the mosfets don't get hot enough to require an actual heatsink.

Edit: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...3&postcount=47

[dandragonrage]

whoa, that's like 30 ounces of thermal paste in one application

[Gautam]

Nahhh, I don't think so... It's there for a reason: Modifying its value is one thing, but eliminating its value is something else… Thanks anyway.

A pencilw ouldn't eliminate it, conductive ink would. Graphite has plenty of resistance of its own.

Those FETS getting hot aren't going to hurt anything. Obviously the heatsink assembly wasn't designed to cool them. It's more of a side effect.

[bing]

Not even warm ?

For this mobo, just crank up the VCore above stock and run Orthos on small FFT for hours and stick yer finger on those unsink mosfets. Afraid, the skin might get .

Man.. I must have an ultra sensitive finger then ...

[Mykou]

Watch those pink dots, those are high temperature and too bad Asus didn't put any heatsink on those right side array of mosfets.

Those unsink mosfets at right side will be too hot to touch when cpu on high load. Fyi, by cooling those mosfets will improve vcore droop.

is it worth putting some video ram HS over them so ?