Back when Nventiv when bankrupt and stopped producing products for there cooling units I realised that I would probably need an Athlon 64 kit to fit my original Prometeia to any new CPU and motherboard I may buy in the future. At the time I had an AMD 2500 + ( not mobile ) running at 2500 Mhz which was performing nicely and I had a socket A kit which I was using to mount my Prometeia to the Epox 8RDA3+ motherboard I had. Unfortunately at the time I did not have a lot of money to spare and £60 on one of the last remaining kits that retailers had did not grab me especially as I may not need it for half a year or so, stupidly I decided not to buy a kit.
Any way the move to an Athlon 64 came along and when I looked for a mounting kit I realised how stupid I was not to have bought one when they still existed as no one had or would sell me a kit. So this is a little demonstration of how I made a kit to fit my new Epox 8KDA3+ and Athlon 64 for any one else out there who has an Nventiv unit and no Athlon 64 kit.
Having been inspired by a user on the Xtremesystems forums who had made an acrylic plate to hold the cooling head down onto the CPU I decided to try that approach. Having no acrylic and not being a great fan of the material due to its ability to crack and shatter while being drilled I decided to make it all out of 6mm plywood.
The first problem was that the back plate on the Epox 8KD3+ that the socket mount mechanism screwed into had a screw thread that I could not find any where so I had to abandon it and make my own. The mounting holes where roughly 6mm in diameter so I got some 6mm bolts 75 mm long which fitted perfectly through the holes on the motherboard and where the perfect length.
I then took the Epox motherboard back plate and traced round it onto a section of plywood but extended the length so that there was enough room for the head of the bolts to fit on. I then cut this out using a band saw and shaped the curves using the end of a flatbed sander. The holes where then marked using a nail pushed through the hole son the Epox mount to get them lined up correctly. These where then drilled out using a 6.5mm drill bit to give the bolts a good fit.
Looking at it I saw there was going to be trouble fitting the bolts, the wood and the insulation foam underneath the motherboard and between the motherboard tray, testing the fit showed that it would never fit into the case as it was at the moment. The first modification was to use a 16mm spade bit to drill 3mm into the ply around the bolt holes so the head of the bolt would be recessed.
I then tested the fit of the plate and foam on the motherboard again but it was still too thick, to get round this problem I used a 25mm forstner drill bit to cut a 4mm deep square section in the centre of the back plate which I then stuck the foam into using double sided sticky tape.
Testing this again it just fitted onto my Lian-Li’s motherboard tray, I just put a line of seal string round the square foam cut-out and pressed the plate onto the back of the motherboard, then using some hexagonal nuts the back plate was secured and tightened to create a good air tight seal round the pins of the socket.
The top of the socket was then sealed with the black plastic bracket form the Socket A kit and seal string used to make it air tight. To hold the Prometeias head on to the CPU another section of plywood was cut approximately 75mm wide and 125mm long. I then cut a section out of one side to allow it to slide over the Prometeias hose and then drilled two 6.5mm holes in the top to line up with the bolts, the head and the top plate when then screwed down using two wing nuts.
Hope this helpful to peopel in the same position as I was.
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