Anyone remove OCZ heatspreaders?

I know they're pretty, but after testing my new OCZ PC3500 Plat LE BH-5 those heatspreaders were HOT...and this is with an 80mm fan suspended over my RAM pushing appx 30CFM. I have another pair of BH-5 that is bare and they are essentially room temperature even at full load during Memtest.

Anyone yank the spreaders off of their OCZ with good results?

--Illah

Illah said:

I know they're pretty, but after testing my new OCZ PC3500 Plat LE BH-5 those heatspreaders were HOT...and this is with an 80mm fan suspended over my RAM pushing appx 30CFM. I have another pair of BH-5 that is bare and they are essentially room temperature even at full load during Memtest.

Anyone yank the spreaders off of their OCZ with good results?

--Illah

Click to expand...

Unless your adding a different heat spreader, there is no reason to just take them off. The heat spreader helps a little, but once you remove the mass...the cooling will be even worse. Also your warranty goes out the window

I had a pair of OCZ awhile back and I think they are glued to the chips...so I wouldn't risk removing them.

Besides, if the heatspreaders are warm, that means they're doing their job. How much voltage are you putting through them?

Illah said:

I know they're pretty, but after testing my new OCZ PC3500 Plat LE BH-5 those heatspreaders were HOT...and this is with an 80mm fan suspended over my RAM pushing appx 30CFM. I have another pair of BH-5 that is bare and they are essentially room temperature even at full load during Memtest.

Anyone yank the spreaders off of their OCZ with good results?

--Illah

Click to expand...

If the heatspreaders are hot, then they are getting the heat from the memeory chips pretty well. Id be concerned if they werent hot, as that would mean that the memory was. And thideras is right, most heatspreaders are glued onto the chip, so if you take it off you risk a)breaking the chip or b) breaking the circuitboard of the memory that the chip is in.

Here the thing - the heatspreaders are hot. That means that they're hot on both sides. Even with an 80mm fan.

I get the impression they're insulating the RAM, not cooling it. With 1mm-3mm of airspace between the sticks vs. a good 10mm+ without there's less airflow too.

The other pair of BH-5 I have can run in the same DIMM slots, identical setup, cooling, etc. and the chips are cool to the touch under full memtest load. The heatspreaders by contrast are very warm. Sure, they're sucking up heat, but the real question is are they dispersing the heat or just blanketing the RAM with really warm copper plates?

Both sets of RAM are getting 3.1v with an 80mm fan cooling them off, 225 2-2-2-5.

--Illah