grumper, what did you use for adhesive? I'm most worried about getting a heatsink to stick on those tiny vregs (very little surface area to stick to).
I sinked the thing under my tiny, blue heatsink on the top-left b/c the stock cooler blasted air over it I believe, so I figured a heatsink would do the trick...
That's not a bad idea sinking those chips since you're using water. Since I'm using an Accelero XP they get enough airflow that I'm not really concerned about them (plus I read some leaked docs somewhere, I think XS, that mentioned they have something like a 150C limit, although that could also be highly inaccurate).
Getting the Enzos to stay on those tiny VRM's was
tough. There's not much for them to adhere to, and you
really don't want them falling off, so I took extra precautions:
I used
Sekisui thermal tape for all of the chips. I cleaned them with 91% alcohol, used a pencil eraser to rub on them for a bit (
carefully -> make sure you don't knock any resistors loose), then cleaned with a second application of alcohol. After this I put the enzotech sinks on the Sekisui tape and pressed all the bubbles out that I was able (the tape came from eBay on paper strips). I did a test application with the little chip on the far-right first to see if I cleaned the chips well enough. I applied the Enzo's to the VREGs, being careful not to crush anything on the other side of the board (I probably should have attached the backplate with zipties before I did this, but I didn't realize this was an option at the time), then used a hairdryer to heat up the copper to ~70-80C. I monitored the temps with an IR thermometer, but as long as you heat them briefly it should be fine since they're not powered on or anything.
Once they cooled I checked them to see if there was any wiggle & held the board upside-down to see if the tape was holding, but unless you apply alot of force they shouldn't go anywhere. Also when I pulled the card out to check later on the bond on the RAMsinks at least had gotten alot stronger from heat-cycling.
The Enzotech C1's are probably the best size for the application that you could want. They overhang the top two VRM's as they're by far smaller than the others, but the other VRM's were almost exactly the base dimensions. The only issue I with them was with the height, which won't be a problem with your setup, although the copper's so soft you can cut them with wire snips.
I thought about using the thermal adhesive from the Accelero kit, but I was worried about RMAs or resale. A few weeks after installation and I haven't had any issues with the setup... so far.
Edit: That said, if you don't want to use tape, I have a tube of thermal adhesive I'll never use that I can send your way if you need it.
maybe hwmonitor?
