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Did I completely fail at mounting my megahalems?

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Brando

Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2006
I have an original megahalems I've used since my i7 920. I just upgraded to a 3570k and an asus p8z77 v pro motherboard on socket 1155. I found this adapter kit that says it's supposed to work and the prolimatech website swears their mounting hardware is incapable of hurting your motherboard but I'm a bit worried. When I was first putting the heatsink on it looked like the back plate was almost touching the motherboard or maybe it IS touching but it's REALLY close. I stopped what I was doing and googled every which way finding nothing about it except something by prolimatech saying don't worry just do it.
There was no gasket or any other types of parts what so ever in the original box or with the adapter kit. This is the one.

http://www.prolimatech.com/en/products/detail.asp?id=171&page=1

I was just putting in a power supply and got a second look and I could swear it's touching a little. I see traces and little silver bumps under the plate possibly making contact. Did I screw up? I thought they had me covered and I decided to trust the instructions. I've been having random instability in games and ripping my hair out trying to figure it out.
 
Don't 1155 sockets have their own backplate? You'd just put the Megahalem blackplate on top of it. Can you post pictures, from the back of the board and from the edge?
 
Don't 1155 sockets have their own backplate? You'd just put the Megahalem blackplate on top of it. Can you post pictures, from the back of the board and from the edge?

I have to borrow a camera since my phone cam is dead, but yes there is a raised metal plate behind the socket that the adapter kit rests on. If the kit backplate was flat it wouldn't be an issue but the arms actually bend back a bit towards the motherboard and practically rest on it. If there's any distance it's like a hairs breadth. The kits bracket doesn't look like any of the ones in the pics of the megahalems rev b or rec c I've seen.
 
I have to borrow a camera since my phone cam is dead, but yes there is a raised metal plate behind the socket that the adapter kit rests on. If the kit backplate was flat it wouldn't be an issue but the arms actually bend back a bit towards the motherboard and practically rest on it. If there's any distance it's like a hairs breadth. The kits bracket doesn't look like any of the ones in the pics of the megahalems rev b or rec c I've seen.

All the pictures of 1155 board backs I can find show that any traces and solder points are well spaced from where the backplate touches.
 
Sorry about the angle. The 3 holes on the plate and the screw holes leave no doubt as to how it's supposed to go in. But the fact that it touches a little makes me wonder if some motherboards have a shallow plate behind the cpu that doesn't make enough space or something. Seems like they could have just made the back plate flat instead of having those arms bend back towards the mobo so it wouldn't even get close.
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It's fine. You'll notice the traces are routed around that area rather than through it, and I'll bet the solder points near it are just grounds.
 
This is the pic I should have posted the first time. Mainly looking at the bottom right corner but maybe the solder points in a vertical row on the right.
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I don't have any 1155 hardware, so this may be stupid... are you sure it isn't upside down? Did it come with any kind of spacing nut to sit between the backplate and the board?
 
I don't have any 1155 hardware, so this may be stupid... are you sure it isn't upside down? Did it come with any kind of spacing nut to sit between the backplate and the board?

No spacing hardware but there are 4 nubs that go through the motherboard mounting holes and poke out the other side that you put the screws into and 3 holes on the backplate where the 3 bumps on the back of the cpu socket poke through so there's no way to put it in wrong.
 
The nice lady from prolimatech said not to worry because there's insulating material on the back plate. Got a replacement motherboard coming this week. We'll see.
 
Did your existing board die during this upgrade?

If your still concerned about the possbility of shorting stuff to the bracket you can take some liquid electrical tape or even normal electrical tape and lay it down over the bracket or the board in the area of the bracket placement. That will take care of any doubt at all you have that something might be shorting out.
 
There's usually piece of plastic on the other side of the backplate (the "insulating material"), and it's not packaging material. Make sure you didn't remove that. Just do what TsunamiJuan said (which I thought I posted but apparently forgot to actually click the button) if you're still worried.
 
No I didn't peel the insulator off it's still there. It's a thin black sticker. I don't know for sure that the plate caused problems or even if it's the motherboard for sure but I've had too many weird issues and swapped out almost everything else and had no time left to trade in the board so I went for it. I wasted a lot of my 30 day return period testing and swapping out other stuff. If it's not the motherboard then I must have gotten 2 bad video cards in a row but that seems unlikely. This build has been cursed from the start.
 
Yeah personally I very much dislike the look of that plate overlapping the power plane on the bottom of the socket where on some boards there are a series of decoupling capacitors.

(its the row of 6 empty squares with two pads each inside them)
 
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