PSA: Crosshair Hero VI ... mounting pressure issue?

[exadeuce]

As if the bios issues weren't enough, there's another potential issue here with the AM3/4 cooler compatibility, or something. I would never have known if I hadn't overheard a guy at Microcenter talking about the problem.

What happened:
I installed an old Hyper 212 Evo air cooler to test my new Crosshair VI and 1800X out. Booted up fine.

Uninstalled and put in the watercooling loop with an EK Supremacy Evo I had from a previous build. I don't have the AM4 mount, but that block came with an AM3 mount which is allegedly compatible with the CH6. It does fit. Leak tested for a day, then wired things up. Motherboard LEDs and the "CPU ready" little green light are on. Push start. Nothing happens. Not even the start of the POST process. Recheck connections like eighteen times. Nothing. Then I remember that conversation.

So I loosen up the supremacy mounting mechanism a bit. Still nothing. Loosen the screws all the way out, so the block is just resting on top of the CPU. Now it powers up! I shut it back down and tighten the mounts back down very slightly. Now I get nothing again.

I ordered the AM4 mounting plate from Amazon which hopefully avoids this issue.

Any thoughts on what exactly might be triggering this?

 

[Johan45]

From what I have gathered it has something to do with the rubber gasket between the block and board. many have had success with cutting the center out of it to match the AMD backplate hole. I also read that the AM4 backplate from EK also needed a new gasket since it was doing the same. You should be able to get all this from EK for free IIRC

 

[Blaylock]

I read about this at Tomshardware. The problem you are having is using the AM3 backplate. The posts on the AM3 are a different height from the AM4 and may not apply the correct mounting pressure. Here's the article I read. and a pic for those that just wanna see what I'm talking about. Why does this problem only exist on the CHVI? Because it's the only one (that I'm aware of) that has holes for both AM3 and AM4 coolers. Be careful out there if you have one.

 

[MNMadman]

From what I have gathered it has something to do with the rubber gasket between the block and board. many have had success with cutting the center out of it to match the AMD backplate hole. I also read that the AM4 backplate from EK also needed a new gasket since it was doing the same. You should be able to get all this from EK for free IIRC

I am one of those people. I got the Supremacy EVO with the free AM4 kit, and I needed to punch out the center of the gasket for it to boot and work correctly. So, when you mount the block again with the AM4 backplate, punch out the center of the gasket and just use the outer portion - it should work normally.

 

[cdawall]

Yea this was pointed out in the thread I made about ryzen. The mounting height for AM4 and AM3 are not the same.

 

[exadeuce]

Thanks guys. Amazon had an AM4 kit for like ten bucks that I already ordered, didn't realize you could get it for free. Ah well.

I will also try the rubber gasket thing.

Sadly, this will all have to wait until saturday.

I looked around on various forums now that I know what the specific issue was, and found lots of reports of the same. Thankfully, I haven't seen anyone report permanent damage from the incorrect mount, everyone seems to boot fine after the swap.

 

[MNMadman]

I looked around on various forums now that I know what the specific issue was, and found lots of reports of the same. Thankfully, I haven't seen anyone report permanent damage from the incorrect mount, everyone seems to boot fine after the swap.

Not quite true. My board did boot fine after that, but I did have to replace the CPU. I don't know whether it was the incorrect mount that caused it, or if it was just a bad CPU from the beginning.

 

[Johan45]

Not sure if it's only the EK block that's affeting the board. Just wanted to post that I have a Koolance 380A that I modified to run on AM4 and it has worked fine with two different CPUs so far. One thing different is the backing plate on this block is quite wide open in the center.