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WB mounting is bending my board..

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Korndog

Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2002
Location
California
I ususally don't over tighten my waterblock because i do notice that the board starts to bend. I switched to brass connectors for mounting my motherboard to my case instead of plastic and though about adding more tension to my waterblock mounting gear to see if there would be any improvement. so i did, screwed all the bolts about another 2 millimeter. when i looked at the board it was still kinda bent even with the strong brass motherboard mounting. any who, i booted up the sucker and got a 4c decrease on idle! and the load time so far (30min of folding) is 2c less then usual. thought my room temp might be a little low, but my digital therm. says 22.3c, just about ~2c higher then usual because the heater was on.
anywho, i'm really happy.. and don't want to go back. is there anything bad about bending ur motherboard a bit? my friend said something about the integrated circuits on the motherboard getting screwed up.. :-/
just for info..
i got:
nemesis waterblock w/ spring/bolt/screw mounting
epox 8rda+ A2 mobo

thanks guys :)
 
Hmm, I don't think bending the board is a good thing, but I if hasn't ruined it already, I doubt it will get much worse. You might want to come up with some plate or strap system on the back of the motherboard to even out tension, and spread the pressure over a larger area. Maybe a plate with some foam glued to it, that the water block bolts go through. I'm not sure if that would work to well though. I would be worried about the plate damaging the solder joints and what-not on the back of the mobo.
 
lol, yep, i tried that..
still bends...
the plate stuck out 3in from each side, it would push against the foam on the outter side of the mounting and bend like that. i'm thinking about getting a big tile from the hardware store and drilling holes but so far i've only found ones that are really thick and won't allow me to mount my motherboard..
 
uh.. don't really have a problem with the tubing... tubing isn't putting any pressure what so ever even at low tension, i can't even notice it. i only had a problem with tubing with my notherbridge waterblock cuz it has whimpy little mounting stuff
 
i notice with mine it bows the board a little. The problem is the sink is so big and the chip is so little.

I wondered about breaking solder connections loose on the surface mount componets. I know how light they solder the componets on with and some solder can break clean and gap causing an intermintant connection.

Its like trying to mount a big heatsint to the tip of a pencil the sink is to big. I think they should make the cores longer or somthing.

Im not sure how most of it works but couldnt they make the core larger but thinner? insted of trying to make the core smaller and smaller square wise? I know the smaller it is the faster it will be because of less distance to travel but cooling becomes an issue when trying to cool such a small surface.

to bad they couldnt build the core into an alpha heatsink...lol the cooling is part of the core
 
I'd say the biggest risk is that the ceramic capacitors on the motherboard would crack. (I'm an electrical engineer and speaking with some experience.)

The ceramic capacitors are little, light brown rectangular parts with metal on each end.

Solder joints are a concern too, but the ceramic capacitors are the weakest point. (Think about how well a coffee mug flexes.)

You can get lucky and crack one of these capacitors and have no noticeable affect. (Max overclock is likely to be reduced a tad.) You can also have one crack and short out the Vcore regulator on your motherboard. Vcore regulators these days have fairly phenomenal current output capability and a cracked cap could easily result in a hole burned in the PCB itself.

Note to manufacturers/vendors:

There might be a market for a well designed reinforcing plate/block to preven motherboard flex.
 
OK, here's an idea that's a little extreme. Make a plate as big as the mobo and line it with foam. Have the plate cover the entire back of the mobo. Make the plate mount with the mother board mounting holes, and then run the water block bolts through the plate. Don't know if that's the best solution though.
 
just put the sink mounting holes closer to the socket. The problem i have is the sink is 3X bigger then the chip. If the holes for mounting the sink were closer to the socket i dont think it would flex near as much.
 
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