ASUS P5K deluxe cooling and moding!

vapor matt

vapor matt

vapor matt

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Joined
19 Jan 2003
Posts
2,498
Location
west sussex
Hi and welcome to my little P5K deluxe build. with QX6700

first off after removing the P5K from the box i had a good look at the heat pipe cooling. mmmmm not convinced its more than cosmetic i removed the chipset cooling to which iam very pleased i did!

The cooling around the cpu looks impresive, but on inspection its heat sinks are sitting on a rubbery strip of thermal disaster. awfull and where they had been pushed down when fitting some edges had cut through the rubbery strip leaving holes and cut marks in the rubber strip.

the heat sink on the edge of the M/B is held in place buy the customery push through clips with springs for tensioning the sink. well this sink rocks badly on the clips and actualy sits at an angle which lifts on one edge CPU socket side. no matter how you try it will not sit flat on the fets. so infact its cooling is just half the contact and through the rubber strip, very poor. the springs make it sit uneven as one spring makes it tilt towards M/B edge.


the northbridge again was kinda stuck with a rubbery pad, again on inspection the contact was poor due to an air bubble in the center which on removal of the heat sink you could see no contact in the center of the sticky pad used. again poor.


Now for the heat pipes, no visable soldering used so i lifted the pipe from the N/B cooler part to find its as always with asus its held in place via hot glue!!! now hot glue is not a very good thermal compound at all. the heat pipes on all the sinks are held in place in the same way. the heat pipes are just cosmetic and offer very little in transfering heat from one heat sink to another.

now to the modding.

NC-U6 chipset cooler sat next to the old chipset cooler with heat pipe removed. also picture of the heat pipes with glue to see.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n241/vapor_matt/pic4.jpg


with the heat pipes cut i then replaced the heat sinks round the CPU. the sink closest to the edge of the M/B i used arctic silver epoxy mixed with AS 5 dosnt go rock hard but does allow removal if need be. the other heatsink was replaced useing AS ceramic compound, again checking to make sure all fets had good contact with the sink.

picture of N/B sink removed.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n241/vapor_matt/pic3.jpg

On the south/B i added another sink to the top with some fins and used AS epoxy again making sure it had good contact. re fitted sink useing Ceramic AS compound.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n241/vapor_matt/pic2.jpg

this is the heat sink chosen to replace the standard N/B heatsink. noctua NC-U6 again will be fitted useing AS ceramic compound.


http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n241/vapor_matt/pic4.jpg


this will be the water block fitted swiftech storm RV2, modded to miss the heatsink on the fets when fitted, arrow points to where i had to file down the cpu bracket to miss the fet heat sink as it was in contact when fitted.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n241/vapor_matt/pic6.jpg



this is a picture of those hot glue heat pipes! make your own mind up about the good of hot glue as a thermal compound.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n241/vapor_matt/pic5.jpg

and a picture of the fet sinks replaced with out heat pipes

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n241/vapor_matt/pic1.jpg

Iam at the moment polishing the storm base to mirror finish, will also check CPU ISH to make sure its nice and flat with no high spots. and also give the NC-U6 a polish to make sure of good contact with N/B

will be building tomorow so will keep the thread updated for those intrested.
 
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any reason you're lapping the storm?

if you don't have any scratches/notches you'll most likely just make it worse, that comes from the horses mouth (stu).
 
well the storm surface is indeed very good. I may well try it without laping and see what the temps are. the Nc-U6 will definatly need laping as you can see machineing marks on the face. but looking at the storm closely it does have a very good surface without any maching marks what so ever!

The NC-U6 is what i started on first, so i will get that finished then start striping down my PC ready for install.
 
I have also ripped the heatpipe stuff off my P5K Deluxe. I have butchered it and kept the mosfet part by the I/O stuff in place. I noticed the ****** top mosfet cooler straight away and have used a couple of small bits of cable tie under it that are the same height as the off centre mosfets and it sits properly now. Got a HR-05 on the northbridge and a TT extreme spirit on the southbridge, both running passively as I have high flow throuigh my case.

As you probably already know, a storm is by no means top dog when it comes to quad core cooling. The flow is too focused. Even removing the IHS doesn't make the world of difference. Fuzion or Apogee GT at a push is where it's at.
 
Mr Footlong, would you mind posting some photographs of your setup? I'm interested in what you've done with the cable tie, and the general changes you've made to the cooling on the motherboard. Also, what case are you using? Thank you.
 
Ok an update on the build


Iam at 440FSB 1.1

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n241/vapor_matt/cpuz.jpg[/IMG]]


also a core temp screen




3D mark 06 standard 8800GTX clocks 575 core! will go to 640

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=2054363


now that fet cooler remounted next to the CPU does get quite warm. will add a cooling fan soon though. ok so power on. mmmm no post. then reset CMOS and post. flashed bios 0304 which seems better. ( beta bios by the way)anyway i decided to install XP pro first and obviously run some bench marks and keep an eye on cpu core temps, very pleased with them, those storm R2 water blocks are the nuts!

this is as high as ive gone so far but will get to 3.6g easy me thinks, 450 fsb 1.1 which was my aim.


still testing ect so thats about it for now, couple of changes, used diffrent heatsinks on the edge of the M/B instead of stock. and the ram has changed to corsair dominator 800mhz DDR2 its working well in this asus but my last 775X based board it wasnt so good.

will keep posting as i complete some more tests

pic of install

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n241/vapor_matt/Picture002.jpg[/IMG]]
 
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I'm also very interested in this as there is a group of posters who seem to be having big issues with overheating on these boards and another group who swear blind these boards are the coolest thing since Ray Charles.

Before I shell out £150 I'd like to know whether it's inconsistent production or something else?
 
I dont think its a production problem. it seems some heatsinks standard are actualy in contact, but i dont like the rubber thermal strip they use. its also got string in it when you pull the rubber strip apart. strings thermal abilty must be close to zero! also i had an air bubble under my N/B cooler, so i would hazard a guess and say it would proberly have run hot had i not changed the cooler.

I would say they if you want to get the best results from these boards it will involve removing the heatsinks to make sure you have good contact. and replace that rubber strip with some proper thermal pads if your worried about removal or ditching the heat pipe set up. heat pipes held in with hot glue dont realy work so good but the choice is there. how far do you want to go with this board? Ive reseated all the sinks and changed some makeing sure i get good contact, by the heat felt on the sinks they are doing there job nicely.
 
there are some great features with this board, like the old asus V droop issue. with the damper enabled it really does cut that V droop to next to nothing. very impressed with that but why you would have to enable it i have no idea, would be better set to default.

ive also tightened the ram up now to 4.4.4.12 and everything is still solid.
 
I am subscribed on this as I have a P5K delux M/B sitting on my desk waiting to be installed.

Vapor Mat - I note that you have now replaced the top stock cooling block with something else- what did you use?

I have a Thermalright HR-05 for the Northbridge chip already but looks like I am going to have to give some thought as to what to use for the southbridge chip.

I had thought of using a further HR-05 or the NC version but given the BFG - 8800 Ultra is still on its way to me I have been unable to fathom out as to if I will have sufficent room to instal one AND still have room the Graphics card.

Any suggestions so far for the Southbridge cooling??

What was the best way to update the BIOS? load windows first and use the Asus update utility? I have read the manual and using the floppy method seems to be far more complicated than it should ideally be.

I am used to flasing the BIOS for DFI boards but who ever wrote the Asus manual did not take into account my poor and feable understanding of what exactly they are talking out.

I will be back here to see how you are getting on and to gleam helpful information from you and your experiences if that is OK.
 
madian225

Vapor Mat - I note that you have now replaced the top stock cooling block with something else- what did you use?
Click to expand...


I used some old BGA ram sinks. had them years and have been transferd from my old M/board ect. there are mosfet cooling sinks you can buy to replace the standard all in one sink. the standard heatsink being all one part didnt offer 100% contact with the fets. if you think about it a sink trying to sit flat on 8 fet's hopeing they are all the same hight is indeed hopefull. the one's on the edge of the board had 2 fets which were lower and with the original heat sink i had to use to much goop to get contact. with sinks that cover just 2 fets at a time which are next to each other its easy to get good contact.

The fets with the old modded heat pipe sink were very close in hight, so i was lucky there. if they were uneven i would have used some more BGA sinks that i have.

Any suggestions so far for the Southbridge cooling??
Click to expand...



Well again i used the standard heatsink remounted with AS ceramic and with a finned sink mounted on top of the standard sink useing AS epoxy. problem with the S/B is you cant use anything to big if you want to use the first PCI slot. also with the size of the 8800 anything tall would hit the edge of the card. standard remounted useing a good thermal compound with finned sink on top seemed the best awnser for my install.


What was the best way to update the BIOS?
Click to expand...


Well the problem with the bios now is there size! 2meg so a floppy drive isnt really an option. you can use asus update through windows but ive read so many times of people getting a bad flash that i use the built in ezeyflash. ALT/(F2) at post starts ezeyflash. also it will read your CD/DVD rom, so write the bios to disk and use easy flash to read from the CD/DVD rom. will also read usb flash pens, but i couldnt get it to work. but have now found you must enable legacy USB devices in bios first then a flash pen will be seen by ezeyflash. bios update was easy and i would recomend 0304 bios. seems this bios is getting really good results.


come on get that M/B installed!

matt
 
Ok here we have my latest cooling mod, fitted bracket with a 70mm AcoustiFan blowing at a slight angle as not to blow onto the water block but get inside that mosfet sink. now the sink is cool to the touch the way i like it.


http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n241/vapor_matt/Picture004.jpg[/IMG]]

as for core temps under the storm Rv2 they are posted above, chipset temps i havnt been botherd about but both heat sinks are cool to the touch, the GTX cooler waste air cools my S/B nicely, not even warm to the touch. N/B with the NC-U6 again cool to the touch. the only thing that was worrying me heat wise was that fet cooler next to the CPU as that did get toasty, but not now with the added fan cooling it!
 
Hi


Thanks for this informatin it is VERY muuch appreciated, out of curiosity what will I need to copy to the CD-ROM for the BIOS update?

Will I need both the AFLASH exe and the P5K delux BIOS ROM file?
 
m
adian225

Will I need both the AFLASH exe and the P5K delux BIOS ROM file?
Click to expand...


Just copy the bios file to CD rom, make sure its not zipped up, unzip then place on CD. ALt (F2) eazyflash and direct it to your CD rom, makeing sure you know your drive letter where the CD is.

eazyflash does the rest! simple. also it seems bios 0304 gives better temps as some are reporting high temps on chipset. 0123 bios my original bios did the same. also think the 0304 bios corrects some voltages used for the chipset so also aids the temps.
 
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