How Much Tension?

Kerazee

Kerazee

Kerazee

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Just installed my new EK Supreme and I can not find any guides as to what is an acceptable level of tension to apply when screwing down against the springs on the mounting bolts all the manual says is if you use a back plate more tension can be applied.

Anyone got any ideas? I do have a backplate, modified the stock AM3 one that was included with my motherboard to work with the water block.

Thanks in advance.
 
I would like to hear the consensus on this as well.

Current thoughts are find out the recommended maximum mounting pressure for the board (from amd/intel?) and then try to find some data on the springs. Failing that a torque wrench could probably be used. What're your plans for getting a specific mounting pressure?
 
Just torquing a little less than hand tight has always worked for me. Just try to make it even on each bolt. With acrylic blocks I always torque less than I think I'll need, and if it seems loose I'll torque a bit more.

The EK supreme is pretty beefy so I'd just do it hand tight with thumb nuts and as I said before, make sure it's relatively even on each bolt.

You'd need a fairly accurate torque wrench laying about for it to be useful. We're not talking about a lug nut here, there won't be a lot of force involved.
 
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If you've no backplate you can warp the PCB over time if you go too tight (P5ND RIP) but with a backplate and hand tightening you should'nt have any problems,as Gurusan says just try and keep things even.
 
I found when fitting my TRUE black air cooler, the best way was to tigthen one screw down until i needed to apply force, then do the one diagonally oposite, as good as the TRUE is for air cooling, the mounting system is pretty bad.
 
Good point by gurusan, wasn't thinking re the wrench. I'll continue with whatever I can manage by hand & with needle nose pliers I think.

Still beats push pins setter...

(how goes the i7 migration? I may have sourced a replacement top for my ek :))
 
Push pins are a nightmare jon, i was away in england working, made good money and an i7 setup is on the cards, my current q9550 rig is very good (3.8ghz on 1,21875 vcore, vid of 1.200) but i fancy something new to play about with, quite fancy an x58 sli board as i currently have a gtx 280 and i could get a second identical card at a good price from my brother in law. It would certainly help with gaming at 1920x1200.
 
Enough of one that I now religiously tear them out of coolers. Just not worth the hassle. I think I'm going to take to using M4 bolts and washers instead of the thermalright mounting kit, but with much the same effect.

Sounds good mate. Work good enough to put water on the cards too? Your dear akasa is going to struggle with that much heat thrown into its base I fear
 
Aye the akasa is a fantasic case,(i love it that much i have 2 rigs built in them) but not ideally suited for watercooling, ive been looking at the colermaster cosmos and the silverstone tj07, both look pretty spacious but the coolermaster certainly aint pretty.
 
Strong feelings about external radiators? A 240 in the top combined with a 360 built into a desk would work well.

Alternatively and a bit oddly you could put a 240 in the roof of each of them and run tubes between. Might be very impractical. I'm starting to suspect that matx with an external radiator box is the ideal solution, but it would require quite a lot of effort for me to move to this arrangement
 
I'm not sure on the value of some backplates. I can easily bend my EK one just by doing the screws up finger-tight on the Supreme. And even then the lugs on the top are starting to bend slightly too.

I like the Swiftech/DTek method where they insert limiters into the spring assembly to stop over-tightening.
 
setter said:
Aye the akasa is a fantasic case,(i love it that much i have 2 rigs built in them) but not ideally suited for watercooling, ive been looking at the colermaster cosmos and the silverstone tj07, both look pretty spacious but the coolermaster certainly aint pretty.
Click to expand...

I saw an Eclipse recently where the side panel had been cut and meshed to alllow a 360mm radiator to breathe and the roof had a 240mm radiator in it.

There is loads of room, you just have to use your imagination.
 
cheers guys, just basically done it up to what seemed tight, much more difficult with this block than my old swiftech which the bolts would only go on so far.
 
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