How tight should i screw down my EK CPU block?

borley · 24 Sep 2012 at 11:17

Hi i have just changed to a bigger case and just swapped my EK kit over, it has 4 thumb tightners on 4 springs, just wondered how tight would you do these? as my temps are ok but not great probably try a resit.
Regards

panyan · 24 Sep 2012 at 11:23

I tighten mine until the thread stops

Youll feel a definite stop when you come to the end of the threads

borley · 24 Sep 2012 at 11:24

panyan said:
I tighten mine until the thread stops

Youll feel a definite stop when you come to the end of the threads

Ok cheers, im gonna reaply the paste and do that.
Regards

borley · 24 Sep 2012 at 12:11

borley said:
Ok cheers, im gonna reaply the paste and do that.
Regards

Just relised mines different from yours in my instructions/manual it shows screws that are half threaded so you know how far to tighten down but mine are fully threaded so not to sure how much i should tighten these springs down.
Regards

Hagar · 24 Sep 2012 at 12:51

borley said:
it has 4 thumb tightners on 4 springs

The springs provide the compression to the plate. You should not tighten the bolts beyond fully closing all the spring coils. A Rizla paper or similar will tell you when this is true (it will not pull out). If the bolt is fully home and the spring is not fully compressed this is also fine. The spring must be at least partially compressed though to provide the pressure to the plate.

A spring with the same pitch along its length will maintain the same pressure irrespective of the length when compressed until fully closed.

Monkeyspaz5000 · 24 Sep 2012 at 13:26

Tighten by hand until you can't tighten it anymore.

(without going all incredible hulk on it!)

cs2000 · 24 Sep 2012 at 13:47

Ive done mine until 3-4mm of thred is showing out the top of the thumb screw. The reason being is exactly what nkata said, the spring will/should provide even pressure from initial compression right the way down to where the coils actually touch, meaning aslong as the spring is actually compressed it doesnt matter how much you tighten it.

Would be usefull if EK actually put this in their instructions however.

hutzdani · 24 Sep 2012 at 14:16

I did mine totally different than the EK manual says.

I added some extra plastic washers to mine to space it from the mobo, so that when tightening the thumb screws the plate had on lateral pressure applied.

Done up hand tight until I could feel resistance and then checked it was level with all threads equal lengths ( well as near as damn it )

borley · 24 Sep 2012 at 15:41

hutzdani said:
I did mine totally different than the EK manual says.

I added some extra plastic washers to mine to space it from the mobo, so that when tightening the thumb screws the plate had on lateral pressure applied.

Done up hand tight until I could feel resistance and then checked it was level with all threads equal lengths ( well as near as damn it )

on my one the springs are on top!

Oblivion · 24 Sep 2012 at 15:47

Just tighten it a bit until it feels secure. You don't need to apply 200 tonnes of force down on the CPU block so the processor is nearly being crushed through the back of the mother board in an attempt to shave 0.25c off your CPU temps. The block just needs good contact to transfer the heat away.

andybird123 · 24 Sep 2012 at 15:53

in fact if you over-tighten then you introduce a bow which depending on which CPU you have can help or hinder cooling (and is affected by orientation as well)

one way you can shave up to 5C off you temps is to try different orientations and levels of force (you can also have a detrimental effect on temps by doing it wrong too!)