Supporting massive cooling rig weight?

gt112 · 16 Oct 2010 at 16:24

Dear friends,

I am looking at getting a Coolermaster ultra-120 extreme to place on a vertical motherboard inside a tower case. It has just occurred to me that this thing is massive and quite heavy, mind you so are a lot of the new generation of OC coolers.

So, I am wondering, does this thing need support, say by way of a support wire to hold it up? Could this be dangerous? i.e. could the wire itself conduct heat and cause issues elsewhere?

Chris_83 · 16 Oct 2010 at 16:50

Most coolers of this size have a back plate that helps to support the load. There is no need for any extra supports such as wires etc. The only time it becomes a problem is if you tend to move your rig around a lot (LAN parties etc) then some extra form of protection maybe required while in transit.

gt112 · 16 Oct 2010 at 17:05

Yeah thanks Chris

I take what you say about the back plate. Jeez god be with the days when I used to install 486 SX chips where a 1" fan would be considered overkill.
I remember paying a guy STG330 for 16MB ram back i the early 90's. Bought it secondhand out of loot.

Ah those were the days

GoogalyMoogaly · 16 Oct 2010 at 17:11

Unless it's the All Copper version.
Since that weighs in at 1.9KG I think they recommend using it in "Desktop" style cases.

Chris_83 · 16 Oct 2010 at 17:15

Yeah things change. My old P120 only had a psu and a small cooler on the chip. Now I'm running one of the biggest coolers out there (Prolimatech Megahalems)

theron · 16 Oct 2010 at 19:14

maybe have a look at scythe ninja wire? it looks interesting, i never really wanted to use a large cooler but finding that is making me reconsider..

gt112 · 16 Oct 2010 at 21:03

theron said:
maybe have a look at scythe ninja wire? it looks interesting, i never really wanted to use a large cooler but finding that is making me reconsider..

theron
do we have to pay for an over engineered solution - a piece of wire ? or can we just our own bit of wire from cooler to top of case for ......free, yes free people!

sturmtruppe · 16 Oct 2010 at 21:51

If you desire cheapness, use some fishing line, it'll hold anything.

Slightly OT, but has there ever been any case where a cooler has ripped the socket out of the board for being too heavy?

theron · 16 Oct 2010 at 22:12

gt112 said:
theron
do we have to pay for an over engineered solution - a piece of wire ? or can we just our own bit of wire from cooler to top of case for ......free, yes free people!

Hagar · 17 Oct 2010 at 00:15

I have the thermalright ultra 120 extreme on my gigabyte board and used the gigabyte supplied backplate. It is stable, but you can rock it slightly with your fingers due to its height and the flex of the board. I know it is fitted correctly as the temps on my hexcore at 3500MHz are 34 idle and 47 with prime95 large FFT.

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excuse cable management

andy