SI-97 Clearance Problems on DFI Lan Party NFII Ultra B

elasticdog · Post by **elasticdog** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:05 pm

I've been excited all week to see all my new components filter in, but now I've hit a potential roadblock. Even thought the Thermalright site says that the SI-97 should be compatible with all AMD socket 462 motherboards (save for one Gigabyte model), I'm a bit hesitant to fire up my system in its current state...

As you can see, the heat pipes are literally touching the plastic housing of the parallel port on the motherboard. If you turn the heatsink around 180 degrees, then it would interfere with the 120mm exhaust fan mounted in the back of the case.

Is the contact something to worry about, or do I just need a new heatsink? Originally I was planning on getting an Arctic Cooling Copper Silent 2M, but switched late in the game to the SI-97 due to its increased performance, and supposed mounting compatibility. Any thoughts?

elasticdog · Post by **elasticdog** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 12:54 pm

Does anybody know how hot the heat pipes actually get on the SI-97? Will it be hot enough to melt the plastic, or should this setup be okay?

For reference, I'll be cooling an Athlon XP-M 2500+, most likely undervolted for even cooler/quieter performance.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 1:04 pm

elasticdog wrote:For reference, I'll be cooling an Athlon XP-M 2500+, most likely undervolted for even cooler/quieter performance.

If that's the case, then I wouldn't be too worried about it getting warm unless you're attempting to go fanless (not recommended, IMHO).

MY heatsink doesn't heat up at all when undervolted. Normal speeds, it might run a little warm, but not enough to melt plastic.

Keep in mind, if those heat pipes could melt the plastic, then chances are, the heat sink could also melt the plastic on your fan (at least this is my theory).

googly · Post by **googly** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:12 pm

It's not gonna get hot enough to even come close to melting that plastic, if it does, your CPU and board are fried anyway.

You can always file the plastic down to give a little space (there's room to do that ) and put a heat shield inbetween (not metal of course, since it'll ground out the board).....

As long as you have the fan on and running then IMHO you're gonna be fine....

Here Doggie, Here Doggie.....Good Doggie!

elasticdog · Post by **elasticdog** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 4:26 pm

Thanks you two...I'll give it a shot tonight and let you know the results.

elasticdog · Post by **elasticdog** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 7:07 pm

Got official word from Thermalright:

Hi,

The heat pipes do not get hot and only kick-in in sequence as needed, there should be no problem with the fins touching the plastic frame around that port.

For Thermalright,

Bob

Only kick-in in sequence as needed? I guess we'll see what happens...

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 9:57 pm

elasticdog wrote:As you can see, the heat pipes are literally touching the plastic housing of the parallel port on the motherboard. If you turn the heatsink around 180 degrees, then it would interfere with the 120mm exhaust fan mounted in the back of the case.

Ahhh, that motherboard. I actually am running on that motherboard. Such a hardware picky mobo it is -.-...

Again, like what everyone else is saying, I highly doubt that it would melt the plastic. I mean, if it were to get THAT hot, then what is preventing the socket itself from melting as well? The socket's made out of plastic, although below the CPU, not above. If you don't even use the parallel port, then you have nothign to worry about. I don't use my parallel port at all.

Qwertyiopisme · Post by **Qwertyiopisme** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 3:00 am

Don't worry about the port at all, if it is hot enough to melt that then you've got much more pressing problems such as your cpu bieng completely dead.

However, one thing you should worry about is the of-center load that will occur becuase of the contact. The base of the HSF will no longer press evenly on the die/IHS, giving you higher temps... I would most definatly file away at the plastic on hte paralell port where it contacts the plastic.

elasticdog · Post by **elasticdog** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 12:51 pm

Well, fired it up last night, and the heatpipe definitely stays cool...however, I don't think the board recognized my processor correctly. I ran MemTest86 and it said my XP-M 2500+ was running at 808.1 MHz, and the memory was running at 133 MHz (despite it being PC3200). It passed everything (ran test 5 for 10 passes), and I thought it might just be a fluke, so I loaded XP.

First thing I did was load CPU-Z, and it too reported the low number. I'm sure this is something elementary, but shouldn't everything be detected correctly the first time I install everything? I've never fooled around with overclocking or any of that stuff before, but is it something like my FSB is just set too low by default?

I've built plenty of machines before, but never a mobile processor, and I've never fooled around much with the BIOS settings. Hoping this is an easy fix...please help

mynameisyoung · Post by **mynameisyoung** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 2:00 pm

The Nforce2 boards don't detect the Mobiles for their default settings.
Just change the multiplier to in your bios to make it run at 1.8 ghz (I believe that's the stock setting for the 2500+ mobile). So it would be 133fsb x 13 multiplier. And stock voltage is supposed to be 1.45 or 1.35, I don't remember.

Keep in mind it'll also be labeled as Unknown CPU in Windows.
But don't worry, everything is fine.

elasticdog · Post by **elasticdog** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 2:26 pm

Ahhh...thanks for the info. Yes, it looks like it defaulted to a 6x multipler instead of the 14x it should be. I'm at work now, but will adjust that once I get home and change the voltage down to the 1.45 it should be as well. Was definitely getting worried there for a sec...glad to know that it won't be recognized, yet it still functioning properly.

elasticdog · Post by **elasticdog** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 1:23 pm

In case anyone was keeping an eye on this thread, everything is now working great. At stock settings (14x133 @ 1.45V) it is running extremely well, and cool. Looks like I'm idling around 26ºC and CPUBurn pushed it up to 34ºC (although I have yet to hook up my FanMates).

Once the system has had time for everthing to normalize (i.e., 200 hours for Arctic Silver per their recommendation), I will be experimenting with both undervolting and overclocking and will post the results. Thanks for your help everyone!

c00z · Post by **c00z** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 12:42 pm

try mounting the heatsink in the opposite directions, ie with the heatpipes towards to dimm slots..that is what I did on my nf7 which is a different motherboard but same idea...or is their a clearance issue with the pipes in that direction?

elasticdog · Post by **elasticdog** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 1:04 pm

I did try mounting it the opposite way, but then the fins stick too far over the mobo ports and would interefere with any exhaust fan, so that's a definite no. It seems to be working fine for the most part, athough the fit is pretty close for everything around the socket, such as the power connector and such. Once I have everything in and routed how I want, I'll keep an eye on the temperature of the pipes, but it seems like it shouldn't be a problem.

SI-97 Clearance Problems on DFI Lan Party NFII Ultra B

SI-97 Clearance Problems on DFI Lan Party NFII Ultra B

Re: SI-97 Clearance Problems on DFI Lan Party NFII Ultra B