unintentional pessure mod screwed up my motherboard

[peter89]

When trying to install my TRUE heatsink the springs on the screws would start threading into the holes of the mounting bracket. This made it impossible to get a good mount with even pressure. I decided to use small thin washers between the springs and the bracket. This pevented the springs from screwing into the mounting bracket. Unfortunately when I tightend the screws and tried to boot into windows I would get endless reboot cycles. Loosening the screws a little more would allow me to boot into windows but only 2 of 3 GB of ram were usable. All 3 sticks were recognised but the one nearest to the cpu was unusable. Loosening the screws just a tiny bit more allowed all my ram to be usable unfortunately I have never been able to use turbo mode since. My multi drops from 21 to 20 no matter what settings I use. I'm OK with this, I still run a nice OC and my system is stable. I just thought I would let you guys know that even if the motherboard looks physically good pressure modding a TRUE can have unwanted results.

[Psycho101]

Re: unintentional pessure mod screwed up my motherboard

Good advice.

It sounds like the pressure mod had/has slightly warped the board and pulled down the CPU socket centre with it, possibly resulting in poor contact on some of the CPU soket pins. This would definitely explain missing RAM channels.

A possible solution to your woes would be to remove the back plate and place some sort of soft non conductive padding in the centre, within the small square of sponge already present on the back of the back plate. When tightening everything down, this would push the centre of the CPU socket area back into position.

Be careful to only use enough padding to get an almost unmeasurable increase in resistance as you tighten the screws. I have seen this rectify problems with a couple of AMD motherboards. These weren't Ultra Durable models though. In my personal experience I've found all UD models to be virtually warp proof, probably due to having double the amount of copper on the nearby tracks, thus causing increased resistance to movement.

Anyone pressure modding a TRUE should definitely beware of this issue. I would recommend using the penny/single washer mod instead, placed on top of the base plate underneath the top "X" bracket. Don't use a washer more than 2-3mm thick as this may not only cause difficulty in mounting the screws but may cause things like the issue mentioned here.

I have modded my TRUE in this way with excellent results. I've also used 4 rubber washers placed between the back plate mounting threads and the board on another project with no issues and slightly better results. However it just goes to show that nothing is risk free.

[wazza300]

Re: unintentional pessure mod screwed up my motherboard

i had issues with ram,not turbo tho when i installed my cpu cooler mine had pushpins and i had to use alot of force to fit it,after the first white memory slot wouldnt see and ram so i powered down pc and wiggled it slightly towards the front of the pc case,powered it back up and its been fine since

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: unintentional pessure mod screwed up my motherboard

Odd to hear, did you try older BIOSes to be sure it is just not a BIOS bug of the new BIOS or are you sure this is directly related?

[dbee]

Re: unintentional pessure mod screwed up my motherboard

Funny, was just looking at the TRUE on sale at MC . Thought it would be fun to see how it compares to my Noctua ... sounds like a little bit too much trouble though. See alot of new people over here, haven't been around a min . Great to see you all !

[Psycho101]

Re: unintentional pessure mod screwed up my motherboard

Breaking ones mobo with a pressure mod is (sorry and respect to the OP) a misjudgement rather than a danger. As long as a correct sized washer is used in the right place there's the same amount of risk as mounting any cooler, even without a mod.

Every build I've done so far had the TRUE ahead of the Noctua, when on the test bed. What different cases and air flow will do is an unknown factor. All TRUE's I've fitted were unmodded. The mod isn't exactly necessary.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: unintentional pessure mod screwed up my motherboard

Hi Dbee