Okay I have some pics and vids uploading so hang in there.
I got the CPU block mounted after consulting the small book included with the Indigo Precision Thermal Interface kit. The kit has nitrile gloves, a "clean room" wiping cloth, a pair of TIM removal pads and a pair of odd looking liquid metal TIM pads specific to the socket 1366.
Once I was sure I understood exactly how to apply the TIM I attached the CPU block. Now usually all that is required for a quick test of a waterblock is a temporary loop and look in the BIOS. With this particular TIM you have to turn off the pump and run one stint of Intel Burn per core to flow in the TIM and get ideal cooling.
As you'll see in a minute I had to set up a mini loop and use a HDD, DVD Drive, Monitor, Keyboard and Mouse just to "flow in" the TIM
A little more time consuming, but I always enjoy learning new things. Now...if the pay off is superior cooling it'll be worth the time spent.
The idea of letting a high dollar CPU cook itself till it throttles and possibly shuts down while superheating not just the CPU, but the block, the O-rings in the block, the o-rings in the fittings on the block and the tubing does worry me just a tad...but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
Before I went whole hog and smelted the CPU to the Waterblock with Intel Burn I gave it a taste of passive cooling in BIOS and watched the temps rapidly climb to 85C. I gave it a few minutes of this torture and theblock got so hot I could not touch it. The fittings were so hot I couldn't touch them either. I let it smolder and then I shut it down and let it cool to room temp.
It's quite hot today (well over 90F in the shop) so I was not surprised to see 40C idle temps in BIOS with a single 120MM rad cooling the Xeon 3550 3.06Ghz i7. I feel that the TIM has gotten an inital "flow in" and I can now get a test installation of Vista 64 on a spare HDD going and give the CPU a proper burn in.
I'm definitely not going to use the liquid metal TIM kit on the 5970's. I had a hard enough time torturing that lovely Xeon with passive cooling...I'll be using Pads and Diamond TIM instead. Diamond TIM conforms to gaps well and is non conductive, and unlike the Indigo product won't require me burning up the processor to get a good thermal interface.
Internet is painfully slow here. Pics soon.
BTW the EK pump top for the duall DDC pumps is dead silent, but unfortunately the top plate is leaking. I took some pics and vids to show the leak...it's not a good thing, but it should be something I can deal with. Another leak showed up but went away from a BP Rotary 45 on the EK pump assembly. Thankfully it was not one of the 45's on the CPU waterblock that started leaking or I'd probably be writing a much different post at the moment. I've never had equipment failures like that for client builds. I have had a few noisy pumps, or FC waterblock short out a card, but never fittings that leak, or a pump top that leaks. That's got me worried about the rest of the rotary fittings. I may have to revamp things to eliminate all rotary fittings and use just the compression fittings.
Edited by CyberDruid - 8/5/10 at 1:09pm
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