Jeffro's " I'm a complete noob and need help" thread.

why did that dude butcher that 6870 anyways? what a hack job

 

Guys....can someone answer me this real quick? How do you actually install a CPU water block? I know something like the swift tech one , you can get a mounting plate as well.....but you don't actually screw through the MB do you?

 

The holes on the mainboard are fairly large, and you pass the bolt through the holes on the board and into the backplate. The backplate is something that comes with your waterblock or air cooler it is not part of the mainboard.

Answer me this did he screw through the backplate or through part of the silicon on the board also?

And what is wrong with the RAM again that you need new RAM? Those are Dominator modules I don't think you need new RAM at all unless he damaged those somehow but they look fine to me.. And I don't understand replacing Dominator modules with Vengeance that seems like a downgrade to me...

 

This is your best bet for a painless 8GB, cheap and fast solution:

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 CL8
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231445

As of the motherboard, since you are going SLI and a separate PCI-E soundcard, I would suggest the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z68:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157250

The ASUS's 3rd PCI-E slot doesn't come free, it steals from the USB3 and some other lanes, the ASROCK board has a PCI-E chip onboard to give it the additional lanes.

 

If you get a unit like the Corsair H60, then all you have to do is mount a backplate on the motherboard and then just sit the waterblock/pump on top of the CPU and tighten, that simple.

And in general, you never, ever screw through the motherboard! A motherboard comes with pre-drilled holes where you can mount the coolers. However, for different CPU sockets (e.g., AM2, AM3, 775, 1155/56, 1366), you will need the appropriate mounting solutions. These usually come with your cooler but you need to check beforehand.

Note: 1155 and 1156 socket mounting is the same.

Here you can see an Asrock motherboard with a 775 and 1155 mounting option:

 

This.

As for your other question, the only decent mounting system for a CPU cooler is a bolt-through kit. The bolts themselves run through the mounting holes. The installation guide should be downloadable in .pdf from the manufacturer's website if you know the correct model name.

 

Hey Tommy.....he said when he first got the cards , that the fans were working on both of them. Then he went and did some pretty severe OC'ing on thing and he mentioned "maybe the heat fried the fans?" So....i'm working the day he decides to do it.....shoots me a text I guess earlier in the day and asks permission to remove the stock fans and replace them. I didn't see the text until after he already did the butcher job. AND i was figuring maybe he was just replacing them with stock fans. NOPE.....a pair of 80mm fans zip tied.

BTW....guess what his reply to me on the card was after I said that he voided my warranty and it looks like crap? " You are crazy!......that card is worth about $30.00 more now that I did that mod! "

I kid you not.

BTW....i asked him why he didn't just send the card back for an RMA....and that's when he came back with that comment above.

 

Brute, I am sooo tempted to do this myself LOL!!! Friggin tasty!

 

Check out Corsair's memory finder. http://www.corsair.com/learn_n_explore

 

So you guys don't think those 4 holes in my board came that way? They sure as hell don't look like they were put there by any machine. Looks like a hand drill job.

Here is a close up pic of what he did >> http://s1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff407/Jeffro503/?action=view&current=Waterblockholes.jpg

 

Looking at my board online , there are 4 white dots where he drilled , but they are not drilled out in the pictures on a new one. I mean crap....is that what those white dots are for?

 

AAAHHHH!!!!

What did he do!?

Besides the fact that he put on enough paste to actually make the CPU heat transfer worse, and spilled some of it yet, he drilled two of the four holes for some god knows reason to a different size than the other two.

 

Those holes are suppose to be there. Mine has 8 holes (each corner has 2)
On mine I used the outer 4 holes to mount a Zalman CNPS9900A LED

 

Yes, but the guy drilled them to different sizes it looks like.

For reference:

 

Looks normal. Very messy job with the thermal compound though.

 

Look at the bottom right screw hole, then at my first image. You can see where he has widened it out (look at the motherboard traces for reference).

 

I agree with stormy, looks to be the same diameter as the reference pic you posted. I agree on the thermal, crappy, crappy job, what did he use to apply it with a snow shovel? as for the holes looking messed up, seems the guy torqued the block down as tight as he could get it, and it looks like it started to crush part of the PCB

Edit-- Didnt Jeff say that guy used a bigger bolt than the other three? If so that may be it.

Another edit.
Sorry Jeff, but every time you post newer pics of what that guy did, Im just getting madder and madder by the minute, maybe its because of dickheads like this that make the rest of us look bad. I would never let a product go out the door looking like that, I guess I have to much pride in the work I do. I have been known to redo a computer many times until Im happy with it.

 

Yeah Zin....he did. Withe board sitting in the case , it was the upper left hand side , that had a hole twice as big as the other 3. That's because the water block has one oddball sized screw in it. He also had this on the bill as brand new + a back plate......there was no back plate!

 

I hear you Zin....believe me I do. You wanna hear something kind of scary? He said that this computer is the best and most baddest computer he had ever built! In windows.....he even named it after himself......NOT KIDDING!

 

I'd quit right now with this mobo and send it back to him aswell, no bs.