Are the Gigabyte Z97x U3DH Heatsink suppose to be loose!?

709zzy

Honorable
Jul 13, 2013
171
0
10,690
I just bought this board today, and the first thing I noticed was that the box was not sealed.
And when I touch the yellow heatsinks, they actually wiggled.
4zuEfFW.jpg

Is that suppose to be correct?
Also, why are there no screws packaged with this like the AMD boards? Do I not use any screws during installation?

 
Solution
If the VRM heatsinks were loose on my motherboard and I was told that was normal for the model of motherboard I'd purchased, I would exchange it for a different motherboard.

For heat to be transferred from the VRM's to the heatsink, the heatsink must be secured to the VRM's, if the heatsink moves easily, then the transfer of heat will be inefficient if not outright non-existent depending on how loose they are.
Those are your VRM heatsinks and they shouldn't wiggle. Do they have pushpins or screws holding them down? If they are push pins, make sure they are fully inserted. They should come through the other side of the motherboard fully. If it uses screws, they should be tight. There should also be a thermal pad or something between the VRM's and the heatsinks.

As for screws, are you referring the the screws to hold it in the case? These come with the case and not the motherboard.
 
They take some force to latch in. Also I assume there are two on each heatsink, one on each side. These need to be pushed at the same time, otherwise you will lift the side opposite from the side your pushing.

If you are still having troubles, can you take a close up picture of the back of the motherboard where the ends of the pins (the latch side) come out of the motherboard. It's unlikely, but they could be broken.
 

709zzy

Honorable
Jul 13, 2013
171
0
10,690
The arrow head of the pin does stick out the back of the board. If I push the pin further, then the body of the pin below the arrow head will come out of the back more. But since the arrow head of the pin is already out, theres nothing holding that extra segment of the pin I pushed out. Its like the pin is too long, and it cant secure the heatsink properly.
 

709zzy

Honorable
Jul 13, 2013
171
0
10,690

I went to the store this afternoon, turns out all the z97x u3dh boards are like this. So I guess its normal.

 
If the VRM heatsinks were loose on my motherboard and I was told that was normal for the model of motherboard I'd purchased, I would exchange it for a different motherboard.

For heat to be transferred from the VRM's to the heatsink, the heatsink must be secured to the VRM's, if the heatsink moves easily, then the transfer of heat will be inefficient if not outright non-existent depending on how loose they are.
 
Solution

709zzy

Honorable
Jul 13, 2013
171
0
10,690

Thanks for the suggestion, I really appreciate your help. The motherboard seems to be doing ok right now in terms of temperature, but somehow my 4790k is reaching 90 degrees in crysis 3... Thats with a noctua heatsink. My old 8350 didn't even go above 55 in the same game and I thought the AMD cpus are suppose to heat up worse than the intel ones.

 
Yeah 90 degrees (I am assuming celcius) is to hot. I would think that your CPU is throttling there. If Crysis 3 is pushing those kinds of temps you'll certainly want to refrain from running Prime 95 as AVX instructions really heat up Haswell.

I would remove your heatsink and have a look at how well it was seated on the IHS. Of course this will require applying new thermal paste when you re-install it. Since I don't know which exact model heatsink you have, I'll make a guess and say it uses 4 screws for retention. When tightening it, make sure to go in a X pattern and try to turn each screw like one turn each time until they are all tightened. This way you should get even pressure on the face of the IHS.

Also have a check at what your motherboard is pushing for Vcore. I've found that most motherboards when left on Auto, tend to set Vcore too high.

It's true that AMD uses more power (and have lower IPC making them much less efficient), but that doesn't mean that Intel CPU's are going to be cooler. Supposedly Intel improved the TIM used between the IHS and die, but it's still not as good as the solder they used prior to Ivy Bridge. Because the heat transfer is less efficient, the on-die temps remain hotter than AMD's socket temp even though Intel is using less power.