E8400 stock cooler board flex

[Syr1nx]

I installed the box cooler for my E8400, and I'm concerned about the amount of flex in the mobo. It's a Gigabyte P35-DS3L. There's a significant bulge in the board right under the processer after I installed the cooler according to the directions (snapped all the pins down). Is it crushing the proc? How tight should I ratchet down the waterblock when I get it?

 

[cliffro]

Thats interesting, I havent used the stock cooler for my Xeon version 8400 because i bought it OEM.

however neither with my AC Freezer 7 Pro nor my Stock cooler from my old E2160 did my P35-DS3L ever look like its being flexed i cant say for sure with the 2160 cooler because i put it in with it inside the case. but with the AC F7P i pulled my motherboard out and installed it that way and there was definitely no flexing.

 

[Conumdrum]

Which waterblock? Many have backplates and screws that simplify how much to tighten.

 

[bobbknight]

Back plate, send back plate.

 

[Syr1nx]

There's no back plate, just mounting posts. I'm more concerned with the bulge from the stock cooler.

 

[richardscott]

thats alot of flex, is the processor in the socket correcly as this might make it sit higher up and cause the flexing?, erm otherwise just take the hs off and cpu out and put them back in and see if it solves the problem. also is the cpu the right way round in the socket with the notches in the correct place.

 

[rubix_1011]

When you install a waterblock (hoping that you get a good one, not a boxed all-in-one kit) you will get retention brackets and usually a backplate. With that, you can tighten down the block without it putting stress on the board because the bracket is designed to bear the flex load instead of the MB PCB. Even then, you don't want to apply too much pressure, but PCB is designed to flex.

If you have your chip mounted correctly and the stock cooler is oriented correctly (which really, is any direction) you should be fine. Most of the time that you get push pin coolers, you will see some PCB flex like this...its pretty common. Look at graphics cards; they often begin to bend after just a month or 2 from the weight of the copper in the heatsinks as well as the high amount of heat radiating through the board. With a stock cooler or one with pushpins, you really can't go wrong mounting it, unless you don't get the pins inserted all the way. ...or you have your CPU mounted wrong which would have been obvious when it didn't sit in the socket correctly.