Trouble with CM Hyper 212 EVO

josh2000

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Sep 1, 2011
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hi, i'm doing my first build and i am using the hyper 212 evo with an i5 2500k cpu. installing it was a rather trying experience, as the instructions are near-unintelligible and i couldn't find any videos of someone actually mounting the heatsink. it took a lot of guesswork, and i think it's a sloppy job so i want to uninstall it and try again. can anyone who has used the EVO give me some pointers, specifically, screwing in the retention plate and heatsink? or any general advice on heatsink installation, from people with similar models.

the problems I'm having:

-first of all, cleaning the cpu. I read that any less than 90% isopropyl can leave "residue". is this significant and/or fixable if I only have 70% ?

-thermal compound - following the instructions best I could, I applied a thin layer to the cpu AND the heatsink. is this bad? where should I apply it?

-screwing it in the retention plate/heatsink. this is my main concern, i made sure to tighten the screws gradually for each side but i don't really know how tight they should be. all the advice i've found for this is to secure it "firmly" :??: . i'm worried my cpu will be toast if it's not properly adjoined to the heatsink, but also that i will start to warp the mobo or put too much pressure against the cpu if i screw them in any tighter. i can't really see into the cpu socket area, how do i know when it's right? please be as specific as possible!

-finally, the orientation of the heatsink and fan. there seems to be many conflicting opinions on this, but as a general rule, which direction should the fan be pushing or pulling?

thanks for reading my long and ignorant post, any help would be MUCH appreciated
 

beenthere

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1. There is suppose to be a video for the Hyper 212+ which should be very similar.

2. 70% ISP will be fine

3. You only need to apply TIM to the CPU heat spreader. Only use a small pea sized amount. More is definitely NOT better.

http://www.arcticsilver.com/intel_application_method.html#

4. Secure is difficult to explain but it means snug but not forceful to the point of distorting anything such as the mobo.

5. In most cases having the fan in front of the heatsink blowing to the back of the case works best. You can test it blowing back or up if you have a top mounted fan case exhaust fan. Either orientation should be more than enough but blowing towards the back usually works the best in most cases.
 
G

Guest

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70% is okay. I used it and I'm having no problems.

It doesn't matter that much but I would recommend putting it directly on the chip. The included one is kind of drippy and will create a mess when you put it on the heatsink cause it drips down as you put it on the motherboard.

Don't worry about how tight it is. Tighter the better. Screw it as far as it will go. Don't worry about warping since there are many other far heavier and more tighter heatsinks out there and the 212 evo is not on the heavy side.

The fan should generally point to the rear or to the top of the case. It all depends on your case setup. I had case fans on top so I set mine to point to the top. I also set it to point to the top of the case to bring air from the bottom of the case up and away from my gpu.
I think you want the fan to be pushing.

Also, There's a pin on the top of the bottom of the heatsink that has to fit inside a notch inside the X - thing. I don't know about the horizontal orientation but when I was doing the vertical orientation, I had troubles making it fit inside the notch and I ended up not doing it. As long as the screws are tight, I think it will be ok.
 

josh2000

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Sep 1, 2011
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thanks for the info!



ok, this makes me more comfortable. the cpu being so small and expensive, i was really squeamish about applying so much pressure to it after being so delicate with the socket.



ah, this is another thing i had issues with. i tried aligning it with the legs folded both ways and it wouldn't fit correctly, I had to offset it a little from its resting position, if that makes sense. again, the one-square-inch line drawings they included as instructions were pretty useless here, so I just played around with it until it fit.

just for a bit more peace of mind, even if the heatsink had a relatively "light" contact with the cpu (screws halfway in and relying mostly on the spring pressure), there's no risk of cpu death from reference speed is there? i'm going to screw it in tightly like you said but i can't help being nervous about frying the chip.