Maximus II Formula & Watercooling

[Chris_Waddle]

After my DFI X48 T2R died a few months back (taking my Q9450 and 8800gtx with it) it's been a long slog getting claims sorted out.

Thankfully last week I got it all finalised. Long story, but got the money back to replace the items.
Rather than spend a good deal of money on a new motherboard and CPU I decided to stick with the DDR2 I have and move up to i7 sometime next year.

So, I bought myself a Maximus II Formula, a Q6600 a BFG GTX280 H20c; and plan to overclock the nads off it.

I'm watercooling the system. It's currently running with the pump only to remove the air bubbles.
What I have done is to remove the NB heat sink. It removes in the same way as it does on the DFI, leaving a copper block that sits on top of the NB. With a little modding I've managed to fit a Swiftech MCW30 block on top of this copper block.

My question is, do you think it's safe to add the Swiftech block this way? ie NB, thermal paste, copper block (part of the in-built cooling system), thermal paste, then the Swiftech chipset block. I'm using Arctic cooling Silver 5 paste. I have also replaced the the paste that the board came with on the NB & SB, with Silver 5.

I was hoping to be able to be able to attach Swiftech chipset blocks directly on top of the NB & SB. The only way to do this though, would be to hack up the piping system it comes with. This, I don't want to do, so i'm only watercooling the NB now.

I am hoping that the water cooling block I have added to the NB should give extra cooling, but am worried that it may infact be detrimental. The MCW30 isn't a wonderful fit, it only covers about 90% of the copper block, but the copper block is far bigger than the NB chip.

I'm planning on firing it all up tomorrow night, but thought I'd ask this now, rather than set it all running, to find I've made things worse.

I'd just like to know if anyone else has tried this before I set it running and what your feelings are?

[Clunk]

Works great on the DFI, but I haven't used the Maximus 2 so can't comment there sorry

[Kelainefes]

You sure it's copper? ASUS is really good at painting aluminium

[Chris_Waddle]

Originally Posted by Kelainefes

You sure it's copper? ASUS is really good at painting aluminium

Lol, wouldn't suprise me if it was.

I'll just have to give it a go tonight and see. I thankfully woke up to find all the UV green coolent was still in the computer and not all over my white tiled floor.

[crapgame]

have a look at this Swiftech MCW-NBMAX Northbridge Cooler
do u think it will draw heat for the sb and mosfets 2?

[Chris_Waddle]

Originally Posted by crapgame

have a look at this Swiftech MCW-NBMAX Northbridge Cooler
do u think it will draw heat for the sb and mosfets 2?

Well mine's up and running and it appears that the MCW30 is doing the job. That new Swiftech block looks the business though. I shall have to invest in one of those next time I drain my system down.

The way the piping is all linked up, the design is for the NB area to remove heat from the SB & moffsets as well. I would imagine that by watercooling the NB it will aid the cooling of the other areas.
Thermodynamics would also suggest that if the NB is cooler than the SB, heat from the SB will travel down the pipe to the NB to try and equalise the temps out.

As my new GPU was supplied with an in-built waterblock I can only run the system watercooled, so I'm not able to test this out though. After the hassle of fitting the old Swiftech block to the NB I am not prepared to remove it either to test it - lol.

I'm very pleased with my temps though. I've overclocked the cpu for a 24/7 setting to 3.6ghz. After 3hrs of Prime95 it had hit a max of 46deg (using realtemp). It idles around 32deg.

According to Nvidia Monitor, my GTX280 is only hitting 44deg under full load, idling at 38deg.
I don't actually have a program for monitoring the NB. According to the bios it's running around 42deg.
What program would you recommend for measuring the temp of the NB?

I'd love for Clunk to get his hands on one of these. A Bios help thread would be a godsend. I thought the DFI bios was big until I fired this board up.

[Clunk]

I did request a sample board, but Asus never reply to my emails, so I won't be doing anything with the Maximus II.

If anyone wants to send me one, I'll happily do it though