Scythe Ninja Rev B and Asus P5B-Deluxe don't play well

YngDiego · Post by **YngDiego** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 3:49 pm

Last week I anxiously built my new Concoe PC which consisted of the Asus P5b Deluxe and the Scythe Ninja rev b with the new mounting hardware. The MB was already in the case, so proceeded to mount the Ninja per the instructions.

I fired up my PC and the CPU core temps were about 60c under full load. That worried me a bit, so I proceeded to disasseble the PC and pull the MB. I found that the LGA775 clip the rev b Ninja uses was interferring with three capacitors near the CPU socket. I had to use a hacksaw to remove some material from the Ninja clip so that it would not get hung up on the caps.

After my "hacking" the clip the Ninja seemed to seat better on the CPU. It's still in the mid to upper 50s during heavy loading, which still bothers me somewhat. But at least I know it's not due to the caps holding up the retaining clip.

I did notice when I pulled the Ninja that the thermal goop seemed to indicate that the heatsink was only touching in a few places and wasn't making a good flat fit across the entire heat spreader. Since the CPU temps still seem a bit high, I might pull the heatsink again and see what the therm goop looks like. I used the Coollabatory liquid metal stuff which is supposed to be tops.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 4:44 pm

I used the Coollabatory liquid metal stuff which is supposed to be tops.

I hope you're keeping that stuff away from the fins, it eats aluminium for breakfast. Personally I would feel safer using AS5, doubt it makes much of a temp difference.

YngDiego · Post by **YngDiego** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 4:52 pm

Yes I did

I'm still worried about the high temps..I might pull of the Ninja again and see what the goop looks like..see if it's making good contact. So far I'm very let down by the Ninja..I had high expectaions for it.

EvilNick · Post by **EvilNick** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 4:54 pm

Grab a razor blade and see if your IHS surface is flat. Alot of C2D IHS units have concave surfaces (noticeable if you are cleaning the surface of goop and all the alcohol/cleaner you use flows to the middle).

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:30 pm

The Ninja is the best heat sink on the planet, with the possible exception of the Ultra-120. Don't be disappointed, figure out what's wrong.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:32 pm

Is anything wrong? Mid-50s is a reasonable full-load temperature.

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:45 pm

Hmm. I assumed no overclocking, so mid-50s is a teeny bit high.

Certainly not a problem though: I run my CPU at 70 and expect it to outlive its usefulness.

But I stand by my earlier point: nobody should ever be disappointed by the performance of a Ninja if it's properly installed.

YngDiego · Post by **YngDiego** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 7:15 pm

I am overclocking my E6400 to 3.2GHz at 1.4375v. So my temps are within reason? I don't think they really dropped much when I got the Ninja remounted even though the bracket is clearly much better fitting after the hacksaw modification.

Chocolinx · Post by **Chocolinx** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:53 pm

YngDiego wrote:I am overclocking my E6400 to 3.2GHz at 1.4375v. So my temps are within reason? I don't think they really dropped much when I got the Ninja remounted even though the bracket is clearly much better fitting after the hacksaw modification.

You overclocked your Allendale (Yes you have an Allendale not a Conroe) to 3.2Ghz and you're complaining about Mid-50s?! <.< You have a cooling addiction. Your temps are perfectly fine for load, actually that's more than fine for an air cooled Allendale! I wonder if I can get my clocks up that high too when I get my cooler o.o

accord1999 · Post by **accord1999** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 11:18 pm

YngDiego wrote:I am overclocking my E6400 to 3.2GHz at 1.4375v. So my temps are within reason? I don't think they really dropped much when I got the Ninja remounted even though the bracket is clearly much better fitting after the hacksaw modification.

What do you use for load? There can be a pretty significant difference depending the application used. In my case, a Ninja cooled E6600 oc'ed to 3.24GHz/1.35v hits 62c with dual Prime95, 55C with folding/games and 70C with Intel's Thermal Analysis Tool. These temperatures are given by the Intel tool available here:

www.hardware.fr/marc/TAT.exe

Usually though on a P5B-dlx, the Asus probe temperature isn't too far off from CoreTemp or the Intel tool unlike other motherboards.

paapaa · Post by **paapaa** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:22 am

This is very bad news!!!! How can they make a revision of a CPU heatsink and make it incompatible with the most popular C2D board? But it still seems odd that this can happen. Look at this picture:

http://www.pcper.com/image.php?aid=297& ... rd_big.jpg

It seems that the heatsink mounting area is pretty well defined. Are you sure you installed it 100% correctly? If so, can you tell what is the exact place you get problems? Which capacitors are problematic?

I asked Scythe about this to have a confirmation.

NeoNSX · Post by **NeoNSX** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:50 am

Errr... i installed a ninja rev.B on a P5B Deluxe last week and had nothing touching. It was close but not touching. Did you read the instructions?

EDIT: I re-tried installing the ninja Rev.b on the p5b and there's definitely touching. Sorry for mis-information.

YngDiego · Post by **YngDiego** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 6:06 am

Yes I did and it most certainly hits the middle three caps to the left (in the link above), on the opposite side of the CPU from the Northbridge.

It wasn't obvious that it hit them until I took the motherboard out because the Ninja mounting clamp did appear to clamp down, but was clearly resting directly on the caps. After the hacksaw the mounting bracket seated much better around the CPU socket.

You are using the mounting bracket with the 4 push pin clips that just mounts from the component side, right?

Chocolinx · Post by **Chocolinx** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:26 pm

YngDiego wrote:Yes I did and it most certainly hits the middle three caps to the left (in the link above), on the opposite side of the CPU from the Northbridge.

It wasn't obvious that it hit them until I took the motherboard out because the Ninja mounting clamp did appear to clamp down, but was clearly resting directly on the caps. After the hacksaw the mounting bracket seated much better around the CPU socket.

You are using the mounting bracket with the 4 push pin clips that just mounts from the component side, right?

Do you think i'd be possible to take photos of what your ninja mounting bracket looks like now? I want to know exactly what to do <.< This Ultra-120 is pissing me off.

YngDiego · Post by **YngDiego** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:33 pm

I'm not sure I want to take off the heatsink again and try to remount it. If I do take it off I'll try and take a picture. Basically what I did was on part of the curved base that hit the caps I cut it straight along the mounting screws that mount to the heatsink.

Chocolinx · Post by **Chocolinx** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:34 pm

YngDiego wrote:I'm not sure I want to take off the heatsink again and try to remount it. If I do take it off I'll try and take a picture. Basically what I did was on part of the curved base that hit the caps I cut it straight along the mounting screws that mount to the heatsink.

Actually even better take a picture of the hacksaw you use lol I might go out and buy one.

YngDiego · Post by **YngDiego** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:42 pm

LOL It was just one of the standard Stanley bow type hacksaws that you find at Home Depot. It would have helped if the blade was smaller, but it did the job. A dremel would work too...basically you shave off enough metal at the base to make it into a rectangle instead of arch.

paapaa · Post by **paapaa** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 5:47 am

I got answer from Scythe and they confirmed that the new mounting mechanism for 775 can be troublesome if there are enything very close to the socket as in P5B Deluxe, Gigabyte DS*, Abit AB9 etc. They really screwed this one.

I have to consider Infinity now as it has better mounting mechanism and is fully compatible with Asus P5B Deluxe.

mbetea · Post by **mbetea** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 7:23 am

Has anyone used the old style 775 mounting? I don't have a 775 board yet, but looking at the brackets and numerous socket areas on motherboards, it doesn't look like the old style would work too well either because most if not all motherboards have capacitors right around the socket.

YngDiego · Post by **YngDiego** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 7:26 am

What boggles my mind is that the new 775 mounting bracket could be easily modified (without loosing any strength) by Scythe. There's no reason that I can see for the 'arching' on the bracket and it gets right in the way of caps. I think they need to redesign the mounting bracket and take those arches off..then it should work on a lot more, if not all, 775 MBs. Scythe really fumbled the ball on that bracket and I bet it was all just for asthetics.

Chocolinx · Post by **Chocolinx** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 8:02 am

I might try to pick up a Scythe 478 Mounting bracket and mount it 478 styles lol Hopefully that'll work.

Maybe Scythe will fix the problem eventually with a Rev. C in their next batch. They only ship out a certain amount of coolers than make everyone else sit on their asses waiting for the next batch or replacements

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:00 am

mbetea wrote:Has anyone used the old style 775 mounting? I don't have a 775 board yet, but looking at the brackets and numerous socket areas on motherboards, it doesn't look like the old style would work too well either because most if not all motherboards have capacitors right around the socket.

The older metal mounting kit has plenty of clearance above the capacitors. Here's a photo of it on a P5LD2. The kit is now sold separately for about $10.

mbetea · Post by **mbetea** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:43 am

cmthomson-
Thanks very much for that pic. Clears things up nicely. Yeah I need to get one of those kits, thought I kept all the original stuff but can't find it. I guess the old style with a backplate gives me that warm fuzzy feeling.

wowimsocute · Post by **wowimsocute** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 9:09 pm

paapaa wrote:I got answer from Scythe and they confirmed that the new mounting mechanism for 775 can be troublesome if there are enything very close to the socket as in P5B Deluxe, Gigabyte DS*, Abit AB9 etc. They really screwed this one.

so, when you say "troublesome," do you mean "difficult, but works stock" or do you mean "won't work without modification"? i plan to get a ds3 with a ninja, and this might screw things up.

Chocolinx wrote:You overclocked your Allendale (Yes you have an Allendale not a Conroe)

actually, according to wikipedia, it is a conroe:

Wikipedia wrote:For a very long time, it was considered that stripped down versions of the Conroe processors were code-named Allendale. In actuality, Allendale is a code-name for a different processor. Many suggest that E6300 and E6400 are actually code-named Allendale, however, the E6300 (1.86 GHz) and E6400 (2.13 GHz) processors are not code-named Allendale because they physically have 4mb cache, same as their big brothers E6600 and E6700 - it is just that half of their physical memory is disabled...The real Allendale processors, including the E4300, will be released during Q1 2007.

chobaka · Post by **chobaka** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 7:27 pm

wowimsocute wrote:
paapaa wrote:I got answer from Scythe and they confirmed that the new mounting mechanism for 775 can be troublesome if there are enything very close to the socket as in P5B Deluxe, Gigabyte DS*, Abit AB9 etc. They really screwed this one.
so, when you say "troublesome," do you mean "difficult, but works stock" or do you mean "won't work without modification"? i plan to get a ds3 with a ninja, and this might screw things up.

Chocolinx wrote:You overclocked your Allendale (Yes you have an Allendale not a Conroe)
actually, according to wikipedia, it is a conroe:

Wikipedia wrote:For a very long time, it was considered that stripped down versions of the Conroe processors were code-named Allendale. In actuality, Allendale is a code-name for a different processor. Many suggest that E6300 and E6400 are actually code-named Allendale, however, the E6300 (1.86 GHz) and E6400 (2.13 GHz) processors are not code-named Allendale because they physically have 4mb cache, same as their big brothers E6600 and E6700 - it is just that half of their physical memory is disabled...The real Allendale processors, including the E4300, will be released during Q1 2007.

I've already got a Gigabyte S3 waiting here for the Scythe Ninja to arrive. Am I going to have to make modifications to the mounting mechanism as well?

Also, if half of the cache is disabled, is it possible to hack the disabled half back into operation? That would be great, even if it violated the warranty.

paapaa · Post by **paapaa** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 3:10 am

Please see this post:

viewtopic.php?t=35079#296134

Could someone with P5B Deluxe verify if rotating the mounting plate 90 degrees helps?

chobaka · Post by **chobaka** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:19 pm

chobaka wrote:I've already got a Gigabyte S3 waiting here for the Scythe Ninja to arrive. Am I going to have to make modifications to the mounting mechanism as well?

Also, if half of the cache is disabled, is it possible to hack the disabled half back into operation? That would be great, even if it violated the warranty.

I've installed the Scythe Ninja Rev. B on my Gigabyte 965P S3 with no modifications whatsoever. It makes good contact with the CPU. Just a heads up for anybody planning on installing the Ninja on a Gigabyte 965 board.

ClockCatcher · Post by **ClockCatcher** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:52 am

So its sure that the new Rev.B Ninja will fit on the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard without any mods?

ChrisH1 · Post by **ChrisH1** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 8:00 am

The Scythe website (http://www.scythe-usa.com) discusses this. They say that they have had some inquires lately, so they went and bought a board and tried installing the Ninja on it. They reported no problems

On the page for the Ninja they have an installation note here for the 775 socket: http://www.scythe-usa.com/support/cpu/0 ... ontip.html.

They recommend rotating the mounting bracket if you have a clearance problem.

chobaka · Post by **chobaka** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 4:30 pm

ClockCatcher wrote:So its sure that the new Rev.B Ninja will fit on the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard without any mods?

The heatsink and its related components don't seem to touch anything on the motherboard...it misses the capacitors by a few millimeters, which seems to be fine. I make no guarantees, however, as your mileage may vary hehe. The heatsink itself doesn't get hot to the touch so I assume that even if it were to slightly touch the capacitors, everything would be okay.
If it does end up touching slightly, you could always use sandpaper to grind away some of whatever is touching.

Scythe Ninja Rev B and Asus P5B-Deluxe don't play well

Scythe Ninja Rev B and Asus P5B-Deluxe don't play well

Ninja and P5B Deluxe compatibility