Mini-ninja, push pin mounting on Intel 1156

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djkest
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Joined: Mon Sep 10, 2007 1:05 pm
Location: Colorado, USA

Mini-ninja, push pin mounting on Intel 1156

Post by djkest » Thu Aug 26, 2010 8:00 am

Last night:

I installed my mini-ninja on my new P55 motherboard with an i5-750 in January. I had to buy the $10 scythe mount that uses plastic push pins. This mounting system kinda sucks, btw. I would prefer a bolt-through with some spring tension. Well long story short, it wasn't running that great, kinda hot and the performance of the CPU didn't blow me away.

So I went in to replace the fan on the heatsink, I got a Scythe Kama-flow 92mm PWM fan, which can operate from 300-2500 rpm and has a good noise characteristic (and is also cheap!).

Pop, the Ninja popped right off of the cpu on one side. I was shocked, what's going on? So I quickly removed the opposite side and was even more shocked at what I found.

The thinly applied layer of Artic Silver 3 had only 1/2 contacted the bottom of the heatsink, due to my poor mounting last time.

This means my i5 CPU wasn't even fully contacting the bottom of my heatsink for 6 months.

And it still ran before despite that. Well anyway, I had to completely remove the motherboard to make SURE that I firmly and completely got all 4 plastic pushpins to their full tightness. When I was done I could see the MB flexing a little bit from the tension.

Now my temps are 21-28 C per core at idle, and I haven't done a hardcore stress test yet, but during a hardcore Warhammer online session the temps peaked at 36 C. I suspect

Metaluna
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Location: USA

Post by Metaluna » Thu Aug 26, 2010 10:54 am

Scythe used to make a pushpin-to-bolt-through converter kit for LGA 775 that worked fairly well. They might make something similar for 1156 but I haven't looked. I think the 775 one may have been discontinued (not that it would fit on your motherboard anyway).

Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Wed Sep 01, 2010 7:10 am

I had the same experience with a Xigmatek DHT product that I replaced my Minja with. Mine had not popped off, but a slight bump while moving the case cast one of the pins out. I only noticed because I was careful and checked afterwards.

Needless to say I immediately bought a Noctua replacement and haven't looked back since. Push-pins are unreliable, not easier to install (because you have to take out the mobo to verify the pins) and in general a bad idea.

Bolts are the way to go.

tim851
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Post by tim851 » Sat Sep 11, 2010 12:09 am

It is THE numer 1 critisism EVERY Scythe Cooler gets slapped with in every single review you read, but for some reason this company insists on using push pins. It's making me shake my head every time.
How much more expensive can a bolt thru mounting mechanism be, 1$?

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