Loose CPU? Anyone have experience of a Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro?

[amicii]

CPU: 2500k sandy bridge
Cooler: Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro


Hi all, having a string of bad luck and it's really getting on top of me now, hoping to get some help from you. Short story is that I got a new motherboard to replace a bad one, and rebuilt my computer with everything the same but all in the new motherboard.

It works mostly fine, but a few problems. The main one is that sometimes when I start the computer up (or after a reboot), it starts and then shuts down about 2 seconds later, then tries again to start, and just keeps shutting down. It can do this for ages and never get anywhere. I tried everything I could thing of to make it work, replacing RAM etc.. nothing helped. In the end, for some reason, I pressed the CPU cooler down and the computer started all the way in to windows. It has happened again a few more times and each time, if I press the CPU cooler in the right place, it finally gets past the restarting loop.

So presumably, the CPU is not seated properly? The thing that confuses me is that when you fit it in the motherboard, the little clamp comes down and presses it so I can't imagine it being able to get any tight? The CPU cooler is huge though. I screwed it on to the CPU as tightly as I could - ie, so tight that I had to press the screwdriver quite hard in to the screw to stop it from jumping out. But it could go slightly tighter if I pressed very hard... I was just worried about causing damage by doing it that tight. Maybe that would be my solution?

Thanks in advance. I hope I don't have to re-seat the CPU, fitting it with the paste and then fitting this monster cooler was such a hard job for me

[Phage]

Very odd. I have the Dark Rock Pro 2 (equally monstrous) but don't have those symptoms. Could be just that you don't have good contact betwen the HSF and the CPU, but why then would it continue to run if heat was an issue ? It could be that the extra pressure is just allowing some other connector to work by pushing it together.
If it's running, what temps are you getting ?
Also the easiest way to fit these is upside down out of the case.
Drop in the CPU, put in the back plates, add paste then put the HSF on the CPU to finger tight. Then turn the whole thing upside down so that the HSF is now a solid base with the mobo on top. The screws can then be tightened fairly easily.

[amicii]

Very odd. I have the Dark Rock Pro 2 (equally monstrous) but don't have those symptoms. Could be just that you don't have good contact betwen the HSF and the CPU, but why then would it continue to run if heat was an issue ? It could be that the extra pressure is just allowing some other connector to work by pushing it together.
If it's running, what temps are you getting ?
Also the easiest way to fit these is upside down out of the case.
Drop in the CPU, put in the back plates, add paste then put the HSF on the CPU to finger tight. Then turn the whole thing upside down so that the HSF is now a solid base with the mobo on top. The screws can then be tightened fairly easily.

Thanks for the reply. Temperature is about 36C idle, and 48C when I play a game. That's with no overclock.

Currently I'm running the computer on its side and it's been on all night. I am thinking now I might try to screw the heatsink in as tight as I can get it. I just am wary of harming the motherboard with too much pressure.

And thanks for the tip on how to fit this beast. If I end up having to re-do it, I'll do it that way for sure!

[pooley]

Im rocking a pro 2 with a 2600k and they are monstrous so need a little extra effort when installing.
I set mine up similar to Phage and have no trouble.

[amicii]

Thanks guys, well I'm running 2 days straight now with the PC on its side. I think I should try tightening it as far as it will go and just hope for the best.

[scaryjim]

could be a short on the case - I had a set of components that had intermittent power issues that were mitigated by lying the case on its side for a while. I moved the whole lot into a different case and it's been rock solid ever since

[amicii]

Thanks guys. Got an update, hope this helps someone eventually.

This has been a big pain PC was running fine for a few days, then I knocked it with my foot, only gently, and it immediately went in to a BSOD and then after restarting, got in to the same loop where it starts for 2 seconds then shuts down, over and over. So I assumed again that it was a loose heatsink, so I tightened the heatsink as tight as it goes. No joy. I then bit the bullet and reinstalled the CPU from scratch, checked it was in the slot nice and firm, checked there was nothing bad looking on the pins side (looked fine), re-did the thermal paste, and reinstalled all my components - same problem

I had previously been googling, "Computer starts then stops" and similar combinations, but today I decided to include the name of the new motherboard I got too - which is a "gigabyte ga-z68xp-ud3". There are hundreds of people with the same problem but they all put it down to different things (faulty PSU etc) and I have already eliminated all that. But on a forum called giga-byte (co uk) , a very wise person called Gloup_Gloup said this:

Be careful of the pressure exercised by the HSF on the processor. If the air cooling is slightly ill-fitting on the cpu, you have a possible problem...

Because the integrated memory controller is in the processor, the situation is different about the pressure exerted on the attachment mechanism of CPU cooling. So if by chance one or a few pins of the CPU is bad contact (too strongly pressed in the center, not enough or too much on one side on the other hand, it can give problems as the non-recognition of the entire ram or other boot problem...

If the pressure is higher on one side of the cpu is not good. We really need the pressure of the cooler is balanced on the cpu. And also not too strong. Sometimes you need release the pressure, while ensuring it is fully equal on every side.

It seemed relevant to my situation, so I loosened the heatsink - still no joy. Then I loosened it more, and the PC booted all the way in to windows! I've been nudging it and poking at it, and it's very flaky though. I loosened it a bit more - to the point where the heatsink can actually move a millimetre or two if I twist it, and the computer now starts quite often. But one nudge and it gets in to the same boot loop problem. I can press on 3 of the 4 corners and nothing helps, but on one particular corner, I press and the computer will start.

So I am now able to use my computer at least... But I now need to find a more permanent solution. Seeing as this same CPU and same Heatsink+Fan have been working great for me for the past few years, I am suspicious of this new motherboard more than anything else. But I think I would have a hard time returning it, and they also said to take it to them so they can flash the bios etc.. and I really can do without the hassle, and I don't like being without a computer in the meantime too. So I am tempted to just do nothing, and keep out of the computers way so I don't knock it. If I can cope with it for a few years, I could upgrade the whole thing, new mobo, new cpu, and maybe go for one of those corsair h100 things or similar.

So there you go, that has been the story of my entire crappy week. But thanks for the support! Nice to have a shoulder to cry on through all this


p.s. That post of Gloup_Gloup was december 2011. Disappointing that it's a known issue and yet here's me buying a motherboard a year and half later and it's still an issue. Although to be fair, the place I bought this from was just a little local shop with virtually no stock and no choice.

[pooley]

Glad you got to the bottom of it, Shame about your mobo though

[amicii]

Thanks And yeah it's a pity, computer is otherwise great. I regret not just going to PC World now and paying the bad prices, I probably would have got a better one. It's a shame too because my previous motherboard was really great but it got screwed after I did a bios update. I think I had a revision 2 and I did a bios update that can only work on a revision 3 so it ended up with an error I couldn't get past. I may be able to get that fixed somewhere and then I could end up swapping all my gear back to that one sometime. But at least I have something that works for now, that was the important thing, got work to do on it this week.

[ty2010]

Inspect your 4 pin cpu power connector, had an old amd that would do that and eventually the socket became discolored from heat.

[amicii]

Inspect your 4 pin cpu power connector, had an old amd that would do that and eventually the socket became discolored from heat.

Thanks I'll try that!

[technodean]

I have a similar problem in which i get the reboot cycle, I have changed so many parts from cpu's 2500k to 2600k, ram , ssd's and coolers for different reasons i.e upgrades but always now and again get this problem from returning from sleep or rebooting. For me I think its the z68 controller as I see when I get this issue, im either not getting HD activity or my GPU doesn't show picture. I know I have power due to my mech drives spinning up and my gpu fans spinning etc.

[ty2010]

First, check your board documentation for sleep wattages, you may have to use a different sleep state with that much memory.

Second would be to check the PSU. A lot of the detection takes place on the 3.3 and 5v circuits, everything coming on is 12v. I recently had HD issues periodically, slow USB and non-detects on bootup. The PSU had 5v issues that software loggers didn't detect, didn't get an analyzer as I needed to update anyway, everything's running good with the new PSU, speed even went up on drives that were functioning properly.

[Mother]

Strip it right down and rebuild, something is shorting or not connected properly.

[chris_summers1994]

I have a dark rock pro and i feel your pain as far as the mounting is concerned. When i fit a heatsink i always do it our of the case, have you tried this?

[amicii]

Found a bit more info on this. One person said that if you tighten it too much, it can pull the back plate so tight that it touches the metal on the under side of the board. Not sure if that is true or not but I will have a look. I've put my overclock back and I'm about 10-20 degrees worse than I used to be on the previous motherboard. I think that's because I have to have the heatsink is a bit loose now. I'll have a look and it if seems that the back plate could touch the board, I might put some more rubber on top of the existing rubber so it sticks out further, then I can hopefully tighten it all up.

I have a dark rock pro and i feel your pain as far as the mounting is concerned. When i fit a heatsink i always do it our of the case, have you tried this?

Last time I refitted it, I did what Phage described above and it was much easier. It was out of the case and I just put the heatsink on my desk upside down, and put the motherboard on top of that, also upside down.