WARNING! Asus Star Ice incompatible with Asus A8V Deluxe & Corsair Twin-X Pro

[GingerNinja.net]

Well that's interesting but far from the truth. I use the Venus 12 and Polo 735 in all of my A64 machines because they are by far the best for the money, and the Venus 12 on high keeps my FX-55 3D bench stable at over 2920MHz. The slight improvement you may see (depending on your chip) by using the Thermalright stuff will not give you better clocks than a Venus 12 on high. Yes it's noisey when pushing 75+ CFM, but even 120mm fans are noisey when moving that kind of air. The Thermalright stuff is a good performer but not substantially better than the Venus 12 and they are costly and a pain in the arse. It's your money and time however.

Rave:

YES the memory runs fine in the black slots!

StormPC matey - are you telling me that if I put my Corsair memory into the two black slots on my Asus A8V board (bank A2 and bank B2) that they will run perfectly well in dual-channel mode - despite the manual saying that you shouldn't do this?
I'm assumming that you have tested this out....

As it stands, OCUK are willing to take back the Asus Star Ice and send out a Thermalright XP-90 to replace it and (I assume) refund me the difference. Although I will have to get a 92mm fan as well (Kustom PCs have one for me) the price difference is about £3 as oppossed to the £20ish I stand to lose by begging Corsair to swap my 3200XL Pro for some standard 3200XL.
OCUK also do not stock the Venus 12 so I cannot go that route.

Of course, Asus could confirm what you have said and I then I wouldn't need to send anything back to OCUK, so let's see what happens......

Watch this space!

[twistedturq]

Of course it isn't sitting properly - that's the whole point!

The photo was taken WITHOUT the retaining brackets so you had a clear view. Whilst the heatsink isn't positioned perfectly on the CPU, the edge of the fan is still sitting on the top of the memory and was when I started trying to screw it all together before I put Arctic Silver on top of the heatspreader and heat-sink.
The exhaust is pointing at the rear of the board which is the whole point of this heat-sink: get the hot air out of the case ASAP.

If you need further proof look here.

Thanks for your input anyway
_____________________________________


Just looked at the ASCII art.

Doh! OK. That raised bit at the back? That is where you attach the thermal probe that comes with the heat sink so that the fan can automatically change its RPM dependent on the temperature of the heat sink. The reviews that I have read state that it works very well and is better on the ears (allegedly) than using one of the two included rheostats.

I haven't explained myself properly it seems

The base of the HS itself is facing in the wrong direction entirely mate. It should be sitting the other way around. Check the ASCII art featured in the link I posted to see what I mean.

[StormPC]

StormPC matey - are you telling me that if I put my Corsair memory into the two black slots on my Asus A8V board (bank A2 and bank B2) that they will run perfectly well in dual-channel mode - despite the manual saying that you shouldn't do this?
I'm assumming that you have tested this out....

As it stands, OCUK are willing to take back the Asus Star Ice and send out a Thermalright XP-90 to replace it and (I assume) refund me the difference. Although I will have to get a 92mm fan as well (Kustom PCs have one for me) the price difference is about £3 as oppossed to the £20ish I stand to lose by begging Corsair to swap my 3200XL Pro for some standard 3200XL.
OCUK also do not stock the Venus 12 so I cannot go that route.

Of course, Asus could confirm what you have said and I then I wouldn't need to send anything back to OCUK, so let's see what happens......

Watch this space!

YES!!! That's exactly what I'm telling you. The memory will work fine in the black slots, the blue slots or both (dual channel) and slot 3 only (single channel).

I'd still get rid of that ASUS (Thermaltake actually makes it) cooler and get something more reasonable like a Venus 12 or a Polo 735. If you like messing with your computer and you don't mind spending the money the XP-90 or XP-120 (if you're going to the trouble to do this I'd go XP-120) are good performers. Just not worth the trouble and money for me.

[Thorsson]

Surely the point of the XP-90 and XP-120 (in particular) is to get decent cooling without the noise.

And compared to the price of the kit that you are keeping cool then they are pretty damn cheap.

[StormPC]

So 190CFM 120mm fans are quiet?

If noise is the issue Zalman is the answer. Very good and quiet. They are not as good at cooling as the Venus 12 though and both the Venus and Polo come with dual volume controls.

[Thorsson]

Who said that you need a 190CFM fan (even if such a fan exists)? You choose either a very quiet fan or you control it. A 120mm fan is a LOT quieter for any given flow than a comparative 80mm. The XP-120 is always going to be considerably quieter than the Venus 12 for the same degree of airflow - if you choose the right fan.

[GingerNinja.net]

A couple of things:

The Asus Star Ice cools the CPU approx 10 degrees cooler than the Intel default heatsink when under load. The AMD is about the same but this obviously is dependent on what cooler you get with the retail version. How much cooler is the Venus 12 and how loud is it?

If I go for the XP-90, I will be going for the 92mm Blackfire UV fan from Kustom PCS which shifts 43.4cfm @ 25.24 dBa. If I go for the XP-120, I will be going for the 120mm Blackfire UV fan from Kustom PCS which shifts 77.7fm @ 28.95 dBa.

However, there is little point in getting the XP-120 as Thernalright have informed me that I will have the same issues with it as the Asus Star Ice i.e. although the XP-120's heat-pipes are angled to allow for close-sitting DIMM's, the Corsair XMS Pro range of memory is too tall and would therefore stop the XP-120 being installed. Apparantly, most high performance coolers will experience this with the XMS Pro - back to square one.

In conclusion, I need to try out the memory in the 2nd banks (A2 and B2) and see if the cooler will sit next to it and it all works lovely. If that is the case, I may as well save on P&P and stick with the Asus.
If the Star Ice is still not happy (it is possible!) then I can either try the XP-120 (would you risk it?) or alternatively go for the XP-90.

[Thorsson]

TBH I the XP-120 is a risk in a 939 mobo. Still, the XP-90 takes a 92mm fan, which allows for either extra cooling or reduced fan speed (= noise) compared to a 80mm one. That's the way I'm going.

[ed^chigliak]

One of the reasons I like the XP-120 and XP-90 are because they use standard 120mm & 92mm fans. That means there are plenty of fans to choose from and if the fan becomes noisey with age it can easily and cheaply be replaced. A good heatsink & fan combination I would expect to span a number of system builds or upgrades so I see it more as an investment. The XP-120 is a flawed product in so far as it severly limits ones choice of motherboards now and there is a high risk of incompatibility in the future so my own preference would be for the XP-90.

[Thorsson]

I understand why the Venus12 (and the Polo) are popular - they're cheap, they look good and they come with lots of bits. But if you want to run them quiet they don't even cool as well as the supplied HSF. If you boost the fan speed up it's like being in a wind tunnel, but unfortunately sharing it with someone testing a jet engine. They are also massively, motherboard-warpingly heavy. The XP-90 and XP-120 are the kings of the aircooling hill right now, and it's worth spending that little extra to get them (and a decent fan).

[GingerNinja.net]

Dear all

First off, many thanks to all of you who have contributed to this thread. It really hacked me off when I found it didn't all fit together and being able to share it with some understanding and sympathetic souls really helped.

I duly spent some time this weekend playing with the motherboard, memory and Star Ice cooler and duly discovered that even with the memory in the second set of slots on the board, the cooler can sit on top of the CPU but it pushes the memory to one side. Whilst I understand that DIMM slots have a little bit of "wiggle room" in them, this is not something I want as a permanent set-up. The fact that the fan is made of plastic and was resting hard against the top of the metal heat-spreader on the memory really made me go "Nahhhh!".

Not completely clear from this pic, but that DIMM on the right is actually at a slight angle - not really that surprising when you realise that the gap between the edge of the CPU socket and the first DIMM (blue) bank is only 35mm:



Slightly clearer, the board in all its glory. You can see how close the cooler and the DIMM in the second slot is. Obviously, the first bank is completely in the way:



Final shot (don't you love macro lenses) showing a close-up of the CPU and heatsink from the side.

Anyone spotted the thing that made me go "huh" yet? That's right - the CPU is not completely covered by the heatsink. The cooler is suppossed to exhaust out of the back and that channel on the back of the heat-sink is for the thermal sensor which controls the fan speed. I can now see what twistedturq was referring to as it does look like the heatsink is on backwards, but it isn't as I get the same gap if I switch is around the other way. About 5mm of the CPU heatspeader was not in contact with the heatsink.

On top of that, the large bolts used to secure the heatsink to the board are not those supplied with the cooler. The ones supplied couldn't reach the supplied extentions that you screw into the boards backplate so I had to take the whole lot apart and use the screws that came with my board. Only problem here is that you cannot actually tighten them up as the cooler housing is in the way (the supplied nuts and extentions are hexagonal and come with a little spanner that fits in the the side):



All of these might only be issues on my board, but they might also be issues on other S939 boards as well as all the reviews that I have read on the Asus Star Ice have only tested on Intel systems as they are the only ones to supply standard coolers as a reference point.


What now? Well, OCUK are issuing me with an RMA and this is going back to them and being replaced with a Thermalright XP-90 which should not only have enough clearence to not interfere with my memory, but should also be able to cool down the caps on the other side of the CPU socket.

Wish me luck!

[Rave]

I wouldn't worry about the whole of the heatspreader not being covered, but I would be worried about having the DIMM bent over to the side like that (although it won't melt the plastic unless you start running 4V into the RAM). Overall it does look to be a pretty poorly thought out design...if ASUS can't even supply the correct hardware to mount to one of their own boards, you really think that the motherboard and cooler design departments ought to meet up down the pub to compare notes a bit more often.

Rich :¬)

[StormPC]

I understand why the Venus12 (and the Polo) are popular - they're cheap, they look good and they come with lots of bits. But if you want to run them quiet they don't even cool as well as the supplied HSF. If you boost the fan speed up it's like being in a wind tunnel, but unfortunately sharing it with someone testing a jet engine. They are also massively, motherboard-warpingly heavy. The XP-90 and XP-120 are the kings of the aircooling hill right now, and it's worth spending that little extra to get them (and a decent fan).

I can't really find anything in your post that I agree with. Not interested in correcting you, but in my experience you are mistaken.

As far as the DIMM being angled goes? Not a problem at all.

[hammerhand]

hi, just to let you know you have your star ice the wrong way round in the pic you posted.The star ice sucks the air from the heat pipes it doesnt blow on them,so the fan should be facing your rear fan,this will give you plenty of room for your ram and you can always add an extra fan at the back for extra cooling.I have had mine running for 18 months with no problems works a treat with my amd x2 4800+ overclocked to 2.76 ghz.

[DecomposingStar]

hi, just to let you know you have your star ice the wrong way round in the pic you posted.The star ice sucks the air from the heat pipes it doesnt blow on them,so the fan should be facing your rear fan,this will give you plenty of room for your ram and you can always add an extra fan at the back for extra cooling.I have had mine running for 18 months with no problems works a treat with my amd x2 4800+ overclocked to 2.76 ghz.

solution.

But anyway, why would you choose such a ridiculous cooler? Aren't CPU flowers/plate stacks much better anyway?

[hammerhand]

they got very good reviews at the time when they where released and are cheap keeps my dual core under 50c at all times, so im happy with it.I may try something new for my next rig