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Ultra-120 Extreme just got dropped off - major problem?

G

graysky

Senior member
Just got my u-120 X and I have to say I'm a little puzzled. The base where it should contact the heat spreader is not smooth at all, it's actually grooved! You can see a scratch which is where I gently ran my thumb nail over the surface; I could feel the rough edges. Is this normal? If you own a u-120 or u-120 X, is your HS like this?

Have a look for yourself here.
 
Look at the reviews around the web to see how those are. Perhaps it's a concept - more surface area for heat absorption. The mark going across the striations doesn't look like a scratch as the striations aren't market at all - more of a discoloration in the metal.

.bh.
 
Well, I'm wondering if this is the way these are designed to be? Anyone else out there care to comment if you own an u-120 or u-120 x (or even another brand of hs all together).
 
Those are milling marks. Means they didn't do squat to reduce them through finer milling or polishing... Hmmmmm. Maybe I'll just wait for someone else to figure out which is better, lapped or not. 😉

As for the "scratch" it's probably a discoloration due to your nail leaving behind some of itself on the ridges. This is more likely than your nail being able to do damage. The easiest way to tell is if you can cut yourself on the ridges. If you can then your nail can reform the ridges and leave that mark. Otherwise it's just crud you left on the heatsink.

My 120x gets delivered today so when I get home I'll let you know what it looks like.
 
Originally posted by: alaricljsMy 120x gets delivered today so when I get home I'll let you know what it looks like.
Click to expand...

Very cool, I'll be interested in knowing if your sample is like mine in this regard and I do acknowledge that it may be this way by design. I just need the other package with my MB in it to get here so I can put this damn thing together.
 
Don't I know it on the mobo. I ordered mine and got a tracking number... yet 3 days on and FedEx still doesn't claim they have possession of the package. Grrrr. I'd better get a response from customer support today.
 
Mine doesn't have a scratch, but if I remember it wasnt all that smooth, certainly not close to a mirror.

I'm also concerned it's not seating properly. With the backplate and spring screws it should be perfect, but my results just aren't that good.

I'm putting 1.425v in my C2D, but my idle is ~46C and 100% TAT Load gets around 68C. This is after reseating twice with Shin Etsu compound, so somethings gotta be messed up.

OP, when yours is installed, can you freely twist yours around or is it tightly held on. Mine can twist and rotate and I'm not sure that is a good sign.
 
My xp-90 had those same grooves in the base. It still works fine though. As for the mark, try cleaning it the way you would pre-applied thermal paste and see if it goes away.
 
Originally posted by: graysky
Have a look for yourself here.

Is this normal?
Click to expand...
Dude, that's HORRIBLE!

I have a feeling your cooler missed a link or two, in the production chain -- makers me wonder about their QC...

RMA!!! 😉
 
Earlier Thermalright models weren't grooved like that and the AT preview didn't mention it - unless it can be proved to your satisfaction otherwise, then those grooves are anomalous and it is RMA time in my book.

.bh.
 
Ok, I opened my u-120x and it's identical to what you have. Those are milling grooves... easily lapped, no idea if this is Thermalrights idea of a finished product...
 
I remember back in the Slot A days, people would lap their heatsinks with a roughish sandpaper, so that the thermal paste would sink into the "grooves" and allow better contact. A lot of heatsinks also came rough.
 
The Ultra 120 is like this as well (milling grooves). This is how AT would have tested both it and the Exterme. You can lap it if you want I guess. On my setup, I didn't lap it and I used a little rice grain sized blob of the compound that came with the Ultra 120. My current settings are 1.37V VCore (AsusProbe) and 3.2GHz can I get idle of 32c on the CPU (idle all day with window open on a cool day), load of 60 in Orthos, load of 48-50 after a few hours of gaming. TAT goes to about 56 on each core.
 
Originally posted by: Gigem
Mine doesn't have a scratch, but if I remember it wasnt all that smooth, certainly not close to a mirror.

I'm also concerned it's not seating properly. With the backplate and spring screws it should be perfect, but my results just aren't that good.

I'm putting 1.425v in my C2D, but my idle is ~46C and 100% TAT Load gets around 68C. This is after reseating twice with Shin Etsu compound, so somethings gotta be messed up.

OP, when yours is installed, can you freely twist yours around or is it tightly held on. Mine can twist and rotate and I'm not sure that is a good sign.
Click to expand...

Need your ambients to tell you if thats okey or not.

But im going to guess its about right. The Ultra aint a waterkit. Your not going to get anywhere NEAR sub 50 on TAT @ 1.425V that you see on people with high class water.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p73/aigomorla/FinalTemp.jpg

If you want those temps, you better pm me, and be prepared to spend around 300 dollars.


But, i heard thermalright were known horrible at the base. I would lap it.

But then again i lap everything that can be lapped.
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p73/aigomorla/IMG_0569.jpg

That actually got me 4-5C better temps FYI.
 
Thats very interesting. I got mine today also, and it has obviously been lapped, to an almost mirror like finish, under a magnifying glass I can find a faint few millmarks around the edges but the center if pretty slick.

 
Houston, we have a problem!

Look, I'm not thread crapping here -- but, I find it interesting that 'the faithful' think unpolished/unlapped/machine marked surfaces are somehow desirable, high-tech and state-of-the-art.

Thermalright obviously has some quality control issues... 😀

*edit*

Hrm...

I'm not so sure this isn't 'normal' for Thermalright coolers.

I just read a Ultra-120 review on Xoxide, and machine marks were visible to the naked-eye on that HSF too, so I guess that's the way they come... at least on some of them.

Anyway, they're made of nickel-plated copper, so I guess you could lap your way through the nickel-plating, into the copper substrate, with some sandpaper, yada, yada...

I hope you guys didn't pay a lot for these things... in case you mess them up... 😉
 
Originally posted by: Gigem
Mine doesn't have a scratch, but if I remember it wasnt all that smooth, certainly not close to a mirror.

I'm also concerned it's not seating properly. With the backplate and spring screws it should be perfect, but my results just aren't that good.

I'm putting 1.425v in my C2D, but my idle is ~46C and 100% TAT Load gets around 68C. This is after reseating twice with Shin Etsu compound, so somethings gotta be messed up.

OP, when yours is installed, can you freely twist yours around or is it tightly held on. Mine can twist and rotate and I'm not sure that is a good sign.
Click to expand...


I'm not the OP, but I have a Extreme 120 on my Gigabyte DS3 and I can freely rotate the entire heatsink 5+ degrees while fully clamped. I am concerned about that, but it doesn't seem to be affecting my temps. I am running a e6400 at 3.6, ~1.45v, 21c ambient and my idle temp is ~37c and loads under dual Orthos small fft runs up to ~57c(all temps measured using Coretemp).

Still bugs me that this thing can rotate at all....
 
Originally posted by: Yourself
Originally posted by: Gigem
Mine doesn't have a scratch, but if I remember it wasnt all that smooth, certainly not close to a mirror.

I'm also concerned it's not seating properly. With the backplate and spring screws it should be perfect, but my results just aren't that good.

I'm putting 1.425v in my C2D, but my idle is ~46C and 100% TAT Load gets around 68C. This is after reseating twice with Shin Etsu compound, so somethings gotta be messed up.

OP, when yours is installed, can you freely twist yours around or is it tightly held on. Mine can twist and rotate and I'm not sure that is a good sign.
Click to expand...


I'm not the OP, but I have a Extreme 120 on my Gigabyte DS3 and I can freely rotate the entire heatsink 5+ degrees while fully clamped. I am concerned about that, but it doesn't seem to be affecting my temps. I am running a e6400 at 3.6, ~1.45v, 21c ambient and my idle temp is ~37c and loads under dual Orthos small fft runs up to ~57c(all temps measured using Coretemp).

Still bugs me that this thing can rotate at all....
Click to expand...

Mine can rotate easily more than 5 degrees either way, probably around 15-20. I wish I had your temps at that vCore though.

Oh and for aigo, my ambient is around 24C. Maybe my base isn't flat, and that is why it can rotate? Should I try to lap? I'm running out of my expensive thermal paste trying to reseat this thing so many times, lol
 
those machine marks are "normal" as they just seem to come out of the box like that, my u120 came that way, but that scratch there isn't normal haha.

but ya just lap it and get it to the copper, it felt a lot smoother when it was done. i did mine with upto 600grit paper. but ya like the link posted above me says, main objective of lapping isn't to get it smooth (well that's part of it too), it is to get a flat surface to contact with on the cpu, same with lapping the cpu itself, it's to get rid of the concaveness and get a nice flat surface. the smoothness just helps it.

but i would also be happier if thermalright to have a higher quality control on finished products, for a top cooling company like them, it's quite discouraging to see these things.
 
Just wanted to update the tread. I ended-up lapping the HS and found out that it was indeed concave. It's nice and flat now. I also lapped the q6600 CPU which I found out was also concave so it's no wonder I had higher temps.

I made several threads throughout the process:

Ultra-120 Extreme (or just Ultra-120) lapping
Q6600 lapping part 1
Q6600 lapping part 2

You'll find a table of before/after temps, a summary of what I did as well as some pics in those 3 threads. If you're thinking about lapping either your CPU or HS, I'd encourage you to google around (tons of great guides out there), and/or ask in here. Lapping either of them is actually pretty darn simple and rewarding temp wise.
 
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