Mugen 2 on a Asus P6T SE

[Fernando T]

Hi Today I received my new PC parts.

The motherboard I have is the Asus P6T SE and a Intel I7 920 boxed cooler.
To replace the boxed cooler I bought a Scythe Mugen 2.

I am now in the process of installing this cooler but have some questions.

I removed the original cpu cover and backplate and mounted the Scythe backplate.
When removing the cpu cover of the P6T SE the mentioned washers where not present but I noticed the screw inserts had a part that looked like some kind of spacer/washer.
I mounted the backplate like described in the instructions by putting a spacer and an insulation washer between the backplate and the motherboard at the place the 4 screws for the backplate go in.
Then I turned the board around and installed the cpu cover back on, This cover seems to fasten quite well and only can be moved when the unlock leaver is pulled back.

Before I move on to the rest of the installation I would like to have veriefied if I followed the correct approach and if the missing of the 4 washers between the cpu cover and the motherboard is important.

Can I still mount this cooler without those missing 4 washers?

Thanx in advance!

[Fernando T]

I, Just to be clear, the original backplate was mounted with the same cpu cover and without the washers also.

The washers between the Mugen backplate + spacers and the Motherboard have been installed according to the instructions that came with the Mugen 2

[Fernando T]

Hi,

I have installed the Mugen and it went fine but I have some odd things.

First let me start with my setup:

Moherboard = Asus P6T SE
Case = Silverstone Raven s01 (3 case fans)
Proc. = Intel Core i7 920
Cooler = Scythe Mugen 2 with standard paste and fan blowing air through the cooler (on the other side of the cooler at a distance of 4 cm the case fan is sucking out the hot air)
Memory = OCZ gold series 6 GB
HD = Samsung Spinpoint F3
Graphics = Sapphier Radeon HD 4870 Vapor X

I have monitored my system and at the beginning the temperature hoovered around the 41 c and the motherboard 51 (which i find a bit odd, I would expect the CPU to be higher the the motherboard).
Stressed this changes and while the Motherboard stays around the 51 C the CPU heats up quickly.

When I moved my tower to the place I want it to stay suddenly I noticed that my CPU temps were around 52 C under normal windows usage but when I started prime it quickly rose beyond the 80c (by then I killed prime).

I opened my case and felt the mugen 2 and it seems like it is solid fitted and I cant get actual movement in it.

But the the strangest thing happened, today after I closed my case and put it back on its place the temps stayed around the 40 C while using windows for normal tasks and when I started prime this time it did no go beyond 65C.

Just to be clear, I did not remount my cooler just jiggled it a bit.

Could it be it needs to be fastened a bit tighter?
It feels like it is solid seated and I have tightened it quite a bit.
Is it possible to tighten it as hard as you can (because of the screws which are not fully threaded, that should prevent you from damaging the board, right?)

Anyway the other oddity is the fact that my motherboard temperature is so high, is this a normal Asus P6T SE temperature?

Regarding the cooler, the temps now do not seem that bad but considering that I am not overclocking it still seems like poor cooling performance.

Shall remount the cooler or could it just be the fan, can the movement/placing of the fan on the cooler make such a big difference, yesterday when I checked the cooler I also positioned the fan, but it was not really baddly mounted.

Hopefully someone can give me some tips because until now my experience with the Mugen is not that good (sorry).

On my old core 2 duo rig I have a artic freezer of half the price, was a breeze to mount and is very quite and cools very well, I am sure the Mugen 2 will please me once working as supposed but the installation is a nightmare and it seems to be very sensitive to the slightest deviation of the supposed installation.

[Fernando T]

Nobody a clue?

[Oli]

Tighten the screws as much as possible w/o using excessive force. The system is intended to supply to necessary pressure - the screws are prepared for that as you already guessed.

Fan only can't make such a difference. Don't know if your installation is really good as a slight movement of the cooler shouldn't change temps much.

[Fernando T]

Originally Posted by Oli

Tighten the screws as much as possible w/o using excessive force. The system is intended to supply to necessary pressure - the screws are prepared for that as you already guessed.

Fan only can't make such a difference. Don't know if your installation is really good as a slight movement of the cooler shouldn't change temps much.

Thanks,

I think I will just to be sure remove the thermal compound and reapply it other wise I might have to remove the board once again. :'(

[Fernando T]

I am starting to really get a love Hate relationship with this cooler.
And sadly nowadays it is leaning more to hate.

After having high expectations I was really disappointed to see how poorly this cooler performs.
Because I was unsure if the cooler was properly fitted I unmounted the whole rig and remounted it again (it proved to be correctly mounted).
Now it even performs worse.

In the meantime I noticed that if I bend the cooler a bit upwards the cooling performance improves slightly so I am guessing the cooler is still not tightened enough, the problem is that the screws are bottoming already.
I noticed that I could still move the back plate (press it it further into the rubber) but there is no way of tightening it further


I guess I can unmount it once again and put some thing washers between the screws and the back plate but that will not be a very nice workaround as the washers a flat and the holes and screws not.


Any advice on how I should fix this?

[Fernando T]

One more thing,

In speed fan I can see that the temperature of the cores is much lower then the actual CPU temperature reported by the Motherboard sensors.
Could it be this is just an error in the way the motherboard reports the temperature?

[Kameli]

First thing that comes to mind is if speedfan showing real temperatures? It seems strange to me that system temp is so high yet HD temp and core temps are low. I think those temperatures might not be real temps but something like 20-30 C too much. Try googling more info about your MB and speedfan.

I bought second-hand Mugen II and it was missing the tightening screws so I just bought M3 screws and tightened until it felt secure. It is of course risky and sounds strange that scews which came with it wouldn't be enough but as last resort you can try that.

[Fernando T]

Originally Posted by Kameli

First thing that comes to mind is if speedfan showing real temperatures? It seems strange to me that system temp is so high yet HD temp and core temps are low. I think those temperatures might not be real temps but something like 20-30 C too much. Try googling more info about your MB and speedfan.

I bought second-hand Mugen II and it was missing the tightening screws so I just bought M3 screws and tightened until it felt secure. It is of course risky and sounds strange that scews which came with it wouldn't be enough but as last resort you can try that.

Hi,

Thanks for you reply.
Ideed the HD and the cores of the I7 are much lower then the CPU and system temp.
And most of the time the system temp is higher then the CPU which is the most odd thing in my opinion.
I also have PC probe from ASUS running and that one also shows the same values as speedfan but obviously it is reporting the same values retrieved from the motherboard sensors.

I already updated to the newest bios but no change.

I will email Asus also about this.

Anyway, all the tips are welcome but I am still worried about the temps.