LP/SFF Cooler mounting adaptors for AM4

SaperPL

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So as we're waiting for mini ITX AM4 boards it's also important to be prepared for cooling the CPU in such SFF cases like Sentry, A4-SFX or S4-Mini.

Before we get dedicated LP/SFF coolers for AM4, I want to have my Sentry rig working, but I won't get Wraith Stealth with Ryzen 7 1700, so I'll have to figure something out. First thing that comes to mind is to make some adaptors for existing coolers.

Adapting Noctua NH-L9i for AM4 looks to be pretty straight-forward:

Złożenie Adaptera Noctua NH-L9i.JPG

Simple laser cut pieces with threaded stand-offs pressed in should do the job.

This will be the quick solution, however obviously with Ryzen 7 it'd be better to have something more powerful, something with vapor chamber that will have more headroom for turbo and oc:

For Dynatron T318 it will get more complex - I'll have to adapt AM4 mounting to LGA2011 narrow-ILM:

Złożenie Adaptera Dynatron T318 3.JPG Złożenie Adaptera Dynatron T318.JPG Złożenie Adaptera Dynatron T318 2.JPG

I don't have an AM4 hardware yet - I'm waiting for the mITX boards availability with my shopping.

I'll still need to get last thing: the distance between IHS surface on Ryzen to the motherboard PCB - sadly AMD doesn't have such openly accessible electromechanical reference papers for their platforms, or simply they are hard to find.

I would appreciate if anyone who already has Ryzen platform could check out and share this dimension or if anyone knows about media that has this info available online.
 
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I've tried searching for a while with no luck on PCB to IHS hieght. I'd definitely order one of these adapters for the Dynatron (I love those things) as I do plan on getting a R7 1700 when the ASRock board comes out. By then more optimizations and ram fixes will be hammered out so I can have a smooth upgrade from my i7 2600. Can't wait to put that on Craigslist or use it in computer build for the parentals.
 
Cool, I see you have this. Glad you got your information. Was about to pull this measurement.
 
I doubt I am going to get your accurate to 5 hundredths of a millimeter.
 
Yeah, that's okay. Thanks for that info. I'm still waiting for biostar B350GTN release to order new hardware but I'll try designing prototype brackets for NH-L9i over the weekend.
 
Watching this thread. I can't wait to possibly have AM4 compatibility for Noctua's cooler, since I don't know what options I have for the Sentry with Ryzen.
 
I got impatient for Polish distribution and ordered X370GTN for this project at caseking.de seeing they supposedly have it in stock. I hope to get the board by the end of the week.
 
I should be getting my X370GTN in few hours so I think It'll be faster if I order the brackets custom made before the "original" ones from noctua get to the Polish distribution.
 
I have placed my order as well although they promptly responded with email stating that they are overloaded with requests and it may take some time.
 
I have placed my order as well although they promptly responded with email stating that they are overloaded with requests and it may take some time.
For me as well. Noctua's email said it would take 7 to 10 days to ship because of demand. I bought my cooler five minutes before requesting the mounting bracket kit.
 
I have placed my order as well although they promptly responded with email stating that they are overloaded with requests and it may take some time.

Did you happen to measure the IHS to PCB height on the biostar board to double check it's the same with your setup? Nobu's measurement came from a:
Gigabyte ax370 aorus gaming k5
Ryzen 5 1600 (USA Diffused, Malaysian made)
 
Did you happen to measure the IHS to PCB height on the biostar board to double check it's the same with your setup? Nobu's measurement came from a:

Yeah, I checked this with caliper and the distance between the IHS surface in CPU and motherboard PCB surface is 7.50~7.75 mm which is quite weird, I think that the socket might not be perfectly level with the board.
 
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Yeah, I checked this with caliper and the distance between the IHS surface in CPU and motherboard PCB surface is 7.50~7.75 mm which is quite weird, I think that the socket might not be perfectly level with the board.
I think I measured 1.6mm once, the other three or four times it was 1.35 or 1.4. You have to make sure the bottom of the caliper is flat against the ihs, or else the probe could extend further due to the angle it takes toward the pcb.
 
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I think I measured 1.6mm once, the other three or four times it was 1.35 or 1.4. You have to make sure the bottom of the caliper is flat against the ihs, or else the probe could extend further due to the angle it takes toward the pcb.
Where did you measure 1.6 mm ?

7.5~7.75 is not that far from your measurements at 7.35 mm quoted earlier in this thread. Such difference might be real from one manufacturer to another especially when talking about biostar :)
 
Where did you measure 1.6 mm ?

7.5~7.75 is not that far from your measurements at 7.35 mm quoted earlier in this thread. Such difference might be real from one manufacturer to another especially when talking about biostar :)
From two sides of the cpu, and one corner. I measured one side two or three times to be sure I wasn't measuring or reading it wrong. Iirc, it was the soc vrm side, the side opposite, and the corner by both vcore and soc vrms.
Edit: oh, from the side with the soc vrm. Sorry misread the question. And I meant 7.6 and 7.4, 7.35, typo. Doh!
 
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Thanks for clarification. That 1.6 mm was far off :)

I've made a ghetto home made bracket (figured that noctua's bracket might come faster than I'd get my custom made ones) and finished the build:

IMG_20170524_124852979.jpg IMG_20170524_125815105_HDR.jpg IMG_20170524_125834013_HDR.jpg IMG_20170524_133501468.jpg IMG_20170524_133518478.jpg IMG_20170524_140130323_HDR.jpg IMG_20170524_140227796_HDR.jpg

Works so far, but I need to figure out 'how to Ryzen' because monitoring CPU temps through ryzen master app seams like a mess to me and at the same time I've got quite a lot of things to setup on new system.
 
Noctua said:
Dear customer,


We’re pleased to inform you that we have just shipped the NM-AM4-L9aL9i kit you have requested.


The parts have been shipped by standard air mail. Please note that there is no tracking information available and expect a delivery time of 4-10 working days within Europe and 10-18 working days overseas.


Best regards,
<noctua representative name>

Noctua team

Wow they're fast.
 
I've had to remove the board from my rig since I've sent the memory for RMA, thus occasion happened to tinker a bit with the T318.

Looks like we don't really need a custom adapter to mount it since the holes in both motherboard pcb and base of the radiator are big enough to put the screws angled.

I figured out I can use such setup:

IMG_20170531_124729126.jpg

M4x25 screw + two nuts (one to shorten the screw a bit) and two washers (one should be either non-conductive or have to be isolated from bottom of the board - I used pieces of adhesive paper for it)

I also had to remove the original screws from the T318

The result:

IMG_20170531_125242806.jpg IMG_20170531_124937756.jpg IMG_20170531_125252898.jpg IMG_20170531_125309653.jpg IMG_20170531_125321574.jpg

Screws are tightened by hand, strongly angled because the power section forced the base of the cooler to be slightly off the center of CPU.

I'll have to figure out some nice and easy way of mounting the fan on top of radiator.

No tests yet until I get back my DDR4 sticks from RMA :|
 
I've had to remove the board from my rig since I've sent the memory for RMA, thus occasion happened to tinker a bit with the T318.

Looks like we don't really need a custom adapter to mount it since the holes in both motherboard pcb and base of the radiator are big enough to put the screws angled.

I figured out I can use such setup:

View attachment 26260

M4x25 screw + two nuts (one to shorten the screw a bit) and two washers (one should be either non-conductive or have to be isolated from bottom of the board - I used pieces of adhesive paper for it)

I also had to remove the original screws from the T318

The result:

View attachment 26262 View attachment 26261 View attachment 26263 View attachment 26264 View attachment 26265

Screws are tightened by hand, strongly angled because the power section forced the base of the cooler to be slightly off the center of CPU.

I'll have to figure out some nice and easy way of mounting the fan on top of radiator.

No tests yet until I get back my DDR4 sticks from RMA :|


Hmmm, not exactly a pretty solution. I would be worried about getting uneven mounting pressure, especially with a delidded chip. Thoughts?
 
Hmmm, not exactly a pretty solution. I would be worried about getting uneven mounting pressure, especially with a delidded chip. Thoughts?

Why would you delid an AM4 chip in the first place when AMD is using expensive soldering of the IHS to get rid of any need to do deliding? I believe that even a maker of deliding tool has shown in his youtube video that there is no need to this.

Deliding became popular simply because intel has cut costs by putting some cheap tooth paste under the IHS since Skylake over usual proper compound that was still used for Haswell.


I know that this is not a pretty solution, but we'll know initially whether it's worth the trouble or not before making an expensive adapter for it.
 
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Can you borrow RAM from someone to do the test? I am very impatient to hear the results :)
 
Can you borrow RAM from someone to do the test? I am very impatient to hear the results :)

ZombiPL has only one stick of DDR4, apart from that we've got tons of DDR3 and DDR2 sticks :|

Also I don't want to go over the whole motherboard transplant back and forth just for a brief moment, I'll wait for my sticks to be returned from RMA, sorry.
 
Why would you delid an AM4 chip in the first place when AMD is using expensive soldering of the IHS to get rid of any need to do deliding? I believe that even a maker of deliding tool has shown in his youtube video that there is no need to this.

Deliding became popular simply because intel has cut costs by putting some cheap tooth paste under the IHS since Skylake over usual proper compound that was still used for Haswell.


I know that this is not a pretty solution, but we'll know initially whether it's worth the trouble or not before making an expensive adapter for it.

...Yeah, I shouldn't post when it's three in the morning. The fact that this was on a Ryzen platform went completely over my head. :p

And no, it doesn't matter if it's pretty or not - just so long as it's effective. :)
 
Got my NH-L9i adapters right now. IMO they didn't do a good RND on this one...

Contents of package:

IMG_20170601_133346404.jpg IMG_20170601_133257443.jpg

And here's why I believe they didn't do good:

IMG_20170601_133824106.jpg

it's 90 degrees vs what I did, so the radiator will try to blow hot air through the ram and motherboard IO or will be really blocked this way instead of blowing air out on one side and moving air above the chipset / M.2 on the other side.

My brackets mounted on the board for comparison:

NH-L9i.jpg

Note the fact that asrock has the AM4 socket mounted the same way.

Looks like the only thing I'll be using here is the backplate. Sigh...
 
I had a bit of time to figure out dirty-ziptie way of mounting the noctua fan on top of T318

IMG_20170607_104450881.jpg IMG_20170607_104506723.jpg IMG_20170607_104534564.jpg IMG_20170607_104541427_HDR.jpg IMG_20170607_104703189.jpg

Nice thing here is that there's plenty of room on the bottom of the radiator on two sides of the socket to grab the fan with zipties. Bad part is that radiator's base is touching directly power section on one corner so I had to slightly go around this.

It's still doable without dedicated brackets :)

Bad news is that I still haven't got my memory from the RMA :/
 
This is how I mounted Noctual fan on AMD Wraith cooler, using plastic-coated wire twist-ties
 

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If you asking me - it's something like 54mm. I use Node 202 for my rig
 
Looks like the only thing I'll be using here is the backplate. Sigh...
I think you can use and the mounting screws, but custom plate need bending both side like Noctua plates and make holes and thread.
This custom plate can be compatible with Cooltek/Thermolab LP53, but mounting holes to heatsink are not the same:
lp53_am4.jpg
Original 90° Noctua version required drilling to heatsink what is not good at all.
 
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