XSPC Rasa: How tight?

[techobrien]

I'm building my i5 machine tonight and am installing the XSPC Rasa. After reading dozens of installation guides (including the one offered by the manufacturer), I have absolutely no idea how tight to make the included bolts. All the way tight? Half-way tight? The instructions say:

Use the lower knurled nut to partly compress the spring and adjust the pressure on the CPU.

Other guides say to tighten until "proper pressure" is achieved. How do I tell what "proper pressure" is? I have no instruments for measuring the pressure of the mount.

I did one test with the recommended amount of TIM and it wasn't spread completely across the CPU, so I'm assuming I need more pressure than that (it was a few turns of each knob).

Thanks in advance

 

[prtuc2]

As far down as your hand can turn it down, so too tight that you need a gear to get it out.

 

[sok0]

I've remounted cpu blocks like 4-5 times on some builds to get the proper pressure/spread of the TIM. I also sometimes boot the computer, and start load testing, then use a screwdriver to slightly tighten the cpu block screws to see if the temps drop any.

 

[techobrien]

Thanks for the input guys. I only ended up redoing it once with a little more TIM and lots more pressure (IC Diamond's website says as much pressure as you can get due to the viscosity ). I did about 1.5 turns on each of the 4 thumb screws, and I marked the starting location of each one so I could be sure to get the same tension on each of the 4 corners. Came back a few hours later after things settled and did another 1/2 turn for 2 full revolutions total.

So far so good! My i5 760 is idling around 27-28 C at stock speeds, dropping down into 25-26 with speedstep enabled (or whatever the i5 equivalent is)(room temp is about 22.7 C).

Cheers.

 

[ohvrolla]

I snagged a Rasa for my i7 950, and yeah the instructions/mount seem a little janky. Block performs good though. 4.3ghz/hyperthreading on with 1.42v and my hottest core is 72 testing with linx. Variance is good ranging from 70-72 as well. Next time I have to mount I'm going to get white out or touch up paint and put a mark on the thumbnuts to make sure they are tightened evenly.