Installation
Contents
So far, so good. The Titan Siberia looks like an awesome CPU cooler. Then we installed it on our testbed computer (as you see in Figures 12 and 13) with the backplate on the solder side of the motherboard and thumbscrews (and plastic washers) on the component side.
Figure 12: Solder side
Figure 13: Component side
We finished installing the cooler and powered up the computer. A few seconds later, the computer just powered off itself, along with the unpleasant smell of burned circuitry.
We checked the computer and, after some tests, concluded that the motherboard was dead. The reason was the poorly insulated backplate from the Titan, as you can see in Figure 14. This backplate is too big, and the black plastic insulators are too small, leaving the edges of the backplate uncovered. Unfortunately, we didn’t notice that the backplate was touching a small SMD component on the solder side of the motherboard.
Figure 14: Backplate
As a result of that incorrectly designed piece, we had to buy a new motherboard and build a new computer for testing coolers and, since it is impossible to compare temperature results taken on two different setups, we had to reset our comparative chart. We retested some coolers, but it was impossible to retest all the models we already reviewed. Since we had to replace the motherboard, we decided to update our testbed. Its configuration is described in the next section of this review.
For testing the Siberia cooler on our new computer, we glued some insulating tape on the backplate before installing it. We also had to rotate it 90 degrees from its correct position, because it was still pressing some SMD components.
Figure 15 shows the Siberia installed on our new testing computer.
Figure 15:
Cooler installed
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