A8n-sli premium : Is backplate glued on?

[Tip Top]

Is the backplate for the heatsink to the Asus a8n-sli premium glued on or not?
When I saw it, I thought it looked really solid with some sort of black stuff, but it did not occur to me that it might just be that the black stuff is to issolate the metal backplate. I thought the black stuff might also be glue. It is all screwed together really tight.

So the question is , has anyone unscrewed the front bracket and seen whether the backplate and this black stuff falls off. Or is all glued back there?

 

[jolly1jumper]

it`s glued, why do you want to remove it?

 

[Dragon41673]

If you mean the one for the CPU HSF...no it is not glued on

 

[marciorr]

I have it removed, it's not glue, it's some thermal compound, but it's sticky. If you gentle lift one side it can be removed.
I was removing mine to install an Akasa Evo33 cooler wich later I discover was not necessary. The back plate fit in the cooler perfectly.
If you still want to remove it, be very carefull to not damage the board.
It's a little scary but can be done. Good luck.

 

[Tip Top]

I was looking into alternate heatsinks, and some seem to like to use their own backplate.
But, I think the stock backplate could be used in many of the heatsinks -- but maybe not all.

My impression was that it was glued on, but I never loosened the 2 screws so , I never really knew.

Thanks for the replies,
it sounds like it is loosly glued on?


Do you have to use a tool to gently lift a corner of it? Or can you get it started with a finger tip?
Does it take a lot of force to do the job and that is why you say be gentle?
Or does it nicely, gently come off?

marciorr:
I am private messaging you because I have a question about you lightscribe drive.

 

[marciorr]

I said "gentle" because it took me a little time to understand what was going on there. I just unscrew the plate and start to force it off with my finger tips. At fisrt looks like it was glued, but suddenly one side made a sound (like when you pull a scoth tape off...) and start to lift. I was afraid that I could damage the board trails, but hopefully everything is ok, but the sound is still in my head giving me nigthmares. My advice is, if your cooler fit in the original back plate, leave it there. If not, do it in a very calm way, alone, in a quiet room and replace the back plate for the one that came with your cooler.
I think that Asus know that almost everybody uses third part coolers, and makes no sense put a plate that can't be removed, but you should know that under the original back plate there is 3 or 4 resistors that are above the board surface, thats why the thermal compound exists. A rigid back plate would not fit perfectly over this resistors unless you put something between the plate and the board.

 

[Tip Top]

That is a really informative post and makes some sense.
I noticed when putting on the stock heatsink, that I had to put quiet a bit of force on it, to get the latches to latch. Initially, I did not have quite the right touch, and i made all sorts of crunchy crinkly scraping noises. Later I got a better touch and it sort of slipped in with only moderate force. I thought maybe some came from the standoff screws scraping in their holes, but I think some came from the motherboard itself. Maybe some of that sound is from the juncture of what you were calling the thermal compound spacer stuff.

Are the resistors in a straight line that could be drawn between the 2 screws, or do they go in a circuitous path aroudn the perimeter.

The backplate I was thinkin of using goes straight across..

I think I will stay away maybe from removing that, as that would make my heart drop if the sounds I heard just mounting the stock thing were just a taste.


By the way, are you able to get all 4 sticks at a time to run 1T command rate with your processor? Are they all single sided sticks. Could venice do that or is that more advanced x2 core or something like that?

Thanks.

 

[marciorr]

The resistor are around the perimeter, not in line.
I'm not running 1T, this can't be done with 4 sticks populated, I have to use 2T. This is a limitation of the Athlon64 processor, you can use 1T only with 2 sticks populated. I really don't remember if my RAM is single or double sided, but I think that you can find this information on the OCZ site.

 

[Whiznot]

I have heard that a credit card can be used to gently pry off stubborn backplates without harming the MB.