Hello old Ryzen builders thread! What good is a builders thread without some posts about teardowns? I just got finished decommissioning my R7 1800x to make ready for R9 3900x. Not much to report here (other than the fact that I lost my box for my BPX NVMe SSD, grr) until I got to the CPU. I had considered leaving the HSF mounted so I could just pop board + CPU + HSF with a known-good mount into another case someday for a new build. Now I'm glad I didn't.
This setup has been up and running mostly-untouched (only hauled it out to the garage for dusting 2 times) since late March 2017 when I got my eBay Taichi for $317 (ouch). It was my first time using Conductonaut. I was familiar enough with the Noctua mounting system than installing the NH-d15 was mostly painless.
I was expecting greyish crust all over the CPU and HSF when I unmounted the HSF ala CLU. Oh no, that's not what Conductonaut does.
It stays liquid.
Well, mostly. There was a cloudy streak down the middle of the IHS where apparently there was maximum contact. Or something. I saw the same streak reflected on the HSF base. It was nickel->nickel contact (no lapped surfaces) so aside from the streak there was no particular adhesion to the nickel surfaces. In retrospect I should have lapped CPU + HSF to at least see if Conductonaut would "corrupt" copper (and stick to it better).
The other thing is does is pump out.
I saw several (at least three) large dollops of Condoctonaut that had vacated the space between IHS and HSF base that rolled down the side of the IHS and just . . . stayed there, on the edge of the CPU pcb. Only a tiny bit got onto the board in an irrelevant location. Thankfully. I managed to sort-of roll some of the excess back onto the IHS with a coffee filter before removing the CPU from its socket. A tiny bit almost got onto the CPU pins, but I rolled it away with another coffee filter. Another tiny bit got onto the edge of the socket . . . but not into any of the pinouts.
At least theoretically board + CPU should work for someone else.
Kinda makes me wonder if I should use Conductonaut again. The contact pattern it exhibited matches the two-screw retention mechanism for the Noctua well-enough that I guess I shouldn't be surprised it behaved as it did. I have Kryonaut handy if I need it. The funny thing is the Conductonaut mount cooled so well for over two years, and yet it certainly looks like I got only partial contact between IHS and HSF for who-knows-how-long.
Anyway, farewell 1800x. You were a revolution two years ago. Hopefully I'll find a good home for you. Think I got a nice one where you can run stock for who knows how many years, without those loud fans attached. You get to stay with that top-bin b-die RAM too, and in your old Taichi motherboard. And maybe even the BPX but we'll see.