Anybody Else Have This Problem with Gigabyte DS3R ?

[Midnight Rambler]

I really am developing some serious "hate" for these idiotic motherboard design engineers who seem to have little regard for "usable" board layouts.

Anyhow, to the problem ... as noted in the topic, I cannot plug in my PSU's 4-pin ATX12V connector as the motherboard socket is blocked by my HSF. OK, we'll try another HSF ... still the socket is obstructed.

HSF's tried so far ... Zerotherm BTF90 & Zalman 9500LED. Haven't tried the stock cooler but it looks to have the same problem. PSU is a Corsair HX620. I've tried bending/kinking the 4-pin connector's cable, and as close to the connector as possible, but I've still got at least a 1/2 inch interference and that's assuming I can get the connector fully seated. In other words, if I pull the HSF to be able to make the connection, when I attempt to re-install the HSF I will not be able to fully seat it.

I bought this board because, initially, I thought it had a decent layout ... still does except for this one glaring problem.

 

[lopri]

I didn't understand what you're saying at first because the location of 4-pin looked very typical. On a closer inspection, I noticed that the connector is like in between the CPU heat sink mounting hole. Then I understood why. Ideally they should have pushed it farther towards the back plate or pulled it closer to memory slots.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

yea i have the same problem with my DS3P but its not blocked off by the CPU Heatsink, its blocked off by the Gigabyte Heatsink on the voltage regulator? i dunno what the heatsink is exactly cooling, but it is blocking 4 pins out of the 8... so i only have 4 pins plugged in now. i dunno if that actually has any effect on my system tho.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

I woulda said using only 4 of the 8 pins might have an effect on system stability, esp. if you're OC'ing, but apparently you're having no problems with that quad.

Not sure what to do at this point, as with this crappy design location of the 4-pin socket I don't see how any cooler will "clear" the socket. The Zerotherm BTF90 is very flexible as far as which direction you can mount it, much more so than the Zalman, but the only direction that even partially clears the 4-pin socket is with the fan blowing down (towards the bottom of case), which would just lead to even more pooling of heat around the North Bridge as well as my video card. Tried stock Intel cooler just for fun and it's no better as far as clearance.

With the popularity of this DS3R board on the AT forums I am very surprised this issue has not arisen sooner. Perhaps most of the "fans" who recommend this board have never actually used it ? My bad for not noticing this socket location problem before ordering but this will definitely be my first and last Gigabyte board as way too many of their board designs have the same problem I have described (or the similar issue LOUISSSSS pointed out).

Building your own is getting to be way too much of a hassle these days. That new iMac with the 24" display that I test drove at BB is getting a lot more tempting ... if they just had a decent mouse for the thing.

Edit : Apparently Gigabyte engineers aren't the only ones smokin' things. Asus, among others, has equally crappy board location for their 4/8 pin sockets. DFI boards look to offer more room ...

 

[VirtualLarry]

I had no problems with my DS3R v1.0, and a HyperTX2 cooler.

 

[PinkPanther1970]

No problem here with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro and the EP35-DS3 motherboard.
It's a tight fit, but it works.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

I can see how the AC and CM coolers would work but only because the HS profile does not extend out (much) beyond its four mounting points.

Nice coolers but I detest the push-pin mounting system.

 

[PinkPanther1970]

Originally posted by: Midnight Rambler
I detest the push-pin mounting system.

I know what you mean.
At a certain moment I thought I was going to break the motherboard with all the pressure I had to put on it in order to get those pins right.
Everything turned out OK though; system started up without a problem; tonight I'm installing XP.

 

[DSF]

I have a DS3L and the BTF-90. It was a tight fit, but it wasn't impossible on the DS3L. Looking at Newegg's birds-eye pictures of the two boards, the DS3L's 4-pin jack is ever-so-slightly closer to the rear ports than the DS3R. I imagine that's why you're having more trouble than I did.

Is it possible you could hook the 4-pin connector up outside the case where you have more room to play with, and then lower the motherboard in?

 

[gorobei]

I have the p965 ds3 and the 4pin plug is pretty similar. My noctua and TR Ultima90 tower coolers don't have any clearance problems, but since its easier to mount it out of the case it leaves little space for my hand to plug in the 4pin once the m/b is in the case. Using the tips of my index and middle fingers to position and press the 4pin plug in is nearly impossible. My solution is to unscrew the power supply and slide it forward towards the drive bays. I then reach in through the psu opening in the backpanel of the case and connect the 4 pin. Slide the psu back and I'm done. Having the better angle and more leverage makes a ton of difference.

Are you doing all this with the m/b in or out of the case?

Also, is there sleeving on the 4pin plug cable? You could cut the sleeve back. The individual wires of the cable should bend at a tighter angle than a sleeved bundle.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

I almost always install HSF's with the mobo out of case. And in this case, since the BTF90 uses a backplate, I definitely had the mobo out.

The "meat" of the issue is that even if I can plug in and fully seat the 4-pin connector from my PSU (see how below ...), there is still so much interference between the connector and the fins of the HSF that I cannot fully seat the HSF, about 3/8 in. more "travel" is needed to seat it. And 3/8 in. is about the height of the connector _above_ the socket once it's fully seated.

As for sleeving on the PSU's 4-pin lead, that indeed makes it difficult to bend the wiring bundle but that's not keeping me from making the connection - I also used a 4-pin ATX12V extension cable just to get around the "sleeving" issue.

NewEgg won't RMA it either, at least not without the restocking fee. Looks like an expensive $125 "lesson" at this point.

Between this new PC build and the absolute CRAP Pioneer plasma I bought/am stuck with, it hasn't been a good year so far for me with electronics.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Welp, the "problem" is over, sorta ...

One more time I installed the BTF90, this time blowing downward, even though that's not ideal/correct. At least the 4-pin socket would be clear.

Unfortunately, when I tightened down the HSF I crushed several caps in the process which I could not see beforehand as they were obscured by the cooler.

I'm off to listen to some Albert King ... "Born Under A Bad Sign"

 

[VirtualLarry]

Does anyone know if the Tuniq Tower has this problem on the DS3R? Or on any of the Gigabyte boards?

 

[lenjack]

Mine and a Zalman 9500 was a tight fit, but no real problem.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Well, seems I got a bit lucky, the caps are only dented a bit. After mellowing out a bit I decided to fire the thing up and see what happened. Nothing spectacular, thankfully.

Still, I didn't want to leave the thing this way so I pulled the BTF90 again in preparation to do some serious modding, mini tin snips in hand. But before I hacked the thing up I decided to call Zerotherm's T.S. to see if they had had any similar reports of this issue. Great T.S. rep there, Chris, took note of the problem and said that yes they had had some reports of clearance issues but not with just one particular motherboard vs. others. He did take a quick look at some pics of various Gigabyte boards and agreed that the 4-pin socket was very badly located. Then I told him what I planned to do re: cutting some clearance in the HS fins. He said that this would void the HSF warranty (WOW, the thing has a 3yr. warranty !) but that since the clearance problem was not of my doing he would send me a replacement cooler in case this one failed. I don't see how this would be, but what the hey, I've got another BTF90 on the way free of charge.

I ended up snipping about 5mm worth of material off each of the first 20 or so layers of fins from the left upper tip of the "butterfly" wing. The cooler installed OK and it now clears the North Bridge as well. The only downside is I am blowing the fan's exhaust upward in to my PSU as well as the top of the case. Not exactly optimum ...

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: Midnight Rambler
Well, seems I got a bit lucky, the caps are only dented a bit. After mellowing out a bit I decided to fire the thing up and see what happened. Nothing spectacular, thankfully.

Still, I didn't want to leave the thing this way so I pulled the BTF90 again in preparation to do some serious modding, mini tin snips in hand. But before I hacked the thing up I decided to call Zerotherm's T.S. to see if they had had any similar reports of this issue. Great T.S. rep there, Chris, took note of the problem and said that yes they had had some reports of clearance issues but not with just one particular motherboard vs. others. He did take a quick look at some pics of various Gigabyte boards and agreed that the 4-pin socket was very badly located. Then I told him what I planned to do re: cutting some clearance in the HS fins. He said that this would void the HSF warranty (WOW, the thing has a 3yr. warranty !) but that since the clearance problem was not of my doing he would send me a replacement cooler in case this one failed. I don't see how this would be, but what the hey, I've got another BTF90 on the way free of charge.

I ended up snipping about 5mm worth of material off each of the first 20 or so layers of fins from the left upper tip of the "butterfly" wing. The cooler installed OK and it now clears the North Bridge as well. The only downside is I am blowing the fan's exhaust upward in to my PSU as well as the top of the case. Not exactly optimum ...

Wow, nice to know ZeroTherm's customer service is on the ball like that in case I have any trouble. Glad you got it worked out, even if the solution wasn't optimal. You would think motherboard manufacturers would see problems like that coming. I dunno, maybe there's just so much that has to fit on a motherboard that something's gotta give.

 

[gorobei]

Glad it worked out for you. Maybe you should orient it blowing to the back and just snip some more fins if ZT is going to send you a spare.

It isn't necessarily GB or any m/b makers fault. They really only have to make sure it works with the stock intel h/s. Making sure it works with all h/s out there is impossible.
I suspect the btf90 is an older model, and the btf92 or nirvana120 probably fit just fine. You should look at the h/s maker site before you buy since they usually have a list of compatible and incompatible boards.

Sometimes you just cant use older parts on newer ones.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

The problem is Gigabyte's fault, not the HSF makers'. Also, I think this board is slightly smaller than normal for a full ATX board, so that probably added to their design problem. As for the BTF80/90/92/95, it is a fairly new series of HSFs, and AFAIK, all share the same dimensions. Instead, take a look at some pics of the board and you will see what the root cause is - they located the 4-pin nearly within the boundaries of the 4 HSF mounting holes on the motherboard. The stock Intel cooler will barely even clear it, coming close to the right, bottom-most pin hole of the socket.

I'll take some responsibility for not noticing this ahead of time but I've never seen the problem before (and have been "wrapping my own" since 80386 days). But even if I had noticed, without every relevant dimension from the motherboard and the HSF it would've been extremely hard to do any sort of "fit analysis".

The story gets better though ... me and my "friend" the wire EDM machine at my workplace did some "prototype" work this afternoon, making mounting brackets. I'm now happily exhausting out the back. Plus I made an extra bracket for Chris at Zerotherm as well. Maybe he'll send me a Nirvana too ... hee hee.

 

[cpemma]

I've the DS3L (which looks to have the 4-pin in exactly the same spot) and a Ninja B, the only real problems were getting my hand in to plug in (I had to remove the top fan in the Antec P182) and the fact that my Seasonic's lead (older S12-430 model) was a tight stretch. The difficult part will be unplugging the lead.

 

[Cykoth]

I've noticed that this board is rather "scruntched" up as well. I just recently purchased the P35-DS3R to replace the POS Asus Striker II Formula that I used to have....

I was able to plug up the 4-pin power connector on the board, but not without seriously bending/forming the cable to reach. My PSU is the Antec Truepower Quattro 850, and it is truly a wonderful piece of design. I have the QX9650 Extreme CPU and it's MASSIVE retail heatsink. I had just enough clearance to get the power connector in...but It gave me another problem. I have the Corsair XMS2 memory with the heatsinks......and I cannot put a mem card in the 1st bank. The CPU heatsink completely blocks it. So instead of running with the 4 Gigs I purchased, I'm running with 2. BUT. At least I'm running now! No more lock ups or freezes. No more overheating issues.


Cyko

 

[Midnight Rambler]

We really need to start a "sticky" thread here at AT which lists HSF and motherboard compatibility / "friendliness" ...

 

[LOUISSSSS]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Does anyone know if the Tuniq Tower has this problem on the DS3R? Or on any of the Gigabyte boards?

my tuniq is working great on the DS3P

 

[inverse]

YES!! This was the worse part of building my new rig. I literally spent 1 hour trying to connect the 4-pin the mobo. And I'm using a Tuniq Tower and P182 case so theres fans above and to the left of the massive HS. There was about a 1CM clearance to get my hand between the HS and the fans. I had to remove the side fan and even then I could only manuever 2 fingers in there. I had to use my fingers like chopsticks and it was the most difficult build I have ever experienced.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Does anyone know if the Tuniq Tower has this problem on the DS3R? Or on any of the Gigabyte boards?

GA-P35-DS3R v1.0 + Tuniq blowing toward rear = very tight fit, but OK once installed

However, that was nothing compared to connecting the 4-pin w/ a GeminII cooler in a CM-690 case where top exhaust fans are right next to the top of the motherboard. Even with the 2x120mm fan rack off, I had to use a pair of pliers + flat-edge screwdriver, a flashlight (in my mouth), and tilt the case on my knee so gravity was in my favor.

Unscrewing the motherboard would've been too easy.

But still ... Gigabyte should've put the 4-pin CPU power connector somewhere else.