I'm not a fan of these heavy big HSF fans. I was listening to music on my silent HTPC and I started to hear a buzz. At first I thought maybe a piece of wire touched my fan or it was the HDD. My drives are suspended so it wasn't that. I only have one exhaust fan and there are no wires next to it. Piece by piece I dismantled my computer. Eventually all I had left was the motherboard and cpu cooler. I took it out of the case and inspected the back, the neoprene on the top was compressed razor thin (bottom edge was OK). This was gravity at work, compressed by torque of the tall HSF. It turns out the solder pins on the DS3 punctured the neoprene and was touching metal. It made something on the motherobard buzz. Good thing I was around since i leave my puters on 24/7. I probably would have come home to a burning computer.
So I did two things: 1) Snipped the pins as closely to the solder being careful not to weaken the joint and 2) Added some plastic between the metal bracket and motherboard (not covering the pins) to prevent the pins from puncturing into the metal.
The size of air HSF are getting ridiculous. Not to mention how much of a PITA it is to install a motherboard. I had to remove my PSU just to remove/fasten the top left screw on the motherboard. Why are reviews on HSF with the motheboard on a flat surface instead of the motherboard in a tower case where the weight and fastening mechanism of the HSF affects good contact. I helped a friend put together his computer with an Ultra-120 Extreme, not worth it IMHO. I thought my Big Typhoon was big. You better have have a desktop case instead of a tower. HORRIBLE mounting. My Big Typhoon outperformed it no doubt due to the poor contact of Ultra-120.
So I did two things: 1) Snipped the pins as closely to the solder being careful not to weaken the joint and 2) Added some plastic between the metal bracket and motherboard (not covering the pins) to prevent the pins from puncturing into the metal.
The size of air HSF are getting ridiculous. Not to mention how much of a PITA it is to install a motherboard. I had to remove my PSU just to remove/fasten the top left screw on the motherboard. Why are reviews on HSF with the motheboard on a flat surface instead of the motherboard in a tower case where the weight and fastening mechanism of the HSF affects good contact. I helped a friend put together his computer with an Ultra-120 Extreme, not worth it IMHO. I thought my Big Typhoon was big. You better have have a desktop case instead of a tower. HORRIBLE mounting. My Big Typhoon outperformed it no doubt due to the poor contact of Ultra-120.