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M17x Retention Mod


Brian

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Ok I'm sure you're all aware of me whining about my CPU temps because even with the TDP set at 70W, if I ran Wprime 1.55 1024MB for over 3 mins, my CPU temps would skyrocket to the 95-97C range. Well I got fed up with it so I gave the CPU retention mod another try AND I bent the heatsink a bit using the sheer force of my superman hands. :lol:

BUT here's where the difference starts: For the CPU retention mod, you can't simply guess and apply 2-3 turns like the GPU mod and think you're set. It's a tricky game of varying the tension between the 4 screws so to gauge which ones needed tightening and which loosening, I put the metal cover back on, connected the xfire cable, kb and control cover and fired up the system with the TDP at 82W and let WPrime 1.55 1024MB fly. With throttlestop giving me real time temperature measurements, I alternated between tightening and loosening the 4 screws until I found the sweet spot. It's very delicate because if one of the screws is overtightened, the CPU temperature goes from say 84C to 97C in 2 seconds! Once I determined the optimal settings, I closed up the system and ran WPrime just now and here's my absolute max temps:

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Note that this CPU retention mod requires removing the c-clips and positioning up top in the same manner the GPU mod works (diagram below).

I used the tool on the right to remove the c-clips on the CPU heatsink:

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Pictorial of how the retention mod should look:

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Temperature measurements with retention mod @ 62W:

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Temperature measurements with retention mod @ 82W:

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Guys...I cant stress how much attention you need to pay when screwing down the heatsink. If you are a NOOB do not even attempt this and just upgrade to high quality paste. If you have experience take your time and LESS is MORE so go easy on tightening and have your computer on while screwing down CPU to get a even load temp and stop when you are ahead before you CRACK that chip.

Edited by faiz23
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  • Founder

X7200 is out of my budget for right now. I will likely pick up an M18x when it's released however. We have a guest contributor writing an R3 article for us, it likely won't be the type of article where the hardware is exploited/modded since it's not my system but it will be a worthwhile read.

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I'm definately going to have to try this, and maybe tommorrow. I bought another heatsink a while back, since the one I was using wouldn't sit quite right due to bending and messing with it, but I think I may take that one out and install it, just to see what I can do with this mod. If you've ever seen Mazdas posts and benchmarks at NBR, he always says no additional cooling, which is possible if his heatsink is on real tight. I'm just not sure how he got so lucky. But I'm going to have to remove the c-clips and see. I need more pressure! May test it with my much less capable 920XM.

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I'm waiting for the money to get some good thermal paste myself. I will probably do the retention mod but I'm hesitant, towers have more room and parts are even smaller and delicate. Those ribbon cables scare me they can tear if they get to much tension on them. But the temp difference would basically make it a completely different computer. Can't pass that up.

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I did a slightly different (and safer, but less effective) cpu clip mod.

I got some washers that fit in the screw gaps, and took off the c-clips. It adds an extra 3-4 mm of pressure distance to the cpu. Dropped my temps maybe 5 degrees C or so.

-Ash

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  • 4 weeks later...

Frustrated with my temps and knowing Dell didn't do a thorough job I decided to do a cleaning myself. It went great thanks to your guide. I didn't have paste to re-paste with so I did everything except repasting the GPU's and CPU or replaced pads. There was plenty of dust to get rid of since my system will be pushing a year old as of July this year. I decided to do a retention mod myself. But will do a better one when i re-paste everything with shin-etsu. I placed cardboard insulating washers made for seating a mother-board to a tower's chassis without grounding out. I cut them straight in from outer edge to the inner circle of the washer so when i was done i had 6 C shaped washers. I did this so I can slide the washers in between tension screws and the retention bracket to create more tension but i didn't remove the existing retention clips. I tightened the screws down first to be sure they were tight. I noticed by the description that tension of these screws as labeled is less as the number goes up. The gpu retention screws labeled 1 are the tightest and need no added tension. Screw 2, 3 and 4 each have subsequently less tension. I placed my fingernail under edge of screw 2 and wedged carefully the washer in place. When I did this i was very careful because you can hear the stress from this tightening as you do this and if your not careful you'll hear as StamatisX calls it... the crack! I proceeded to finish by placing a washer on screw 3 and then screw 4 after screw number 2. So with this guide it wasn't all to hard but before I started it seemed very delicate. I also added tape in the areas described as letting hot air back into system on the heat sinks. So for those looking to do some cleaning you can do retention mod, clean and tape mod even if you don't plan on repasting yet. One thing I noticed that didn't get mentioned in the guide is if you are removing both GPU's in a crossfire setup that you remove the crossfire cable from the first one and leave attached to the second card and you can now unscrew and remove both cards without removing the heat sink from second Gpu to get to the crossfire cable on that card, instead just leave it attached. Thanks for the great guide!

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  • 1 month later...

Hey Ash, I saw on NBR a while back that you cut the ends of the heatsink. Is everything still alright with cards? just wondering if the other parts of the GPU might fry because you removed that metal piece. I have 2 extra heatsinks laying around so I may give it a go.

Also, what size washer did you use? I tried removing the c-clips but i got extremely frustrated :) and decided to stop there before I smash it lol. The washer method seems like a much easier job, would you still need to add paste to the ram chips? or can you just use 0.5mm pads?

Edited by Huuy
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  • 6 months later...

If anyone with a retention mod is reading this, could you please share your thoughts on how it can affect the GPU/CPU long term? I did something similar to my laptop - added a 0.4mm copper shim between my heatsink and GPU/CPU (for a mod I did), then screwed it down, and the pressure definitely increased because of the copper shim. It worked fine, the temperature is lower, too, but I decided to slightly loosen the screws just in case. I wonder if it can damage the GPU or CPU over time, especially since I'm overclocking both.

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If it didn't crack while mounting the heatsink it shouldn't be a problem, even after a longer period. What will degrade the CPU is overclocking, but then again it should still last for a couple of years during which you won't notice any performance drop or similar. (As long as you didn't go crazy with some voltmods and similar... lol)

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Yeah, I just found this thread with a picture of the retention mod, and the pressure is definitely much higher than on my heatsink, so I should be fine. I'll screw it back fully during summer, right now it's pretty cool and it works fine. I actually undervolted the chip (it's an FX 770M, g96m core) AND overclock it by 110/170 Mhz core/shader, it's not overheating or anything...

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  • 1 year later...

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