once i get a gpu, sure. and a decent cooler too
but the good news is, i bought the cpu as a package with the mobo. so i KNOW for sure that the mobo could handle being sqeezed dry to the point that it killed the proc. (trying to be optimistic here, i’m still fucking salty)
yes, that’s why i tend to do most of the stuff i can, early on, because i know myself, once i said that “one day”, it will never come 
Very nice setup - I need to reinvest in my own rig soon. It’s going on 4 years old now.
finally got a decent cooler installed. fuck that used stock cooler was literally figuratively cancer.
what i mean by that is, for some stupid reason, it made the mobo spaz out and set the average vcore on 1.4-1.58v range, and because of i thought it was only momentary, i used the ‘thermal paste’ i already have in my house. a 5 gram cheapskate thermal paste that costs $0.3. a paste i bought not for a processor in mind, by for my past experiments with a peltier component.
(which i figured out later on, was not the case. it did revert back to 1.1-1.2v after i just installed the new cooler. but after a while i opened cpu-z. and it’s back to 1.4-1.5+ again. at least it’s not overheating this time. it’s idling at 50-ish degrees with me typing this in firefox. not yet overclocked)
that was a deadly combination that forced my to fork out money earlier than i planned for this new cooler. but boy am i glad i did it.
anyway, while at it, i tried to do an unboxing. pardon the shit picture quality, it was taken with a 3yo+ smartphone that never had the best camera to start with.
first, the box itself.
first thing i noticed was there is no seal stickers or anything that says, this will void guarantee or anything.
just a simple but tasteful cinematic styled picture on the front.
nothing special on the back, just the full specification. that is until i later noticed there’s no other documentation about the product.
2 words. budget cuts
the top
in case you can’t read it because of the light glare.
right side.
just some marketing features and stuff. except for that 4 minute installation bullshit. it took me the best part of an hour. granted, it was my first time installing a cooler that is not a stock cooler.
left side.
nothing to see here.
the stuff inside.
everything inside…
the cooler unit, with the fan attached
back plate,
thermal paste,
manual an warranty card,
a bracket,
a few bracket nuts
or at least that’s what i first thought… until i actually tried to install it
WHERE’S THE FREAKING BOLTS FOR THE NUTS?!?!?!?!?!?
<img src="/uploads/default/original/4X/9/0/9/9099f7e20c9cdf3eab20c92d6bdaae06a9ea9300.jpg"width=“281” height=“500”>
these fucking little motherfuckers made me go fetch a warranty claim that needed a 2 hour round trip… twice, with the last return trip required me to go through a flooded area for almost 1km. and not a ‘puddle flood’, i’m talking it’s up to my thigh deep when i’m on my bike.
the price for the fuel to fetch this alone is now about almost 15% of the whole price of the cooler itself.
FML
anyway, continuing on.
the backplate. made of pretty sturdy thick plastic. it felt relatively well built.
the quirk i found here is, the backplate is designed for both intel and amd brackets, just flip it and you can use the other side for the other platform.
yet i bought the M9i model, which is the intel only model which includes intel brackets.
and there’s another one, a M9a model for AMD, which only included amd brackets.
but why would they separate them? is it really budget cuts? are they really penny pinching that hard on this product? i just couldn’t come with a good conclusion.
the cooler unit itself.
the front.
nothing special ere.
the right side.
if you have a keen eye, you may have noticed that on the top left most. the top fin got a little bit of a bent.
but after that warranty claim, it’s actually gone. i don’t actually know if they replaced the unit or just fixed it.
and i also thought that on the top right side, also on the top fin, there’s another bend. which turns out that one was intended, as designed when i looked from the other side. you could also see the center part of the top fin is also bent up on the pic below
nothing special on the left side.
top side.
now the aesthetic plastic topping since the other part felt quite solid so far, this part is a bit dissapointing, it felt super cheap and brittle. i needed to take car not to break it.
again. budget cuts.
another little quirk i found interesting.
the outer pipe have a blunt/flat tip, but the center pipe has a rounder and ‘normal’-ish tip
quirks i found while trying to install.
i got annoyed halfway through installing it that i forgot to take more pictures.
so i figured you’re supposed to put the bolts to fit the grooves. eh, nothing special here though
you can see there’s 2 etches near the top of the bolt, combine it with the ‘lock’ on screw side on the backplace
made this possible
no need to hold the bolts in it’s place when installing…
or so i thought, it wasn’t strong enough that when i try to install the bracket it fell off anyway.
a rollercoaster of amazement and dissapointment. i literally said “well that’s quite pointless” to myself.
while trying to figure out the cable management, i found that the cable is both small enough to get by the crevices between the fan and the heatsink through the fan clips, and are just the perfect length to to through all that and get to the cpu fan header plug
i meant this
by this part, i was either annoyed or just forgot more pictures. it was just progress on me installing the damn thing and not the unboxing anyway.
so it included a manual
simplified it says this
→ put bolts through backplate and mobo
→ install the nuts that secure the brackets
→ install the heatsink to the bracket and fasten it.
and it’s supposed to take about 4 minutes overall
simple right?
yeah. i wish.
here’s a timeline of what i really did. and although i know you’re suggested to install it before the mobo goes in. but since it’s an upgrade and not a build from the start, i tried to install it in the case. nope, didn’t work.
→ put bolts through backplate and mobo still inside the case (time consumed: 30 secs)
→ try to figure out which of the 3 holes i’m supposed to put the bolt through while trying to fasten it because the manual doesn’t say anything (time consumed: 5 minutes)
→ trying to remove the damn fan clips (time consumed:3 minutes)
→ test install the tower before i actually apply thermal paste and figure out that the bolts are not long enough to reach let alone install the tower (time consumed: 7 minutes)
→ keep trying (time consumed: 15 minutes)
→ give up and finally take the motherboard out the case and install it out of the case (time consumed: 2 minutes)
→ keep trying to the point where i almost bent the mobo (time consumed: 10 minutes)
→ finally used my brain and loosen up the bracket nuts so the bracket could be moved slightly up to let the tower bolts up to the bracket (time consumed: 5 minutes)
→ figured out that works, take it apart again since that was only a test install, and now try to apply thermal paste (time consumed:1 minutes)
→ trying to figure out why the thermal paste wont come out of the syringe, thinking it clogged up, but thermal paste isn’t supposed to be able to harden, only to figure out that i’m even dumber than i thought and the black end part of the syringe needed to be removed. i thought the black end part was the part that supposed to make the thermal paste come out neater. (time consumed:3 minutes)
→ actually installing the tower properly to the bracket and fasten the tower via the bracket nuts instead of via the tower bolts like the manual says. (time consumed: 2 minutes)
→ install the mobo and everything back in the case, install the fan, route the cable and plug it and everything else, basicly the most productive part of the installation → install the fan, route the cabling, and (time consumed: 4 minutes)
→ plug the power back in and hope my mojo works and turn it on. (time consumed: 30secs)
VOILA, IT ACTUALLY WORKS ON THE FIRST TRY!!!
ALL HEIL WHOEVER MADE THIS THING WORK FIRST TIME AROUND.
soo how i’m suppsed to install it is exactly the OPPOSITE of what the manual told to do. at least the order of it.
anyway. finished result
also 1 more thing
included extras are, extra clips for another fan and… 2 small strips of rubber?
what’s the rubber for??
1.58v is seriously bad for the cpu. Could be a wrong reading though, otherwise it would probably overheat on that cooler. What does it say in the bios?
For overclocking I’d go maximum for the 1.35 to 1.4v-range if the cooling can handle it.
Putting it between the cooler and a fan, to prevent vibrations.
i know. but i sorta sorted that out, somehow, i dunno how.
but now, i found another problem. it’s relatively unstable even at stock speed with turbos disabled
couldn’t even finish 5 runs of level ‘high’ on the intel burn test software. and even when i’m watching the vcore and temps, and nothing seems out of place. after the third run it just self-shutdown like it’s terminally overheated. which it isn’t. although it did get up to 80-ish degrees, that’s still plenty far from the limit though
No idea on that, does upping the vcore by .05v fix it?
well that’s the problem too.
even after googling, i could not find what’s the equivalent of vcore on my mobo bios?
there’s no vcore, no VID, and the closest thing i could find is VCCIO, which is a different thing.
CPU Voltage
Core Voltage
…
Is there anything like that?
nein
It seems that on your motherboard you can’t set a fixed vcore. Is there an offset voltage setting?
@koolkei I feel bad for your troubles. An insanely annoying cpu cooler and Vcore problems. Ouch.
My Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus was not nearly as bad to put in as your experience was. I put it on an AMD FX 8320.
I hope you’re troubles are over once you fix the Vcore problems.
i posted my problem here (hey, another discourse forum :P)
along with the pictures on the bios… nothing. the only offset setting available are for the iGPU.
why would i care about that, i don’t know
https://forum.teksyndicate.com/t/2500k-p8z68m-pro-vcore-problem/104298
@findRED19 it better be… or i’m gonna bust my nuts…
but there might still be another source of problem to come… the GPU. it’s still running on the iGPU, and i was planning for either an HD7970 or the R9 380. but since i’m holding it off much longer than i originally planned, i might as well wait for the RX 470 to come out here. hoping it won’t give me more problem.
What the other forum user said:
“Turn off the auto overclocking ( AI tuner)”
That would have been my second step in the bios, first being resorting all settings to default.
yeahhhhh that didn’t do anything much
Can you post a screenshot of the “OC Tuner” menu? This is where the stuff you need should be.
it’s not a menu. if i choose it, it just pops up a sub-menu that says yes or no.
i tried it before it made the the clocks go up to 43 i think? but also push up the bclk to 103, and the iGPU to 1350.
In the Advanced category there’s also nothing about voltages?
I really got no idea why you don’t have those options available …
nothing. all the neccesary options are on the ai tweaker tab.
i got the vcore option opened already. but that still leaves the overvoltage and instability problem
