Motherboard Preperations

Our test recipient is going to be one of the worlds best SLI mother-boards on the market, the DFI nF4 SLI-DR. This motherboard is going to need a few coats of conformal coating to seal off its components around the critical areas surrounding the CPU socket. Conformal coating is a tough durable acrylic laquer that provides protection and insulates printed circuit boards. This will prevent condensation from causing shorts on the mainboard, corrosion and product failure.

We are using 3M painters tape, by using this tape we are going to make it easy on ourselves because this blue tape offers a great seal while allowing easy pull off and removal after spraying on the coating. The first thing we will do is protect the 939 pins from contamination from the conformal coating over-spray and wrap it in blue tape.

Continuing on with the surrounding area's, I tapped off the rest of the board to ensure that no over-spray will effect the connections and sockets of the main-board. The picture on the upper right shows the area that will receive the conformal coating.

The backside is a bit easier in that we only had to tape off the square area around the backside of the CPU socket and we left a drain field, so that if by any chance the condensation builds up enough to ensure a droplet of water the run off direction will be safe because of the fact we protected the drip area. While this is a slim chance, we aren't taking any chances, Swiftech recommends it so we will do so.

The conformal coating is now going to be applied, making sure there are no holes and leaks in the tape, we will now go ahead and apply three coats in 20 minute intervals, which means re-coat the board three times which will take an hour to complete. Now that the conformal coating had time to dry, (24 hours later) we are satisfied with the results and we will now proceed with prepping the CPU.

Swiftech includes Luberex Dielectric grease, what's Luberex Dielectric grease you ask? Well it is a super lubricant that is totally non-conductive that provides protection to solid state components and other circuitry (Printed Circuit Boards). We installed the gasket on the main-board and stuffed plenty of Luberex Dielectric grease into all of the 939 pins to ensure corrosion from condensation will not cause the CPU to corrode to the socket over time.

Installing the neoprene gasket sticky side down, we installed the base gasket that will insulate the thermoelectric cooler. Once we installed the gasket, I smeared the Luberex Dielectric grease into the socket and around the outer edges in into the gaps between the neoprene gasket and the entire socket assembly, once completed I stuffed the CPU and lined up the CPU mounting bracket.

At this point we are ready to apply the CPU silicon thermal compound directly onto the CPU. I was not shy about how much we applied, since the entire socket is protected by a neoprene gasket and dialectric grease, I wanted to make sure every little area between the two joining surfaces are saturated with compound.

Now it's almost time to installed the thermoelectric cooler onto the DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR mother-board. I used a piece of tape to temporarily hold the CPU back plate to the bottom side of the mother-board and was able to line up the top bracket, which is the yellow square CPU bracket assembly we see above. Let's mount the thermoelectric cooler.

Secure the MCW5002-64T cooler to the motherboard by alternatively and gradually tightening the 2 retention screws. Done deal! Now you get the picture as to why the instructions call for a base gasket and why we used dialectic grease to fill in the cracks and crevices. The thermoelectric cooler has joining neoprene insulation surrounding the thermoelectric cooler to make a complete seal from outside air, this help prevents the condensation build up when the cooler reaches temperatures at near freezing.

The thermoelectric cooler is now installed and ready for a new home. Our configuration is going to consist of using the Thermaltale Armor series case. But before we do, I will double check the thermoelectric cooler to make sure it is flat to the CPU and the fasteners are tightened to specifications - Just completed the double check and now we are headed for the installation.