Disappointed by 212X Dual Fan CPU cooler

[suchamoneypit]

So I recently bought 2, 212X dual fan coolers for my dual Xeon server. The heat-sinks themselves work great; once they are installed, after a 16 hour CPU and RAM stress tests the CPUs held a solid 53-56 C. What I have a huge complaint about was installation of the extra fans. For one, these fans do not come pre-installed, you do it yourself, and my experience doing so was awful. 

 

First off, the fan connects by screwing on some plastic brackets which then clip on to the side of the heat sink. The holes which I was supposed to screw in a screw to secure the brackets were not threaded. On both coolers, two packages, the holes were straight through. How do I thread in this screw then? Well I tried, and the holes are either too small or the screws were too big on top of this. There was nowhere for the thread to go. After 40 minutes of desperately trying, I realized it was not happening and I certainly was not getting the screws flush with the surface for proper installation and certainly not happening 8 times, and was forced to hot glue the brackets on and completely ignored the proper installation (which worked great). I get that more difficult and universal installation is the price you pay getting a budget oriented cooler, but mine was literally impossible to install the correct way.

 

Also on a side note, the manual also instructed not to use some extenders to install the cooler on a 2011 socket, which I found impossible and had to use the extenders to get the coolers on anyways.

[dragoon20005]

that is an odd situation you encounter

 

I am running the Hyper 212X too but only 1 fan and yes the pack should have the proper screws for mounting the second fan with the clip.

 

IMO the 212X runs great with just one fan already.

 

adding the second fan only drop the overall temps by 1 to 2 degrees

[suchamoneypit]

10 hours ago, dragoon20005 said:

that is an odd situation you encounter

 

I am running the Hyper 212X too but only 1 fan and yes the pack should have the proper screws for mounting the second fan with the clip.

 

IMO the 212X runs great with just one fan already.

 

adding the second fan only drop the overall temps by 1 to 2 degrees

well you are paying for the extra fan, paying for the extra fan and then not being able to even install it is a problem that needs to be addressed. For me spending the extra for the dual fans and then giving up and not installing them wasn't an option.

[NumLock21]

A lot think the 212x is new but its not. They came out with the 212evo, and it was only sold in some regions. They just made it available in us, about 2 years

Or so later.

 

[WoodenMarker]

The screws are self-tapping. This is normal for fan screws. 

[suchamoneypit]

11 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

The screws are self-tapping. This is normal for fan screws. 

they certainly weren't self tapping for me. I was putting a lot of torque on them, a few rotations(1-1.75 rotations) in, they were not going in any further, If I put any more force I would certainly have fractured the plastic or broken something else trying to hold the fan so hard(and they were going in straight). I cant just have a few threads in, because they need to be flush, which Is why after 45 min of trying I resorted to hot glue. And this was 45 min of trying on just two screw holes, there was no way I was getting those in flush 8 times.

[WoodenMarker]

7 minutes ago, suchamoneypit said:

they certainly weren't self tapping for me. I was putting a lot of torque on them, a few rotations(1-1.75 rotations) in, they were not going in any further, If I put any more force I would certainly have fractured the plastic or broken something else trying to hold the fan so hard(and they were going in straight). I cant just have a few threads in, because they need to be flush, which Is why after 45 min of trying I resorted to hot glue. And this was 45 min of trying on just two screw holes, there was no way I was getting those in flush 8 times.

They shouldn't take that much torque to screw in. If they aren't going in easily, you should realign the screw and start over. 

[suchamoneypit]

2 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

They shouldn't take that much torque to screw in. If they aren't going in easily, you should realign the screw and start over. 

I know it shouldn't, and thats what I did, trying different screws (out of the 8 I had from the coolers) and screw holes, for around 45 minutes. I was convinced I was doing something wrong.

[WoodenMarker]

1 minute ago, suchamoneypit said:

I know it shouldn't, and thats why I did, trying different screws and screw holes, for around 45 minutes. I was convinced I was doing something wrong.

Different screws? --were they standard self-tapping fan screws?

[suchamoneypit]

1 minute ago, WoodenMarker said:

Different screws? --were they standard self-tapping fan screws?

You replied before I did a quick edit after the clarify, I meant trying different screws that were provided with the coolers. I thought maybe the screw I was trying was bad, so I tried other screws that were with the package that were provided for the purpose of installing the fans.