A warning to Hyper 212 xxxx owners, don't break your motherboard

[Noburt]

So I recently had an issue with my computer and could not figure out what was causing it, and it only got worse and worse to the point I wasn't able to boot to a thumb drive

And please note, I'm not dumb with computers, have my PC Pro, Client Pro, and A+ certifications, countless hours of working on Macs and regular PC's and many, many in class hours working on PC's

During the issues I found out that there was something on my motherboard that was getting rather warm, so I went, took off the CPU cooler so I could replace the thermal paste for that part. While taking off the CPU cooler I noticed that the mounting for my CPU cooler (hyper 212 LED) had actually broken 1 or 2 traces on my motherboard. So now I'm out a motherboard, I contacted Cooler Master about the issue and they said that what could've caused it was me either under tightening or over tightening the screws, which I know I didn't do either of those. But for me, it's the exposed metal on the bottom of the posts that actually scraped my motherboard that wasn't protected by the washers they put on the posts. They won't do anything about it, so I want to do what I can do about it because I don't want someone to try to save some money and get a cheap cooler from cooler master to end up with a broken motherboard and then be told you've done something wrong and there is nothing they'll do about it

My friend is letting me borrow his old computer, he had a hyper 212 evo on it. The same thing happened to his computer but it didn't damage the traces enough to kill the motherboard, so it isn't isolated to just my computer. And his screws were in my opinion, loose.

 

TL;DR - Cooler Master's mounting hardware for their hyper series is poorly designed and may cause your motherboard to break. Go with something else, if you do a tiny bit of looking you can find something that is better or about the same as the 212 evo for the same price.

 

Below is pictures of what it did to my computer, and the washer that is pre-applied to the cooler, and a cute kitten that I found outside today because no matter how annoyed I am, I do like to spread positivity. (I keep on picturing him with an eyepatch on and a cape, sorry for the earbud cable that is in the way)

[emosun]

to be fair , why on earth are those traces right next to those holes......

[aisle9]

To be fair to CM, it looks like that thing was overtightened to hell at some point. The washer shouldn't be in that rough of shape. Someone really cranked that thing in hard.

 

To be fair to you, what the hell are traces doing there in the first place?! That kind of crap is why I just avoided the combo-socket boards like the plague. When you try to put LGA 775 holes on an LGA 115X board, you're going to have to do some wacky shit with traces, and this is what happens when you do wacky shit with traces.

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

OR is it with the poor qc of msi mobo again...?

newer mobo have emptied the circuit near screw holes

[Noburt]

Just now, emosun said:

to be fair , why on earth are those traces right next to those holes......

You're right, they shouldn't be, but the cooler should be designed with poor motherboard designs in mind

[mxk]

Just now, Noburt said:

You're right, they shouldn't be, but the cooler should be designed with poor motherboard designs in mind

yeah but who wants to actually put thought into things when they can just cut corners? Pffft.

[Noburt]

Just now, aisle9 said:

To be fair to CM, it looks like that thing was overtightened to hell at some point. The washer shouldn't be in that rough of shape. Someone really cranked that thing in hard.

 

To be fair to you, what the hell are traces doing there in the first place?! That kind of crap is why I just avoided the combo-socket boards like the plague. When you try to put LGA 775 holes on an LGA 115X board, you're going to have to do some wacky shit with traces, and this is what happens when you do wacky shit with traces.

I didn't overtighten it at any point. There is a little bit of dust on that, and the washer is the same thickness it was when I got it, it came glued on. Trust me, it wasn't like 1mm thick, it came that thickness. But it is dirty

And it's a x58 board, it wasn't designed smartly, but it's not like this was some crappy board that was converted or anything like that. It isn't the most well made, but just some simple thicker rubber washer would've made the issue never happen in the first place

[emosun]

3 minutes ago, Noburt said:

You're right, they shouldn't be, but the cooler should be designed with poor motherboard designs in mind

lol what?

"these tires should be designed to handle cars with bad alignment. let me go complain to goodyear about this"

[Noburt]

Just now, dgsddfgdfhgs said:

OR is it with the poor qc of msi mobo again...?

newer mobo have emptied the circuit near screw holes

I'd say it's a mix of both. Coolermaster should've realized that in QC that not all motherboards are built with ideal in mind so that their mounting could damage traces in a case like mine, or my friends motherboard that I'm using currently because a very similar thing has happened to this motherboard, I'm just hoping it didn't damage the traces enough to actually break this motherboard too, and this is an intel board (using an i7 2600 in it, I don't know what series of board it is currently)

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

Just now, Noburt said:

Coolermaster should've realized that in QC that not all motherboards are built with ideal in mind so that their mounting could damage traces in a case like mine, or my friends motherboard that I'm using currently because a very similar thing has happened to this motherboard

i remembered the screw standoff of my 212 led version do have black (soft?) rubber in between mobo which is supposed to solve the issue..

 and when it was remmoved I think it has slightly melted and got some residue on mobo lol

[Noburt]

Just now, emosun said:

lol what?

"these tires should be designed to handle cars with bad alignment. let me go complain to goodyear about this"

If the cooler were to include 4 washer that were about 1 to 2 mm in thickness, this would not be an issue instead. If the washers fully covered the metal, the issue would happen a lot less. With a lot of older motherboards this would happen to. I literally just checked 5 computers/motherboards in my room, all of them would end up with a similar issue to the one I have right now if I used the cooler on any of those 5 motherboards. So yeah, at that point I think that cooler master should've designed their product better to work better with hardware that is says it works with. H55 motherboards would have the same issue with looking at some on google images, it's hard to see on most images but it also looks like some z68 motherboards would have the same issue. it would be more like "These tires should be designed to handle poor roads and good roads, I'm going to complain to goodyear about this"

[Noburt]

Just now, dgsddfgdfhgs said:

i remembered the screw standoff of my 212 led version do have black (soft?) rubber in between mobo which is supposed to solve the issue..

 and when it was remmoved I think it has slightly melted and got some residue on mobo lol

Maybe they changed because of that started to happen? I checked my box and there were no rubber spaces or anything like that, just the things built into the standoffs that is shown in the picture

[aisle9]

7 minutes ago, Noburt said:

You're right, they shouldn't be, but the cooler should be designed with poor motherboard designs in mind

What?

 

No, the cooler should be designed to industry standards. Industry standard on the LGA 115X socket that cooler was apparently designed for is placement of the holes plus a "keep-out" zone for power delivery. That being an LGA 1366 board with LGA 115X holes closer to the socket...that's not on CM at all dude, sorry. Lots and lots of people have used CM Hyper 212s without frying their board. Motherboards designed like that are just best used with plastic plug mounted coolers only, imo. They have to do too many wacky things with traces and board components to fit two sets of mounting holes on one board, and that bit you here.

 

To be really blunt about it, your saying that the cooler should be designed for shitty boards is like saying that a company that manufactures head gaskets should design their products to account for shitty cabin air filter design.

[Windows7ge]

Stuff like this is why I've always liked Intel's Square-ILM & Narrow-ILM for sockets LGA2011/2011-V3/2066 they have metal screw holes built into the socket so you aren't tightening anything down to the PCB.

 

Even AMD's TR4&SP3 sockets do this, I don't understand why Intel's mainstream platforms continue to use the bare PCB method.

[emosun]

lol ok so i just took a look at how the cooler is supposed to attach

basically , you're supposed to back the rear screws out and lift the cooler up and off the board. you actually turned that whole entire hex riser on the top of the board thus it got scratched.

My sympathy is pretty much gone now it's basically just a you problem now.

[LogicalDrm]

While nice little PSA, this is rather minor in grand scheme. There would be much wider complaints if this was more common issue.

 

I've installed 212 Evo and while it doesn't have overtighten protection like my boyz at Noctua, you will notice when it's tight enough. Plus I think even manual says you should loosen it 1/4 rotation after you have found the tight spot.

[Noburt]

Just now, emosun said:

lol ok so i just took a look at how the cooler is supposed to attach

basically , you're supposed to back the rear screws out and lift the cooler up and off the board. you actually turned that whole entire hex riser on the top of the board thus it got scratched.

My sympathy is pretty much gone now it's basically just a you problem now.

I don't know what you mean entirely. There are no rear screws for me, just the risers and the screws that screw into the riser. There is only the mounting bracket on the back with no way to unscrew anything. If I unscrewed it wrong then I'll happily say it's my fault. But say I decided to take off this cooler and upgrade to something better than it still would've damaged my board some

[LIGISTX]

11 minutes ago, emosun said:

lol ok so i just took a look at how the cooler is supposed to attach

basically , you're supposed to back the rear screws out and lift the cooler up and off the board. you actually turned that whole entire hex riser on the top of the board thus it got scratched.

My sympathy is pretty much gone now it's basically just a you problem now.

This.

 

I have many hyper 212's in my machines, friends machines, basically every PC I am consulted on building gets a hyper 212 (evo these days) simply because of the affordability and the performance. Shit, before I got my water cooling loop figured out and built, my 8700k @ 5ghz was being cooled by one... To my surprise it was totally up to even that task.

 

Anyways, yes, the design of the 212 mounting bracket is as described above. You insert the standoffs through the motherboard, the rear backplate has oval shaped slots that have a flat inner (I think its the inner side, whatever, I don't have one in my hand and didn't google it) that line up with a flat side on the standoff you dropped through the mobo mounting holes. That flat side is intended to hold the standoff from spinning as you torque down the heatsink itself, and it also makes it easier to tighten tne bolts that go on the back side of the mobo that retain these standoffs. Actually... pretty sweet design.

 

That said, yes, you can, if you don't realize and try a bit, you can spin the standoff in this slot. Ask me how I know... Thankfully I didn't damage anything when I did this by mistake. That said, I have installed a hyper 212 onto at least 10 unique mobo's, and have taken them on and off my own builds at least as many times. I have had 0 issues, but I can see if you try and spin the standoff it can chew into traces that are poorly places to close to the mounting hole locations; that is poor mobo design to be fair.

 

But, if you install it as intended, shouldn't be an issue at all.

[Noburt]

Just now, LogicalDrm said:

While nice little PSA, this is rather minor in grand scheme. There would be much wider complaints if this was more common issue.

 

I've installed 212 Evo and while it doesn't have overtighten protection like my boyz at Noctua, you will notice when it's tight enough. Plus I think even manual says you should loosen it 1/4 rotation after you have found the tight spot.

I installed a 212 evo on my 1st rig with no issues. With some minor googling I have seen just a couple of the same thing, but not too many. For me I don't remember seeing that but for some reason don't have the instruction manual, weird because I usually keep those. But for me I always tighten until it feels a little snug, not soo lose that it'll come off with me blowing on it, but not so hard that it'll damage something, and I've never had a single issue with that

[Bananasplit_00]

The 212 has N awful mount yah, just mounting alone is enough to avoid it

[LIGISTX]

5 minutes ago, Noburt said:

I don't know what you mean entirely. There are no rear screws for me, just the risers and the screws that screw into the riser. There is only the mounting bracket on the back with no way to unscrew anything. If I unscrewed it wrong then I'll happily say it's my fault. But say I decided to take off this cooler and upgrade to something better than it still would've damaged my board some

This is what he is referring too, as am I in my previous post.

 

 

This design removes the need to "tighten" the hex standoffs. The nuts on the back side suck the standoff down, and the standoff won't spin as its "locked" in its orientation by the flat side of the rear plate.

 

It is possible your unit was pre-this design. I think my first hyper 212 I purchased was in the Sandy Bridge time frame, you being on X58, its possible you have literally one of the first units, and it may have been a different design at that time. We would need to see your mounting hardware to know for sure.

 

That said, even if there was a revision from a poor design to this one, it was made A LONG time ago, and it is possible you got a bit screwed by being an early adopter :/. IF that is the case... I think you would have a case with CM, but good luck getting that to go anywhere.

[Noburt]

Just now, aisle9 said:

What?

 

No, the cooler should be designed to industry standards. Industry standard on the LGA 115X socket that cooler was apparently designed for is placement of the holes plus a "keep-out" zone for power delivery. That being an LGA 1366 board with LGA 115X holes closer to the socket...that's not on CM at all dude, sorry. Lots and lots of people have used CM Hyper 212s without frying their board. Motherboards designed like that are just best used with plastic plug mounted coolers only, imo. They have to do too many wacky things with traces and board components to fit two sets of mounting holes on one board, and that bit you here.

 

To be really blunt about it, your saying that the cooler should be designed for shitty boards is like saying that a company that manufactures head gaskets should design their products to account for shitty cabin air filter design.

The LGA 1155 board I'm using right now, which is made by intel, got the traces scratched by the risers from the cooler. And keeping power away from those areas doesn't mean keep data out of the area which would explain why on my broken motherboard that it can still boot, but once you try to do anything in the OS, boot to a thumb drive, it just doesn't work because it broke a trace that deals with data, not power. And fair enough, my motherboard should've been used with a different cooler. But it isn't just a one off motherboard that is like that. It's many motherboards that I have right now, and even newer motherboards have the same issue. Looking at some motherboards currently on amazon there are traces that are right next to the mounting holes. So it could easily happen to anyone, new or old.

[Noburt]

Just now, LIGISTX said:

This is what he is referring too, as am I in my previous post.

 

 

This design removes the need to "tighten" the hex standoffs. The nuts on the back side suck the standoff down, and the standoff won't spin as its "locked" in its orientation by the flat side of the rear plate.

 

It is possible your unit was pre-this design. I think my first hyper 212 I purchased was in the Sandy Bridge time frame, you being on X58, its possible you have literally one of the first units, and it may have been a different design at that time. We would need to see your mounting hardware to know for sure.

 

That said, even if there was a revision from a poor design to this one, it was made A LONG time ago, and it is possible you got a bit screwed by being an early adopter :/. IF that is the case... I think you would have a case with CM, but good luck getting that to go anywhere.

I see what you're saying, that's for the 212 evo, that is what I did with my friend's cooler. I have a 212 LED which has a different mounting system then that. It's really weird IMO. And my cooler is from about a year ago, year and a half or so. It thankfully isn't as old as the mobo.

[LIGISTX]

2 minutes ago, Noburt said:

I see what you're saying, that's for the 212 evo, that is what I did with my friend's cooler. I have a 212 LED which has a different mounting system then that. It's really weird IMO. And my cooler is from about a year ago, year and a half or so. It thankfully isn't as old as the mobo.

Ok, thats a stupid design. Fair enough. 

[Noburt]

Just now, LIGISTX said:

This.

 

I have many hyper 212's in my machines, friends machines, basically every PC I am consulted on building gets a hyper 212 (evo these days) simply because of the affordability and the performance. Shit, before I got my water cooling loop figured out and built, my 8700k @ 5ghz was being cooled by one... To my surprise it was totally up to even that task.

 

Anyways, yes, the design of the 212 mounting bracket is as described above. You insert the standoffs through the motherboard, the rear backplate has oval shaped slots that have a flat inner (I think its the inner side, whatever, I don't have one in my hand and didn't google it) that line up with a flat side on the standoff you dropped through the mobo mounting holes. That flat side is intended to hold the standoff from spinning as you torque down the heatsink itself, and it also makes it easier to tighten tne bolts that go on the back side of the mobo that retain these standoffs. Actually... pretty sweet design.

 

That said, yes, you can, if you don't realize and try a bit, you can spin the standoff in this slot. Ask me how I know... Thankfully I didn't damage anything when I did this by mistake. That said, I have installed a hyper 212 onto at least 10 unique mobo's, and have taken them on and off my own builds at least as many times. I have had 0 issues, but I can see if you try and spin the standoff it can chew into traces that are poorly places to close to the mounting hole locations; that is poor mobo design to be fair.

 

But, if you install it as intended, shouldn't be an issue at all.

The evo does seem to have a better mounting bracket compared to the LED one I have. Similar, but still different. Look at post just above this one to see it, I wouldn't have been able to do what was described to me because of the different mounting bracket.