beQuiet! Dark Rock Pro TR4 on AM4... Why not?

[Hydroxyl]

So... I did a thing.

 

Story begins with me, guy who likes DIY but can't afford a proper workshop. Or just don't have a space. ANYWAYS, I was browsing eBay and found a TR4 beQuiet Dark Rock Pro for £20. I thought, hell, it's really cheap. So I decided to buy it.

I forgot about it until it actually show up at my doorstep. It is MASSIVE! I loved every single thing about this monstrosity. I had to mount it. But is it even possible?

By googling through the vast internet I found like 2 threads about it. 1 says that it's impossible, the other one that you have to be magician with machine working. I'm not...

... but I have Dremel.

 

It all started with checking the holes on AM4 motherboard. Since I'm lazy and I don't have any laying around, only in my main rig, I decided that I'll get measurements from the stock cooler.

TR4 Dark Rock has one arm for mounting screws longer than the other. So first one, I just needed to drill holes through it at the ends. No big deal (spoiler alert - massive deal).

https://imgur.com/DaGlVUX

The other one, smaller, all I needed is simply make holes bigger. Maybe with a simple drill I'll be able to do it? (no.)

https://imgur.com/SCQEo8D

Now, the main arm needs an extra hole to make sure it will align with holes. (Impossibru. At least without any super strong/special tools)

https://imgur.com/jDh2i1I

So... Let's do it.

 

First, I have couple of drills that might work. Decided to give it a try.

https://imgur.com/SsEN6uW

After 10 minutes, all I saw was just a small scratch. I gave up.

https://imgur.com/rr4aem8

If I don't have a specific drill, maybe I can just do a hole with a Dremel? It won't look good, but it doesn't have to. It has to be big enough to fit a screw through. Try the first cut:

https://imgur.com/RCIa6QR

So after incredibly professional job from me, (and destroying one Dremel blade https://imgur.com/m5qkGeq) it came out like that:

https://imgur.com/rA5EY5y

Oh, so professional!

https://imgur.com/Rg1qe6S

But wait. I'm not going to leave it all silver and shiny. I need to be professional.

https://imgur.com/9DExjzF

Brilliant. Now, let's try if the screw will fit: 

https://imgur.com/Eoyqlma

Surprisingly well. 

 

But I still have two more parts to destro... I mean, adjust. If I don't have a drill and I can't really do a star again...

https://imgur.com/se9qWCX

Meh, I'll be fine.

And final fit:

https://imgur.com/w5Vcj6t

 

Holly crap, it might actually work.

 

Or is it?

 

Well, it's time to check.

https://imgur.com/dA19YUP

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After disassembly of Noctua cooler I did a test fit of my better, improved mounting brackets...

https://imgur.com/DdBandH

It did not work. I mean, it kinda worked. Long one was surprisingly tough, it could easily hold the cooler, but the small one, I cut too short. What now?!

Wait... what about that Noctua bracket? Might work...

https://imgur.com/9IvmIBv

Well, from test fit I learned two things.

1) I didn't had to get any holes to make it work,

2) 1 screw less never killed anyone (did you ever disassembly laptop and had zero screws left? I didn't, yet they all work).

 

So as a test was positive, I decided to check first without thermal paste. Let's check.

https://imgur.com/SyFJYib

https://imgur.com/YpxsxmY

https://imgur.com/5PL0zpX

https://imgur.com/9QNY3is

It... works. I think. I need to tight the screws way too much that I like, but it does fit. I can lift a mobo by the cooler, and it has NO movement anywhere. So I'm happy. On this photo, you can even see how IHS makes contact with cooling plate:

https://imgur.com/xVXU03R

... or at least you could see, if I had better camera. Redmi Note 8 is not the best for it.

Back to DIY. I decided that it takes WAY too much time now, I need to mount it. If I break MOBO, I'll break it, but I need to make it work. So:

https://imgur.com/waFEFe1

https://imgur.com/EiWAPC7 (here you can see it makes a decent contact with IHS)

https://imgur.com/0yNlW32 (mounted middle fan and front)

 

 

AAAAAAAAAND! 

https://imgur.com/NPbhDIG

 

YES!

 

But wait. It did not post...

 

(because I'm an idiot and didn't fastened PCIe extension properly)

 

2nd try, and...

https://imgur.com/arZJKrH

SUCCESS! 

https://imgur.com/Y6tEFF9 Temps not bad...

 

OCCT stress test, after ~ 6 minutes it stabilized around 67*C and stayed there:

https://imgur.com/tvBTQxr 

 

So after all. The main questions:

1) Is it better than previous cooler? Yes, by 10*C.

2) Was it worth it? No.

3) Am I proud of it? Hell yes.

4) Would I do it again? Yes.

5) Do I recommend it? NO.

 

It was pain in the ASS to do it, but I had fun. And learned that I need to buy some new tools.

 

Hope you enjoyed it. I know I did.

 

[Guest]

Hey that's really awesome! 10c drop in temps, gosh I'd hope so. Damn thing is 3-4 times larger than a wraith.....

You can drag and drop your pictures right to the forum so people don't have to click all the links!

I'd be really interested in seeing Full load temps for sure. (I didn't click every single link, I surely missed it..)

[Senzelian]

I did not think it would be worth reading through all this, but it was surprisingly enjoyable. 

Ridiculously janky way of mounting a cooler, but I love it.

I would never do that tho  

[Vishera]

Nice,but when i get into situations like that i never go the destructive way,i don't like to destroy things in the process,

Here is how i solved the same problem without destroying anything:

 

[Hydroxyl]

6 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Hey that's really awesome! 10c drop in temps, gosh I'd hope so. Damn thing is 3-4 times larger than a wraith.....

You can drag and drop your pictures right to the forum so people don't have to click all the links!

I'd be really interested in seeing Full load temps for sure. (I didn't click every single link, I surely missed it..)

https://imgur.com/tvBTQxr Here's after 6 minutes under 100% load on OCCT. Stays around 65*C.

And if I'll ever do anything like that again, I'll upload it properly. I was a bit worried that it will be massive post as photos are large, and I am way too lazy to change size (as you probably already know :p)

5 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

I did not think it would be worth reading through all this, but it was surprisingly enjoyable. 

Ridiculously janky way of mounting a cooler, but I love it.

I would never do that tho  

I mean, I'm a perfectionist. I love to put back every single screw, everything has to go it's way, every single cable has to go EXACTLY the way I want it. But with this one? I thought that probably I won't be able to do it like that, so if I can make it super weird, I'll do it.

4 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Nice,but when i get into situations like that i never go the destructive way,i don't like to destroy things in the process,

Here is how i solved the same problem without destroying anything:

 

I could do it, but I wouldn't be able to look at those flying sparks from Dremel blade. It was worth it

[Jurrunio]

@Fasauceome

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Hydroxyl said:

https://imgur.com/tvBTQxr Here's after 6 minutes under 100% load on OCCT. Stays around 65*C.

And if I'll ever do anything like that again, I'll upload it properly. I was a bit worried that it will be massive post as photos are large, and I am way too lazy to change size (as you probably already know :p)

I mean, I'm a perfectionist. I love to put back every single screw, everything has to go it's way, every single cable has to go EXACTLY the way I want it. But with this one? I thought that probably I won't be able to do it like that, so if I can make it super weird, I'll do it.

I could do it, but I wouldn't be able to look at those flying sparks from Dremel blade. It was worth it

Not really a heavy load there. Turn it on to AVX2.

 

edit let it run more than 10 minutes so AVX instructions get calculated. You should see a decent jump in temp

[Hydroxyl]

8 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Not really a heavy load there. Turn it on to AVX2.

 

edit let it run more than 10 minutes so AVX instructions get calculated. You should see a decent jump in temp

100% load is not a heavy load? I mean, to be fair, I don't think that I would even get closer to this one while I game, so I'll skip it. Of course I can try to max it with some synthetic benchmarks, but I won't have relation to the previous cooler so I'll stick to this one. So far on idle didn't went over 30*C, on gaming never spiked over 50, so I'm happy with it. 

[Jurrunio]

38 minutes ago, Hydroxyl said:

100% load is not a heavy load? I mean, to be fair, I don't think that I would even get closer to this one while I game, so I'll skip it. Of course I can try to max it with some synthetic benchmarks, but I won't have relation to the previous cooler so I'll stick to this one. So far on idle didn't went over 30*C, on gaming never spiked over 50, so I'm happy with it. 

each CPU core work as 1 compute unit on its own but each has multiple units, say ALU doing arithmetic math, FPU doing floating point math, cache management and so on. The more you can put all those units to work, the hotter it gets. Core usage itself cannot see for example, ALU waiting for info from cache as technically the cache management system is on full tilt.

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, Hydroxyl said:

100% load is not a heavy load? I mean, to be fair, I don't think that I would even get closer to this one while I game, so I'll skip it. Of course I can try to max it with some synthetic benchmarks, but I won't have relation to the previous cooler so I'll stick to this one. So far on idle didn't went over 30*C, on gaming never spiked over 50, so I'm happy with it. 

OK so AVX instructions are in say things like AAA gaming titles. The difference is that most games will use up to about 8 threads and that's it. This would just utilize all the threads and would put the cooling to the test...... which is kinda the point in doing all this I would assume. 

 

You don't have to do this, I was just interested to see a "heavier" type of load I suppose. 

It would be like testing WPrime vs Cinebench. WPrime doesn't use AVX and would always yield a lower temp regardless of the core count.

 

 

 

[Hydroxyl]

Ok then, as soon as I get some sleep, I'll test it. Do you guys recommend doing it with OCCT or some other program? 

[jomme]

m8 please im begging you, i did the same fuck up. bought the tr4 thinking it will work on the 3800x. i've read the whole thing and the other guy post. so you recommend that i get a m4 socket from noctua and it will work, ? or should i follow Vishera guide? please m8 ive waited months to build this pc and  now am fucked by this cooler, i cant even return it the shipping costs ass XD. does this thing help https://www.amazon.com/Swiftech-AM4-TR4-HPD-Threadripper-Socket-Mounting/dp/B07DN24RFS? thanks m8

[Hydroxyl]

Mounting bracket from Noctua worked for me. You can get them cheap.

Try this link and check where you can get them: https://www.google.com/search?q=noctua+am4+mounting+kit

11 hours ago, jomme said:

m8 please im begging you, i did the same fuck up. bought the tr4 thinking it will work on the 3800x. i've read the whole thing and the other guy post. so you recommend that i get a m4 socket from noctua and it will work, ? or should i follow Vishera guide? please m8 ive waited months to build this pc and  now am fucked by this cooler, i cant even return it the shipping costs ass XD. does this thing help https://www.amazon.com/Swiftech-AM4-TR4-HPD-Threadripper-Socket-Mounting/dp/B07DN24RFS? thanks m8

 

[jomme]

4 hours ago, Hydroxyl said:

Mounting bracket from Noctua worked for me. You can get them cheap.

Try this link and check where you can get them: https://www.google.com/search?q=noctua+am4+mounting+kit

 

thanks alot man! i just ordered it, how's the cooler now? any issues? btw the screws from the kit did u remove them and put them on the dark pro? can u  take off the hallow screws? https://imgur.com/gallery/bjUhPbp i made it! but the screws..

[Randoooom]

I ordered the TM4 cooler by mistake too! I might just try to re sell it this all looks pretty complicated lol

 

[Phantom22]

On 7/5/2020 at 8:21 AM, Hydroxyl said:

Mounting bracket from Noctua worked for me. You can get them cheap.

Try this link and check where you can get them: https://www.google.com/search?q=noctua+am4+mounting+kit

 

Is it the NM-am4 mount or the NM-am4-uxs mount

[CCTR4]

Did the same mistake... I actually had no idea what TR4 meant, I just saw Ryzen in the cooler specs and bought it.

 

The normal thing to do in such situations is to return it. But for some reason I got impatient and stubborn to make it fit in the AM4 slot. Luckily I managed to install it, but things could easily go wrong.

 

Me, what I did, was to use the motherboard plastic brackets around the AM4 slots (like these https://www.pcbelfast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/AMD-AM4-BRACKET-0.jpg). I drilled holes in the middle of each bracket (smaller than the cooler's screws, so that I could steadily force the screws with a screwdriver to create those screwing grooves inside the holes). That was the easy part. 4-5 hours and 4 broken metal-drills latter (the metallic bracket of the cooler is really, really hard) I had one hole in the cooler's bracket to center on the AM4 plastic brackets. Of course, I needed another hole, but I was too pessimistic that I would manage to drill the second hole at the other side of the metallic cooler bracket (these 2 new holes must be centered on the new AM4 plastic bracket holes or it won't be stable). So for the other end of the metallic bracket I just used an angle grinder (https://www.amazon.com/Bosch-GWS18V-8N-Brushless-Grinder-Switch/dp/B09F16FNR8) and cut a ditch thick enough to let the screw pass and long enough to reach the other hole in the plastic bracket. (actually, I had to use this power tool a bit on the other side of the first hole as well, because the drills just wouldn't make the final pierce).

 

So now it's installed and I have ~20 degrees Celsius less than the stock cooler at peak (I was reaching 91+ degrees with the stock cooler when rendering... Ryzen 5600x). BUT I wouldn't recommend doing what I did - especially because if you cannot manage to drill and fit holes, you won't be able to return the product with all the scratches.

 

But what about those mounting bracket kits adapters? Does it really work with this https://www.amazon.com/Noctua-NM-AM4-Mounting-Coolers-Platforms/dp/B01MTEFT52 , as adapter from AM4 to TR4?