Zalman CNPS9500 vs Asetek Microchill

Its funny how reviewers can find obvious issues and faults with 5 minutes of using things, but the manurfacturers dont come across them :|

Surely theyd save a lot of money and hassle by fixing things before production, I bet the first batch still have bad contact with the cpu

got the Asetek VapoChill Micro - Ultra Low Noise to go with an upgrade to rig shown in spec.
Am extremely disappointed in it if I had have kept the packaging i'd have returned it.

Issues:-
1) Fan mounting is laughable - it's like the acrylic stiffners the use to pack new shirts (to hold collar)
2) Not all of CPU is covered - when dismounted saw corners of cpu not covered with thermal paste.
3) Mounting as stated in review is hit/miss as to whether you have equal tension across CPU.
4) Radiator is flimsy & easy to damage.

Pros:-
Easy to remove & replace. :(

I'm sorry you're disappointed Supershanks, but the #1 rule is NEVER toss the packaging unless you're sure you won't need it. I tend to keep all my retail boxes anyway - helps if I ever want to sell any of it second hand

It must be the 1st time i've done it in about 10years +
Don't really know what got into me. :D

Just a follow up on the poor Zalman lapping issue found on the revue sample. Had understood from uk sites that release date was expected as yesterday, talking to someone at Scan delivery isn't expected now 4 2 weeks.
Bad Production batch ???? I wonder.

Oh well orderedXp-90C This Week Only same price as XP-90 :D

ive been having some hsf woes. the stock cooler with my AMD2800+ was doing about 50 degrees under normal use, so i decided i wanted a new heatsink. i read one of your articles from a while back (not on the new site) and decided to buy a vantec Aeroflow 2. I installed it and it lowered the temp to about 35 degrees, but the fan was ludicrously noisy compared to the stock fan, and with it being an unusual size (70mm) i couldnt replace it with a quieter one. i re-attached the original heatsink only to find that the temperatures had gone up to about 65 degrees! I couldnt live with the noise the aerfolow made and so have stuck with the original hsf since. do you think i am doing any damage to my processor? perhaps i could let it burn itself out so i have an excuse to buy a new one ;)

oh yeah, my msi fx5900xt ultra (nbox 256mb version) runs at just under 100 degrees during a doom 3 session, even with its massive copper sinks and fans on both sides... should I be worried?

I must be doing something wrong since I don't seem to be getting anything close to the performance quoted in the reviews. I've just built a system using a P4 840 EE inside a Lian-Li V2000 case. I'd expected the dual core to run hot, but I'd also expected more out of the Zalman. Here are my impressions.

The installation was much less painful than I'd feared. It would have been helpful to have found some note in the documentation about the direction of airflow as this would have saved me having to install it twice (once while already in the case). The reinstallation gave me a chance to look at the Arctic Silver distribution, which was very even compared to the one photographed in the review, so I don't see a problem there.

But I am getting idle temperatures around 54degC with case temperatures around 35degC and ambiant at perhaps 20degC. I haven't had a chance to test under load as I've spent the day exploring the bios. But these CPU temperature seems extremely high to me. The fins, on the other hand, are not even really warm to the touch.

The one thing I may be able to attribute this to is a bit of play in the clamping mechanism. The Zalman can slide around a bit. But it still seems to be making good contact, so I don't know what to think.

Ideas?

Mifune

The fan mounting of the Asetek is just plain ridiculous! I won that cooler from a case modding contest last year and sold it immediately after opening the package :P Now going for 9500-AM2-version..

I'm afraid you've dug up a dead person here , any opinions are now incredibly belated.

<A88>

I'm afraid you've dug up a dead person here , any opinions are now incredibly belated.

Hehe :D Yep there's only ghosts left in the machine, but have 2 agree with your

The fan mounting of the Asetek is just plain ridiculous!

luck :)

That Zalman fan is truly amazing. 44% overclock and my CPU is doing fine.