Installation

To install the EK Supreme waterblock, the motherboard was completely removed from the system. The second picture above shows the order in which the mounting hardware will be applied.


With the motherboard turned upside-down, four of the felt washers were laid around the mounting holes. Next, the four M4 screws were inserted into the holes.


The motherboard was turned right-side up for the rest of the hardware to be applied. Four more felt washers were placed over the screws, followed by four metal washers and then the nuts. The screws should be well-tightened to prevent them from coming loose while removing the block.


With the thermal compound applied according to the manufacturer's directions, the EK Supreme was placed on top of the CPU socket with the screws sliding through the appropriate mounting holes. Four springs and four thumbscrews complete the installation.


Immediately the block was removed and the surfaces checked for contact. The thermal paste was spread out very well, and the layer was very thin in the center. The paste on the base of the EK Supreme looks as if it was sucked back toward the middle when the block was removed, which caused the darker ring around the edge.

Installation Notes

The springs included with the EK Supreme are extremely stiff. Because of this, the installation guide recommends using a light amount of tension on the thumb nuts to avoid warping the motherboard. I noticed the warping starting to occur on my board as the nuts were tightened. To prevent this, EK has an optional backplate for LGA775 installation, and I purchased one of the backplates online. The testing was completed with the backplate installed, although it is not shown in the images above. Also, please note that when the backplate is installed, the M4 screws are barely long enough to start threading the nuts onto them. I had a lot of difficulty getting the third and fourth thumb nuts in place. After contacting Eddy about this issue, he told me that EK would possibly replace the current screws with ones that are about 5mm longer in the near future.