2700X high temps with ARO M14 cooler

[freeagent]

Eww.. looks like the new guy made it

 

[tazztone]

Eww.. looks like the new guy made it

waddayamean? should i RMA the cooler? it's still in warranty period

 

[QuietBob]

it sure does if you ask me

That's a bummer. It seems that Thermalright cheaped out on this one. The heatsink design of the ARO is nearly identical to that of the Macho, but for a slightly bigger cold plate and a simpler mounting mechanism on the former. They also include the same fan. But the devil is in the detail, as the old saying goes.

Found these on TR's website. It seems that the lack of soldering is indeed a design feature of the ARO. The second pic is the Macho:



Why would they deliberately limit the cooling capacity of the ARO? Shame on Thermalright, seeing that both coolers retail for the same price.

 

[freeagent]

Indeed, my LGMRT and TS140P side by side:

 

[tazztone]

what's more the ARO got amazing reviews. maybe the reviewers got soldered ones?

this review mentioned:
"The heat pipes are soldered to the cooler's base, too."

XtremeSystems Forums

 

[freeagent]

I feel for you man. I was going to buy that cooler because I didn't have an AM4 mount. I did but I was missing a piece, so ordered the BTK. But I was going to buy it because it was specifically made for AM4, and I was even going to go so far as to buy their CPU retention kit because I was so afraid of ripping my CPU out Right now its no better than a stock cooler to you, maybe even worse.. I would send it back if you could. Pretty disappointing. Their customer service is pretty good, hopefully they can help you out.

 

[tazztone]

i think my seller would just look at it and return it to me again saying they couldn't find any faults.
will try anyway
and if that didn't work talk to thermalright directly and tell them about this thread

 

[QuietBob]

what's more the ARO got amazing reviews. maybe the reviewers got soldered ones?

this review mentioned:
"The heat pipes are soldered to the cooler's base, too."

I don't really think that was the case. Unfortunately, we can't see the pictures in your linked article any more. Now this reviewer claims 73 C with 2700X in Blender (20 C ambient). Also in his photo no traces of solder are to be seen on the ARO:



I am still confused by the large temperature discrepancy

 

[tazztone]

this reviewer also got amazing temps:

Thermalright ARO-M14 - Test/Review

www.gamezoom.net

even tho no solder to be seen:

 

[SL2]

That looks like solder to me.

Pretty much identical to my AXP-140: you can barely see the solder, and it doesn't fill all the gaps.

Also, the fins on mine aren't soldered either.

 

[maxfly]

That looks like solder to me.
View attachment 190761

Pretty much identical to my AXP-140: you can barely see the solder, and it doesn't fill all the gaps.
View attachment 190762

Also, the fins on mine aren't soldered either.

That makes things much clearer Mats! It was virtually impossible to see the solder in the previous pictures. My TS140P looked identical to Freeagents. They may have used an older process which resulted in the excess solder. Where as the aro and Mats axp may use a more refined soldering process. I no longer have mine or i would post pics.
I would have to assume that Tazztones aro is defective. Everything points to it being a far better cooler. If possible rma or return it and retest for sanities sake.

 

[SL2]

Also, isn't bad contact still a problem?
It ran at 87° and looked like this:


After that it was remounted it dropped 2°. That's close to within the margin of error if you're asking me.
Shouldn't you expect getting a much lower temp than that?

I mean, why have we dropped the idea of bad mounting HW, and moved on to bad soldering?

I can't see how bad (visual) contact could be caused by bad/no soldering, and having BOTH issues sounds far fetched.

 

[maxfly]

i agree, its definitely a case of bad mounting hardware but from the picture it looks as tho the contact issue is more than just that. rather the heatpipes on the left side may be bent up and over as well. its too hard to tell for certain tho.

 

[freeagent]

That contact is terrible. It looks like it moved in the fixture while being machined. You are sure the mount is installed properly right? I ask because that is a huge deviation, and if it is the result of poor machining it should have been caught on the floor before it made it to plating.

If you could send it back do it.. close to 90c is bs, and probably worse than the stock cooler.

 

[tazztone]

Also, isn't bad contact still a problem?
I mean, why have we dropped the idea of bad mounting HW, and moved on to bad soldering

because i can imagine the mounting pin on the top right having not been tightened to the backplate fully, leading to a different distance in the corner
when i re-examined the mounting hardware and re-mounted it, after i took it off again it had proper contact (paste was evenly distributed).
tho i still think the 2 screws aren't optimal for even pressure distribution.
the bequiet has 4 screws but it also uses its own backplate. tho i couldn't find fault with the original MSI backplate (used for the ARO).