So I had problems with my previous PC. After troubleshooting for some time, and not being able to find out a permanent solution, I decided to just buy an Aftershock system after reading good reviews about it and I was also too busy with work.
I bought a Zeal desktop system during March IT show, and was told to expect it in 2-3 weeks time. When 2 weeks have passed, I have a naggy feeling that it won't be delivered on time. I emailed asking about potential delivery date and was told to check back in another 2 weeks' time. I replied saying that I was expected to receive by 3 weeks, and hence I cannot possibly check back in 2 weeks' time or the delivery schedule will lapse. The representative replied, 'check back in another week's time then'. I felt like he was just not interested in helping me check / ensure punctual delivery.
True enough, when it was close to 3 weeks, I received a call saying certain parts are out of stock and hence they will upgrade certain components, 1 of which would be their in-house 240mm glacier AIO water cooling (which turns out to be the main reason why I'm writing this). I felt happy to receive free upgrades:
1. ASRock Z370m to Z370 (mATX to standard size, which only cost few bucks)
2. Glacier 120mm AIO to Glacier 240mm AIO
2. Due to change in mobo size, standard casing wouldn't fit and I'd need to top up $50 for their Knight Black casing.
3. Case LED lights were out of stock, and I negotiated to forgo my casing led lights in exchange for the free top up to Knight Black Casing which they agreed.
So, I was happy with the change in parts
I finally went down to self-collect the pc (because I couldn't wait anymore) after it was 4 days past the 3 week promised schedule. Went home, booted up, everything was ok, except for the unusually high temp. I went online to check and realised that my coffee lake 8600k does indeed run hotter than previous generations due to increased core count and lousy TIM, but with a 240mm AIO, I did not expect almost an instant jump to more than 80 degrees with RealBench or Prime95 (small fft, without AVX). I went to BIOS and turned off MCE and reduced voltage from Auto to 1.15 and checked temp again, still the same. The same spike in temp and always more than 80 (10 sec of Prime95 or 3 min of Realbench).
Fed up, I brought system back to Aftershock and got them to double check on the AIO or the mounting. I also realised that it seemed they have shortchanged me initially on the number of fans I have. I had topped up $30 for 2x ID Cooling case fans, but I only see 1 pathetic case fan which didn't look like ID Cooling at all. It was an SAMGA brand. When I was at Aftershock, the rep told me that the 2 ID Cooling fans I paid for are installed at the radiator, and that the default case only comes with 1 case fan. Aghast, I asked about the radiator's own default fans, and they said that the fans I topped up for are better than radiator's own fans. Hmm, OK fine, I requested for the default fans to be installed in the casing to increase airflow. They agreed. I asked them to check the mounting, they agreed. I asked about the orientation of radiator - it was mounted as front intake, but the 2 ID Cooling fans are mounted as a pull only. It puzzled me - I have done research only and realised that people only install either as PUSH or pushpull, and not just pull only because it's significantly worse than just push only. The rep replied saying it's a case design issue and so they can only install pull only. (Thoughts like, "then why choose this case for customers" floated in my mind).
Anyway I left the place feeling slightly happier that (1) they installed additional 3 SAMGA case fans, and they assured that 8600k runs very hot and it's normal even for a 240mm AIO.
Brought it home, temperatures did not help a single bit. Frustrated, I attempted to change orientation of radiator fans from pull only, to push only. That means, fan to front intake of case, and radiator to fans. I was successful! Why then, did Aftershock tell me that it can't be done?!?! Suddenly, I wondered whether is it because with fans as push only, customers cannot see the bling bling LEDs, hence they went with pull. !@#$
However, after changing orientation, things didn't help much. At most a few degrees. Fed up, I went to buy Corsair ML120 for radiator , and AF120 performance edition for case fans, in the hopes that it was the fans that were lousy. Turns out, after spending close to $100 on fans, things also just improved a mere 1-2 degrees.
Last desperate attempt: I sought a person's help to delid with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut. I then applied Kryonaut on IHS before remounting. Happy thoughts of acceptable temps ran through my mind. Alas, temps were worse. It reached 90 degrees!
I finally thought to myself, then it really must be the 240 mm AIO. So I headed down to SLS to buy ID Cooling Frostflow 240 after reading good reviews. When I reached back, I removed the pump and this is what I saw.
It obviously showed that the contact was very bad, however I have made sure to tighten all the 4 screws in. There wasn't any leeway at all for me to tighten.
When I removed the backplate, I was absolutely disgusted. They actually used scotch tape to stick the back plate, and because the screws are fixed in length (without soft foam or spring tension screws), there was a gap between the heatsink and IHS. I read about this online where there were comments like how mobo have become slightly thinner in recent years and so the contact between heatsink and CPU may have grown slightly, especially for Asetek based AIOs. The guy who performed delid for me told me about this potential issue as well.
So after the horrifying backplate, and horrifying mere 4 fixed screws for the AIO, I installed the ID Cooling Frostflow 240mm. The mounting was drastically different and much better than Aftershock's version, even though they told me their AIO are OEM sourced from ID Cooling as well.
Voila, finally now my temperatures are perfect. It has dropped from 80-90 to just 53 degrees.
TL;DR: Aftershock needs to improve on meeting deadlines, stop smoking customers on technical stuff, and scrap its AIO for branded ones since theirs are so bad.
I have a question though:
I have installed my new AIO pump differently. From what I could see online, people would install their pump with logo appearing straight, and the tubes are all aligned to the right. I have installed mine with logo pointed right, and therefore tubes are on top. While temperatures are great now, will this orientation cause any issues in future? If so, I'd rather correct it soon. Thanks for helping!
I bought a Zeal desktop system during March IT show, and was told to expect it in 2-3 weeks time. When 2 weeks have passed, I have a naggy feeling that it won't be delivered on time. I emailed asking about potential delivery date and was told to check back in another 2 weeks' time. I replied saying that I was expected to receive by 3 weeks, and hence I cannot possibly check back in 2 weeks' time or the delivery schedule will lapse. The representative replied, 'check back in another week's time then'. I felt like he was just not interested in helping me check / ensure punctual delivery.
True enough, when it was close to 3 weeks, I received a call saying certain parts are out of stock and hence they will upgrade certain components, 1 of which would be their in-house 240mm glacier AIO water cooling (which turns out to be the main reason why I'm writing this). I felt happy to receive free upgrades:
1. ASRock Z370m to Z370 (mATX to standard size, which only cost few bucks)
2. Glacier 120mm AIO to Glacier 240mm AIO
2. Due to change in mobo size, standard casing wouldn't fit and I'd need to top up $50 for their Knight Black casing.
3. Case LED lights were out of stock, and I negotiated to forgo my casing led lights in exchange for the free top up to Knight Black Casing which they agreed.
So, I was happy with the change in parts
I finally went down to self-collect the pc (because I couldn't wait anymore) after it was 4 days past the 3 week promised schedule. Went home, booted up, everything was ok, except for the unusually high temp. I went online to check and realised that my coffee lake 8600k does indeed run hotter than previous generations due to increased core count and lousy TIM, but with a 240mm AIO, I did not expect almost an instant jump to more than 80 degrees with RealBench or Prime95 (small fft, without AVX). I went to BIOS and turned off MCE and reduced voltage from Auto to 1.15 and checked temp again, still the same. The same spike in temp and always more than 80 (10 sec of Prime95 or 3 min of Realbench).
Fed up, I brought system back to Aftershock and got them to double check on the AIO or the mounting. I also realised that it seemed they have shortchanged me initially on the number of fans I have. I had topped up $30 for 2x ID Cooling case fans, but I only see 1 pathetic case fan which didn't look like ID Cooling at all. It was an SAMGA brand. When I was at Aftershock, the rep told me that the 2 ID Cooling fans I paid for are installed at the radiator, and that the default case only comes with 1 case fan. Aghast, I asked about the radiator's own default fans, and they said that the fans I topped up for are better than radiator's own fans. Hmm, OK fine, I requested for the default fans to be installed in the casing to increase airflow. They agreed. I asked them to check the mounting, they agreed. I asked about the orientation of radiator - it was mounted as front intake, but the 2 ID Cooling fans are mounted as a pull only. It puzzled me - I have done research only and realised that people only install either as PUSH or pushpull, and not just pull only because it's significantly worse than just push only. The rep replied saying it's a case design issue and so they can only install pull only. (Thoughts like, "then why choose this case for customers" floated in my mind).
Anyway I left the place feeling slightly happier that (1) they installed additional 3 SAMGA case fans, and they assured that 8600k runs very hot and it's normal even for a 240mm AIO.
Brought it home, temperatures did not help a single bit. Frustrated, I attempted to change orientation of radiator fans from pull only, to push only. That means, fan to front intake of case, and radiator to fans. I was successful! Why then, did Aftershock tell me that it can't be done?!?! Suddenly, I wondered whether is it because with fans as push only, customers cannot see the bling bling LEDs, hence they went with pull. !@#$
However, after changing orientation, things didn't help much. At most a few degrees. Fed up, I went to buy Corsair ML120 for radiator , and AF120 performance edition for case fans, in the hopes that it was the fans that were lousy. Turns out, after spending close to $100 on fans, things also just improved a mere 1-2 degrees.
Last desperate attempt: I sought a person's help to delid with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut. I then applied Kryonaut on IHS before remounting. Happy thoughts of acceptable temps ran through my mind. Alas, temps were worse. It reached 90 degrees!
I finally thought to myself, then it really must be the 240 mm AIO. So I headed down to SLS to buy ID Cooling Frostflow 240 after reading good reviews. When I reached back, I removed the pump and this is what I saw.
It obviously showed that the contact was very bad, however I have made sure to tighten all the 4 screws in. There wasn't any leeway at all for me to tighten.
When I removed the backplate, I was absolutely disgusted. They actually used scotch tape to stick the back plate, and because the screws are fixed in length (without soft foam or spring tension screws), there was a gap between the heatsink and IHS. I read about this online where there were comments like how mobo have become slightly thinner in recent years and so the contact between heatsink and CPU may have grown slightly, especially for Asetek based AIOs. The guy who performed delid for me told me about this potential issue as well.
So after the horrifying backplate, and horrifying mere 4 fixed screws for the AIO, I installed the ID Cooling Frostflow 240mm. The mounting was drastically different and much better than Aftershock's version, even though they told me their AIO are OEM sourced from ID Cooling as well.
Voila, finally now my temperatures are perfect. It has dropped from 80-90 to just 53 degrees.
TL;DR: Aftershock needs to improve on meeting deadlines, stop smoking customers on technical stuff, and scrap its AIO for branded ones since theirs are so bad.
I have a question though:
I have installed my new AIO pump differently. From what I could see online, people would install their pump with logo appearing straight, and the tubes are all aligned to the right. I have installed mine with logo pointed right, and therefore tubes are on top. While temperatures are great now, will this orientation cause any issues in future? If so, I'd rather correct it soon. Thanks for helping!