UnaClockers - Danger Den/2Cool Cu Block review

By: UnaClocker
Date: 12/29/00

Well, this review was originally going to be comparing the cooling abilities of the 2CoolComputer water block to the DangerDen waterblock. the only problem with that is that the DangerDen block arrived at the same time as my new 1GHz Athlon (Thunderbird). Well, patience just is not one of my virtues. What I should have done was leave the Duron CPU in there, get a stable full load temperature with the 2Cool block, and then swap blocks, and get another stable temperature. What I did instead was yank the Duron, and yank the 2Cool block. So, I have no comparison.  

Though I do have some commentary on these two blocks. I have here a picture of the water passages inside the DangerDen block (snagged it from their site), and a drawing I made of the water passages inside of the 2CoolComputer water block (as extrapolated by me). I've also include a side shot of the 2CoolComputer block to show the 2 passages in it.

Ok, let's move on to the clips that come with these blocks. We have here first, the DangerDen clip, simple, efficient. Next we have the 2Cool clip. oooh, shiny. And then we have a picture of the actual clip not easily visible in their picture.

Danger Den Clip

Let's start with the DangerDen clip. It hooks into the lugs on either side of the socket, and the nylon screw is offset from the center so that it is directly over the CPU core, this helps the waterblock sit completely flat on the core of modern flipchips. Pretty simple design, you twist the thumbscrew until it's tight. The only fault I can see here is that you can't really tell exactly how much downward force is being applied, some kind of spring that compresses under 17lbs of force would be perfect to be able to assure that your placing the correct amount of force on the CPU.

Uhh I think that's a clip :)

Now the 2Cool clip. What can I say other than satan himself designed this thing. See the blurry picture on the right, that's what's hidden inside that aluminum piece you see in the middle picture. It's a screw, with a piece of sheet metal cut and bent around the head of the screw.

The first problem with this clip is that it has no center point, so with 2 screws to tighten, there is a HIGH likelihood that the block will not be sitting flat on the CPU core. No amount of tightening with make the block sit flat on the core, as I found out the hard way when I sheared off a lug on my socket, after almost roasting my CPU when trying to run it without a heat sink properly attached. But that wasn't my only problem with this clip, the head of that bolt isn't secured from spinning freely while your tightening the wingnuts. Alas, there was another problem, getting the clips to hook into the lugs on my socket was extremely difficult.

The heads of the bolts and the bent metal around them is very bulky, and kept shoving the water block off the CPU and onto the back of socket, the raised hinge part of the socket. Of course that's not acceptable, so I had to bend one of the clips multiple times before it was workable.

2Cool's Clip

I did contact 2Cool before I sheared the lug off my socket, and asked if they had a new clip under design. I explained my problems and requested to test any new clips they might be designing. I got no reply. So I sent off an email requesting an RMA number, to test their return policy. That got me a reply, and they willingly provided an RMA number. I did not return the block, I was just testing them.