Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 cooling is almost there...$0.28 would have broke the bank?

[freecableguy]

I give up. I just don't get it. Can anybody explain to me why motherboard makers like Gigabyte, Asus, Abit, and DFI go to such great lengths to design and build their products for the "ultimate overclocking" experience only to leave the simple things on the floor? I admit, the trend toward quality component usage is at least in the right (positive) direction, but they just can't seem to understand the *obvious*shortcuts that annoy us all (or at least me).

We've replaced those inferior Chinese-made capacitors with high-quality Japanese-made solid electrolytic caps - great! Some motherboard makers are making an effort to use heat-conducting copper in place of cheap alumium and premium thermal paste in place of the cheapest stuff they can find - wonderful! Gigabyte even goes are far as using (and advertising) what they like to call "Ultra Durable 2" components - low RDSon (which has to do with the internal equivalent series resistance when the MOSFET when switching "on" in order to supply current to the CPU - this is important for a variety of reasons, all of which will *not* be discussed here) MOSFETs, solid ferrite core chokes (inductors), and all-solid electrolytic capacitors...yet, they STILL use the most worthless means for securing their colossalcopper heatsink to the VRM area of the motherboard...

Well...at least we can do something about it. Using what I would appraise at a cost of less than $0.30 per motherboard if Gigabyte were to buy these parts in bulk, like they do everything else.

Here's a side-by-side look at what we've removed from the VRM-cooler portion of the motherboard heatsink next to what we will be using to replace said crappy part:

On the left is the plastic hook and low-pressure mounting spring...pathetic. On the right it our 1cm machine screw, mini nut and isolating paper washer. One centimeter is the perfect length, when selecting you parts just make sure that the screw is thin enough to pass through the copper block.

And here's a look at all the parts we need...yep, this is all that Gigabyte needed to make a good solution ready for some serious overclocking:

[Joker]Where does he get those wonderful toys...[/Joker]

And the final proof of concept installed. Effort is very minimal - a pair of needle-nose pliers, a small screw driver and a pair of flat pliers (to hold the nut when tightening the screw) and about 3 minutes is all that's needed to complete this "modification."

Now, here's the deal. The first person to contact me via PM or email (at kjboughton AT cox DOT net) with the name and email address of someone at Gigabyte that has the power to listen to suggestion for change and possibly implement change gets this "modification kit" (shown above) for their Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 for FREE.

-FCG