Afterwards, the power supply is installed, and the case fan connected. Don't forget: the fixed voltage regulator and the Northbridge cooler should be equipped with a fan, which is especially important for overclocking.

Chip-Con developed this board so that the computer is turned on at the right time. Here, voltage is supplied to the motherboard only when the cooler has reached an adjustable minimum temperature below -30°C. Other manufacturers have created solutions that are not quite mature yet, where the motherboard remains in continuous reset mode until the cooling temperature has been reached. In the THG lab, this method proved to be impractical.

A view of the cooling element with a copper core, fitted with rubber insulation. During the initial installation, the protective wrapper should be removed. It's not necessary to give it a smearing of thermal grease because that would only increase the thermal resistance.

How NOT to do it: huge amounts of thermal grease only hamper extreme overclocking.

The highlight: now, the cooling element and CPU die are united. Here, the inlet tube of the cooling element should only be slightly flexible. If you're not completely sure that it sits perfectly, then you should definitely remove it again. Otherwise, the CPU could possibly die an immediate thermal death when the PC is turned on. For further details, see the article Hot Spot: How Modern Processors Cope With Heat Emergencies .