Installing my new Thermalright Ultima 90i CPU heat sink
I had to perform a long due upgrade on my home server about two days back. The problem with it was that the server processor would overheat under high computing load. It became so bad that the CPU alarm would trip occasionally, indicating a “fever” of more than 60°C. As with most electronic equipment, Computers + Heat = Big No No + Big Computer Junkyard in The Sky. A new CPU heat sink seemed to be in order, with both the Thermalright Ultra 120 and the Thermalright Ultima 90i looking to be pretty good choices.
The Ultra 120 model is a huge behemoth of a heat sink, weighing in at over 700 grams. The Ultima 90i is far lighter at less than 500 grams. While the Ultra 120 offers much better cooling performance, its weight is a problem, especially for a computer which will be transported around. With the increased mass and inertia, any shaking or rapid vibrations would result in potentially damaging force to the motherboard. Not to mention that it may plain break off. I’ve still yet to hear something like that yet, but being a first on this doesn’t win any prizes. Also, with the Ultra 120 going for RM255 and the Ultima 90i going for a more reasonable RM205, I decided to go with the Ultima 90i.
The Ultima 90i, while not as heavy as the Ultra 120, is still hefty enough to need more than your bog standard heat sink mounting mechanism. And installing the special mounting means taking off the whole board to install a back plate.
Here’s the naked computer with the ole’ standard issue Intel heat sink fan set.
Here’s the naked computer WITHOUT the ole’ standard issue Intel heat sink fan set. That’s the processor chip there. Four lip-smacking cores of Intel Q6600 goodness. It runs hotter than hell, hence this blog post.
The mounting brackets are installed by screwing them against a supplied back plate.
The said back plate, the primary cause of all this monkey business.
Once the mounting’s done, it’s time to work with the Ultima 90i itself.
The heat sink doesn’t come with it’s own fan, so I had to scavenge around for a spare 120cm fan. This one’s a spare taken off a casing somewhere. I had to take the fan off again to actually mount the heat sink on the board, or else I couldn’t tighten down one of the locking screws.
Ta-da! Bunged together and almost ready to go, with the fan reinstalled after the earlier snafu…
Here’s the front view. Looks huge, doesn’t it?
This is after installing the board back into the casing. Yes, it’s quite a mess. One thing I can’t seem to get right is tidying up the innards of the computer. Too many cables and stuff in the server already.
The heat sink seems to work pretty well. While before this, the baseline temperature of the processor was around 44°C, it now holds around 35°C. This is pretty good, leaving a much larger buffer to the dreaded alarm at 60°C. While the system will need monitoring for some time after this, I do believe the heat problem is solved. More on this later on if anything breaks! 
