Shuttle AK31 v3.1 Motherboard Review - Shuttle AK31 v3.1 Motherboard Review
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| Company: Shuttle Inc.
Product: Shuttle AK31 V3.1 KT266A Motherboard
Price: $80 approx
Availability: Now
Written by: Mack (SPeeD)
Reviewed: February, 2001 |
Chipset Cooling: Another bonus of this board is the included active chipset cooling. Hold up? I pay a measly $80 for this mobo and get ACTIVE COOLING on the chipset too? GooSH!!! The small heatsink is nothing to jump for joy about, but the fan feels relatively powerful on there. Hell, even MSI's top of the line KT266A board did not come with active cooling.
Ok, curiosity being one of my downfalls, I couldn't resist pulling off the chipset cooler to see what lied beneath. It was held on by 2 small spreader pins as well as some type of thermal tape. The tape held the sink on there pretty good and I had to twist a good bit to get it off. I finally did and here is what I saw.
Ok, not great, but it could be worse. You'll see the heatpad covering about 90% or more of the chipset itself. I have to wonder what type of performance you would get out of this stuff though. Yes, I should have taken temps of before and after, but I was too anxious to scrape this crap off and apply some Arctic Alumina and slap her back on. Yet before I did this, curiosity continued to nag at me and I wanted to know how flat this heatsink was before I just slapped it back on the chipset. Unfortunately I was only able to dig up some 1000 and 1500 grip sandpaper. Much too fine for the job at hand, yet better than nothing. Lets take a look at the bottom of the heatsink after a few "swirls" on the 1000 grit paper.
Before
With a quick few swirls on the paper, we see this HSF is FAR from flat. I was really wishing I had some 500 or 700 grit paper to do the job right, but since I already had a few beers ( a must for this kind of work) and it was late at night, I was just outta luck. Here's what she looked like after about 15 minutes of hard swirling on the sand paper.
And finally after about 20 minutes or so, I couldn't take it any more and knew I had most likely reached the limits of what this 1000 grit paper could do. Still, better than nothing.
Unfortunately, very little of the "lapped" section of HSF will actually cover the chipset. Yet my peace of mind will be much better off for it. I actually would have preferred to put a BLORB or Crystal Orb on there but 1 stubborn capacitor was right next to the chipset! Probably the one thing that pissed me off most about this board.
Ok, lets scrape the thermal material off of the chipset before we put this HSF back on. I pulled out a small razor blade doohicky from my toolbox and commenced to carefully scraping. Lets take a look.
This was not only and easy job, but essential in getting the goo off in order to get a good mate with the sink and the chipset. I pulled out some soft paper towels and alcohol to clean it off afterward.
Not too shabby. Next, I brokeout the Arctic Alumina and applied a thin coat across the entire portion of the chipset. Hey, this stuff may be overkill, but I wanted to really push this mobo to it's limits and did not want to take any chances.
Tried and true. This is some great stuff for the Job. Thanks to the ArcticSilver guys for providing this. Not only is this stuff cheap, it works very well and you can get it at your favorite online dealer. Lets take a look at a few pics of the "Patented" OCA Thermal Grease Application Process.
Keep in mind that you want to evenly cover the chipset, but want to end up with a thin layer of thermal grease between the chipset and the heatsink. Too much is bad, and not enough will keep you from getting a good seal between the HSF and chipset, resulting in poor heat dissapation. Ok, now that we are done with that. Snapping the HSF back into place is no sweat. I just pushed the pins through the designated holes, put down a little pressure to make sure we had good contact and continued with business as usual. One thing I did do is attach a few tie straps to the fan cables to keep them from separating and getting in the way of anything.
These little suckers are worth their weight in gold when putting together a system. If it's loose, or can be bundled, I tie it up with a few of these.
Wow, this is almost turning into a mobo modding article. Lets just consider it an added "OCA" bonus to this review and continue on.
Ok, the motherboard is now ready to install and install it we did. Fortunately the ol' AOpen HX-08 has a removable motherboard tray for easy installation. Once we got it back in the case, it was time to hookup the LED, PWR and HD connectors, as well as the intake fan.
Now, the placement of the intake fan header was another source of headache for me. Just about every motherboard I have dealt with in the last 3 years has had a fan header at the bottom right of the motherboard in order to hookup the case intake fan with relative ease. Does the AK31 V3.1? NOPE! It does however have one all the way at the opposite side of the board. I had to dig into my toolbox and find a 3pin cable extender. Fortunately I had one, otherwise I would have wigged out in a fit of rage. Here's what I'm talkin' about.
Is that a pisser or what? Although at least one was available. However obscure the placement may have been. Still, I only paid $80 for this mobo, so I'm not yet gritting my teeth.Next: Shuttle AK31 v3.1 Motherboard Review >>
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