Sunbeamtech Core-Contact Freezer

Installation

I was pretty excited when I saw the mounting bracket for the Core-Contact Freezer (the fact that such things excite me is WHY I work here at bit-tech), as it’s designed to convert the infamously difficult and fiddly LGA 775 bracket into an AM2 bracket, which has a reputation for being a doddle to fit coolers to.

The AM2 converter mount attaches through the LGA 775’s four heatsink mounting holes on the motherboard, and is secured by push-in pins (not push pins, there’s a big difference!).

There’s no back plate, and no fiddly twist-release caps here, so there was no need to remove the motherboard from the tray or case if you’re unlucky enough not to have a removable motherboard tray in your PC chassis.

Once the bracket was secured in place, we tried to fit the heatsink - something which sadly proved to be a little tricky despite the improved bracket.

Because the cooler is so wide, reaching down into the gap between the cooler and the power supply to hook the top retention clip onto the bracket was an exercise in futility. Eventually it forced us to fully remove the board from the case anyway, where fitting the cooler was much easier.


With a little pressure both retention clips popped firmly into place and the cooler was successfully fitted. However, despite the inconvenience of taking out the board, it was still many times easier than having to use a rear mounting plate.

However, removing the heatsink only adds to the frustration, and proves harder to pry from the motherboard than a chocolate muffin from the hands of the world’s hungriest man. In order to leverage the clips to the extent required to remove the heatsink, you will once again, need to remove the motherboard from the case, and even then the heatsink’s design hinders you from moving the clips out far enough to free them from the bracket.


We attempted to mount the Core-Contact on AM2 socket motherboards but the mounting problems went from annoying to disastrous.

The cooler’s mount clips are identical for both socket LGA 775 and AM2, but on AM2 there was just no way the clip was going to reach the motherboard’s mounting bracket without unacceptable levels of force being applied. We tried every conceivable way we could think of to mount the cooler onto the AM2 bracket safely, but there just doesn’t seem to any way to do so without potentially damaging the heatsink, or the motherboard itself.