Using a Socket A VapoChill XE II
Mounting the evaporatorNext up, with the motherboard on the tray, CPU in the motherboard after preparing it, and motherboard back in the case, it's time to hook up the chiller to the CPU.
This is supposed to be the tricky part, but providing you:
Make sure you've got plenty of 'slack' on the evaporator hose
Pay careful attention to what side of the mounting clips attaches to what side of the socket
you'll be fine.
Once you have the mounting clips attached to the evaporator head (check the manual for correct orientation, then double check, I got it wrong first time around), you can test run the evaporator fitment to make sure you've got good contact with the processor. With plenty of slack on the evaporator hose, align it with the socket area and gently press down onto the CPU. Aligning with the socket area will definitely mean bending the hose in a right angle fashion. Don't be scared, it's designed for you to do that. Lift up and check for an imprint of thermal compound on the copper evaporator head, in the shape of your CPU core. That means recovering the CPU core with compound, since you just removed some, but it's essential to make sure everything is aligned right.
With everything setup again, you can attach it for real. Hooking the clips over the socket lugs, like you would in any other situation with a clip based heatsink, let go of the evaporator hose. If you have plenty of slack, and you've bent the hose correctly, it'll sit there suspended over the CPU core under its own tension. That's what you want. If it pops off the socket lugs, you haven't bent the hose correctly or there's not enough slack for it to sit just right. Be mindful of the insulation material over the hose too. It will only take a couple of extra bends of the hose to get everything aligned right, compared to how the hose will ship to you, and again, don't be scared to bend it.
If it's aligned right, and holding on to the socket lugs OK, you can start screwing it down at either side. A quarter turn per screw, per side, alternating between them. It's time consuming, but make sure you don't cheat and screw down too much at one side before swapping to the other. You want the evaporator head to come down on the CPU as evenly as possible. Too much skew and you could damage your CPU core.
Screw down as tight as you can get without overtightening. It's designed to bottom out, so you can usually go all the way down as far as screwing goes. That done, congratulate yourself on fitting the evaporator to your CPU. Over fitting a normal heatsink, the only annoyance is the time consuming nature of screwing it down. It seemingly takes forever. Apart from that, it's fine, and very easy. The P4 version is easier still.
After the cooling hardware is attached, all that's left to do is install the PSU, cable everything up, and get your peripherals and expansion cards installed.
Final preparation
There are only two other main things to do that are VapoChill specific, compared to other 'normal' systems.
The first is install the PSU. Since the top part of a VapoChill case is dedicated to the chiller unit, the PSU sits above the CPU area instead. And since the CPU is being smothered by an evaporator head on a long length of hose, you need to make sure there's a gap between the PSU and said hose. Asetek recommend you have at least a couple of millimetres of clearance between PSU and the insulation material on the hose, so make sure it's not resting up against it.
That done, just just need to wire it up.
Since the ChillControl is responsible for applying power to the system, it sits in between your PSU and your motherboard. You run your ATX and ATX12 cables into the ChillControl, by means of a passthrough connector, and then the other end of that passthrough gets passed to your motherboard for power.
There's also a connector for the CPU heating element, and you hook up your motherboard reset and power connectors to the ChillControl too, so it can control them, and hence all of your system.
Wired up correctly, you can put your expansion cards, hard drives and opticals in too, to build a full system.
Setup notes
It takes a long time, that's for sure. But most of that is just careful preparation, making sure you follow the excellent manual to the letter. As long as you do so, it all goes very smoothly. Just be as careful as you would be with a normal heatsink, that's my advice. I'm a cackhanded idiot, and even I managed it right first time. That's a bonus for the rest of you. Kill a CPU with a VapoChill and you aren't taking your time. It's handy to have a friend around to help with mounting nuances, but it's not imperative.
Some pictures now, before we move on to setting it up after first switch on, and actually using it, before a look at performance.
