EKWB addresses direct die cooling issues and will ship replacement parts

Sep 10, 2023

Matthew Wilson April 18, 2023Cooling, Featured Tech News

EKWB recently launched a range of Direct Die CPU cooling products, but unfortunately, there have been some issues. This week, EK confirmed that it has heard the feedback around issues and is making adjustments to solve them.

Some of you may remember that we worked with EKWB last year on Direct Die cooling, providing testing and feedback during the development process of these products. At the time, we found that the delid tool could strip threads and we ran into an issue with poor cold plate contact. As it turns out, some customers also faced similar problems, leading to EKWB addressing the issue on Facebook today.

Here's what EK had to say in its public response:

"In the weeks since our Direct Die products launched, we have received a small number of complaints regarding ease of use and thermal performance. Even though the majority of products functioned exactly as intended, we remain committed to ensuring that all our customers have the same positive experience.

Unlike conventional CPU water blocks, our Direct Die products do not rely on mounting pressure from the springs, as this would exert excessive force on the die. Instead, the die guard controls the interference between the coldplate and the die. We quickly discovered that there was a discrepancy in the interference caused by the thickness of the die guard directly over the CPU PCB. A small percentage of die guards on the upper limit of their manufacturing tolerance did not allow sufficient interference for effective thermal transfer to the coldplate. In response, we have now implemented a stricter tolerance to exclude such parts. If you believe that your product may be affected, check the contact with the thermal paste. If it does not spread thinly, please contact EK support directly for a replacement.

Initially, the coldplates of all Direct Die products were turned using a lathe, this can be seen by the distinctive concentric machining marks. While EK first used this machining technique to produce curved coldplates for Magnitude, we can assure you that all Direct Die coldplates are flat, despite their similarity in physical appearance. In the future, we will face-mill the contact surface on all Direct Die coldplates so that the visual appearance of the flat part meets the expectations, even though this will not impact performance.

Several weeks ago, a revision was made to our IHS Removal Tool manual which detailed all additional precautions that can be taken to safely remove the IHS without damaging the CPU or the tool. We also published a video carefully detailing and explaining all of the steps. If you have any issues with the female threads stripping from the tool, we will issue a replacement that has more thread engagement."

EKWB has said that if customers are facing one of the errors mentioned, they can contact EK support for replacement parts. Unfortunately at the time of publishing, the message has not yet been shared on EK's news page on its website, or on its other social channels, such as Twitter, so hopefully this article will help raise awareness for users.

If you have had issues with any EK Direct Die cooling gear, you can contact EK Support, HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: We were told EK had trouble replicating the issues themselves during the development process but these things often become easier to find when there are more users to gather feedback from. Hopefully, anyone facing issues with the Direct Die cooling tools can get replacement parts swiftly.

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