Assembling

Installation of the Prometeia is quite easy if you have a steady hand. It is also very safe for your beloved hardware if you follow the very good instructions that come with the unit. First a small Rear Cover is mounted on the backside of the motherboard, which is sealed with something that feels like a mixture of chewing gum and plastering. Afterwards a mounting bracket is screwed on top through the four holes close to the socket. It is very important to seal all SMD components that crosses the barrier between the “outside world” and the inside of the hermetic cell, in order to prevent “false” humid air to get sucked into the cell. When we installed the system we could not get the opening of the retaining system to match perfectly with the heat-spreader of the P4. A few millimetres of had to be left with no contact with the copper-surface of the Microfreezer. As this part is not directly over the DIE of the P4 we assume it not to have any significant influence on our test results though.

In that context, Chip-Con told us that these tolerances are unavoidable to keep the Prometeia compatible with as many types of motherboards as possible.

After sealing the upper mounting bracket we fixed the Microfreezer to the retaining system with the two spring loaded screws. The pressure can be regulated via additional spacers. We recommend AMD users to be very careful during this procedure. The concept of installation is however one of the major advantages of the Prometeia System: The material of the Microfreezer, mounting bracket and rear-cover together with the sealing material, leaves the entire CPU area as a hermetically sealed off space. Even at a prolonged period of no load, the material does not feel cold on the outside, so condensation on the outside is not a problem at all.