[SOLVED] Assassin III RAM clearance - melting issue?

[jamok99]

A bit of an odd question. Building a new rig. My case will only allowed an air cooler height of 170mm. The Deepcool Assassin III
lists its normal height at 165mm. This may or may not change, given the adaptor bracket that one needs to use with Intel LGA motherboards (I have a Gigabyte Aorsu Pro Z690 DDR5.) I know I need to use slots A2 and B2 for the RAM. And approximating the height by putting components in, without installing them, tells me that I'll need every millimeter I can get because the B2 Ram may cause the front fan on the cooler to be taller than the 170mm. Question is this: I might make the height clearance if I let the bottom of the front fan frame, which is plastic, touch (or very nearly touch) the RAM stick in the B2 slot. While the RAM stick (Kingstron Fury 6000mhz) has a heat spreader on top with some holes in it, I know that RAM itself tends to get hot in general. If I do this, am I risking melting the plastic on the bottom of the frame on the front fan of the Assassin III cooler? I understand that one 'fix' for this is to use a smaller fan (120mm I think) than the 140mm high-quality, fancy fan that comes with the Assassin kit. Any replies welcomed in advance.

 

[Phaaze88]

No, you don't risk melting the heatspreader - but there's actually another issue that can arise over time from having the fan and ram make contact: the vibrations from the fan go through the heatsink and can cause you lose one or both memory channels.
I didn't know this at first - a few others here informed me on it.
Leave a small gap between them, or install the Assassin III's fans in pull-pull, instead of the push-push it's normally shown as in images. But, with how chunky the I/O shield just looks on some Alder Lake boards, I wonder if it'll fit like that... check, please?

 

[alceryes]

No, you don't risk melting the heatspreader - but there's actually another issue that can arise over time from having the fan and ram make contact: the vibrations from the fan go through the heatsink and can cause you lose one or both memory channels.
I didn't know this at first - a few others here informed me on it.
Leave a small gap between them, or install the Assassin III's fans in pull-pull, instead of the push-push it's normally shown as in images. But, with how chunky the I/O shield just looks on some Alder Lake boards, I wonder if it'll fit like that... check, please?

This.
Vibrations are a killer. Make sure they don't touch.

 

[jamok99]

No, you don't risk melting the heatspreader - but there's actually another issue that can arise over time from having the fan and ram make contact: the vibrations from the fan go through the heatsink and can cause you lose one or both memory channels.
I didn't know this at first - a few others here informed me on it.
Leave a small gap between them, or install the Assassin III's fans in pull-pull, instead of the push-push it's normally shown as in images. But, with how chunky the I/O shield just looks on some Alder Lake boards, I wonder if it'll fit like that... check, please?

Phaaze88 ,
Excellent point about the vibration issue. Never would have occurred to me. And obviously, if you wreck the B2 RAM slot, well, just kiss that motherboard goodbye. Grateful for your reply, thanks. BTW, I'm not sure what you mean by a 'pull-pull'
configuration as one answer to the problem. I'll google it. My guess is it involves mounting the 'offending' fan on the other side of the heatsink - which may not be possible with this board, given how tall and close in the heat shrounds are on the other side. Regardless, thanks for saving my mobo from a fate worse than.....well, actually, it's equivalent to death.

 

[Phaaze88]

Push-push:
[heatsink]fan | [heatsink]fan <-airflow direction

Pull-pull:
fan[heatsink] | fan[heatsink] <-airflow direction