One of the things that really astonished me was how a bad seat could be masked by using too much AS5.
At the time I removed the block I could run solidly at 2750-2775. One would not think of an improper seat with those numbers. At least I certainly would not. I
had noticed that an increase in VCore to 2.1 would nearly always cause a bsod 'machine check error' and assumed this was very natural at that high a VCore.
When I removed the block, I noticed only a half clear imprint of the CPU die on the block. The other half of the imprint was AS gray. Remember, I could run at 2775/VCore 2.05 perfectly overnight Prime95 stable like this!
I had not followed the instructions and had applied AS5 to both surfaces instead of a semi-transparent layer to the CPU only. Frankly I thought some of you were acting like old women with their favorite recipe
I thought, heck, it will either work or not, "what's the big deal?"
After replacing the hose to remove all pressure to the WB, scrubbing both surfaces with a coffee filter and alcohol, and using an ultra thin coat (I'm talking near transparent) to the CPU only I immediately noticed a subtle difference in behavior, plus the not so subtle difference in 2860 stable. When pushing VCore aggressively, Prime would drop out politely, instead of bsod which jibes with some of the pinprick hot-spot theories I remember reading aout.
Still, I'm amazed that I could run stable at 2775 with bios VCore 2.05 with a bad seat and having only half the CPU top firmly touching the block. The ability of AS5 to mask a bad seat speaks favorably about it, yet it's a sneaky thing to figure out. Now I'm going to always use the thinnest possible layer on the cpu only on the theory that a bad seat will show up near instanly, instead of being masked.
I think the attachment methodology of the center fed 6002-A coupled with hose side loading, and in fact many of the spring loaded mounts used on WB may lend themselves to subtle and sneaky seating problems, but I'm sure no expert. The only thing I did like about my old Koolance was the way it put direct pressure on the top of the WB directly alligned over the CPU die. Of course it was side fed with cross flow so there was nothing to get in the way of that style mount.
@BillA - I wondered about doing a mod to the mount so that four springs were used on the middle of the blue crossbrace equally spaced like an inch from the center of the pressure point so that the pressure is controlled within specs yet is applied more centrally over the die face. Any thoughts on that? Probably not too practical I would guess.