Project: TYPHOON (Stacker+ GTX480) **2010 REBUILD**

[Nicepants42]

JonCI, those core temps are very high.

On my system with, QX6700 with only a 3x120mm Koolance radiator with very quite fans and much lower flowing pumps is only hitting about 55c-60c under full load @ 3.46ghz. I have found that core temp reports are higher then nvmonitor and speedfan on my system. But you might be ok because there is a known bug in CoreTemp with Core2 processors. Intel manufactures Core2 Duos with 2 different Tjunction temps. 85c and 100c. Sometimes CoreTemp is unable to tell which Tjunction your chip has. You might want to use a few other temp monitoring programs to verify those temperatures. It seems really strange that your water would be at 34c and the procs are at 70c.

Unless your block needs re-seating.

 

[JonCl]

nlancaster and Nicepants42, thanks for the suggestions about the core temps. These temps are definately higher than what I'm used to with the Opteron 165, which never broke 48C, and that's even overclocked to 2.8GHz! But of course I don't know if that's a true core reading or not. From what I understand, the temp readings on the C2D chips are more accurate because they're read closer to the core, but I don't know for sure. I came across this Legit Review of the QX6700 which makes feel a little better about my 65C temperatures (they hit 75-85C , check the third image down).

Anyway, I wasn't aware there's a bug in core temp. Maybe core temp is reading the correct tjunction because Everest seems to generally agree with core temp (but maybe they're both wrong? )...

By the way, the idle temps have dropped a little since yesterday, so maybe the Arctic5 paste is settling in a bit...

Nicepants42, it's a good suggestion to re-seat the block. It seems that the temp have moved in the right direction, so I'll hold off for a bit too see what happens. I also need to do more full-load testing, which I'll get to in the next few days.

 

[Nicepants42]

Well that LR review makes things a little better. I'm running an Opty 165 @ 2.8 also which is why I was surprised at your temps. Letting the AS5 set up for a couple days is probably a good idea.

 

[JonCl]

2010 REBUILD

Hello! I'm back with an update to this project that started three years ago already! TYPHOON has been working great as my everyday workstation, but it's time for a rebuilt to fix a few issues and to give it a thorough cleaning. This hardware is pretty dated now, but I really can't see upgrading to i7 just yet because at 3.6GHz it still rips it up pretty well and handles everything I need without a problem.

Things to fix:

• It seems the Quadro FX 4400 graphics cannot run Windows 7.
• QX6700 CPU runs hot under load (65-75C).
• Temperature gauge failed a few months in.
• Hard drive fans (Panaflos) give off PWM humming which is too loud.
• Areca RAID card with stock heatsink runs hot (60C).
• Probably need to inspect and clean the water loop (water blocks, radiator, etc.).
• Will try to reduce motherboard mosfet squeal with better mosfet cooling.

What really sparked this rebuild is when I tried to load Windows 7. For some reason the graphics performance was awful. It seemed the Quadro FX 4400 was not able to run Windows 7 properly no matter which driver I tried. Well, Quadro graphics isn't a requirement for me these days (though I will need it later), so I picked up a GTX260 at Frys which should run Windows 7 a lot better and will get me by for now. Of course, I will have to replace that graphics fan with a water block!

Here's what I have so far. More to come soon...

 

[Rossi~]

Talk about a blast from the past!

 

[Emission]

Yeah! It's been a while .

 

[vjcsmoke]

That looks pretty hardcore except for the GTX 260. I take it that you don't game much with that system?

 

[JonCl]

Talk about a blast from the past!

Yeah! It's been a while .

Yeah, I know. This project is a relic! I usually upgrade every year or so, but since 2007, two additions to the family plus other events have slowed me down a bit in this department. I'm planning a new project on all new hardware later this year though (sometime after the home theater project is in).

That looks pretty hardcore except for the GTX 260. I take it that you don't game much with that system?

This is true, I don't game these days. The next project will be better equipped for games for sure. This machine mainly runs VMWare images, SQL Server, and rips blu-rays for playing on the WDTV.

 

[JonCl]

After tearing everything down, I was pretty surprised at the condition of the CPU block after three years of use. There is only a few bits of gunk and no corrosion...

The next thing to do is water cool the GPU. I picked up a Swiftech MCW60-R2 waterblock for the GPU and a GTX200 heatsink for the ram chips, mosfets, etc...

However, come to find out, there are two versions of this GTX260 graphics card and unfortunately, this one is the wrong version...

 

[JonCl]

It turns out that watercooling this GTX260 wasn't going to be as easy as I first thought. Mounting a Swiftech waterblock on the GPU should not be a problem, but there doesn't seem to be an off-the-shelf heatsink available to cool the rest of this version 2 card. As you can see in this pic, the mosfet layout is quite a bit different between the versions:

Actually, the original heatsink design is quite good because:

• It provides rigidity to the card
• It keeps all the heat pads in contact in all the necessary places (except for those mosfets under the fan, which could be cooled with individual stick-on heatsinks).
• It would probably not interfere with a waterblock due to its low profile design (particularly in the location of the barbs over the ram chips):

Ok, I'm up for a challenge. Why not mod the original heatsink with a place for a Swiftech waterblock?...

So far so good! Next steps will be to fit the waterblock with this modded heatsink and then mod the cover to fit.

More to come...

 

[JonCl]

Modding the cover so that it misses the south bridge cooler presented an interesting challenge. This issue also arose during the original build of this project pictured here:

Basically, the block will need to be moved to the left and rotated so that the two barbs line up parallel to the PCI-E slots on the motherboard in order to just fit with the modded heatsink of the graphics card. To do that, I needed to fabricate some custom brackets.

A thick metal outlet cover provided the material:

Moving on to modding the cover:

Here is the heatsink and cover test fitted to the card. It looks good so far. The cuts are still rough and need to be cleaned up though:

And finally here is how it looks with everything cleaned up:

The next step will be to take care of any (hopefully) minor fit issues between the waterblock and mosfet heatsinks, etc...

 

[JonCl]

To fit mosfet heatsinks onto the card, I needed to trim the heatsink base in a few places...

And a few places on the underside as well...

Here is the heatsink and base all cleaned up and ready to install...

Next step was to mount the mostfet heatsinks...

These thermal pads came from Petras and are a perfect replacement for the originals...

This is the waterblock mounting hardware that I had to drum up from what I had from other projects...

Finally, it's ready for the waterblock to be mounted...

Here it is in its final form...

The heatsink and base provide the needed rigidity to keep the card from resting on that fragily mounted southbridge block, but the clearance is enough so it should be ok...

That's about it for the graphics card mod. I still have to mount a waterblock on the RAID card, lap the CPU, and then put it all back together.

 

[master noran]

That is a nice lookin GTX 260.

Great job.

 

[Crispy002]

Impressive customization on the graphics card there. I might suggest a quiet, low speed fan to keep air circulating over the mosfets for even better temps.

 

[0ptional]

Might you run into issues with the cut heatpipes? Shouldn't you remove them from the heatsink just in case?

 

[JonCl]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments.

... I might suggest a quiet, low speed fan to keep air circulating over the mosfets for even better temps.

Good suggestion. Luckily, those heatsinks should have pretty good airflow coming from the 120mm hard drive fan just adjacent to them. The card is pretty long and it should fit in close with that fan. Here's a view with the previous card installed:

Might you run into issues with the cut heatpipes? Shouldn't you remove them from the heatsink just in case?

Good call. I believe you are referring to the heatpipe in this pic:

I wasn't really sure what to do with that heatpipe. There was only a very small amount of fluid in the pipe that leaked out when it was cut and it evaporated very quickly. I ended up leaving it because I wanted to keep the heatsink fins it was under in tact. Sometime after that pic, I actually did come back and crimp it off, but forgot to snap another pic. My guess is that it'd probably be ok even without the crimp. It might be even better to solder it closed, but I didn't go that far.

 

[0ptional]

Alright, I just wasn't sure about the precautions to take with heatpipes, as far as I know it's generally not a good idea to cut them up.

 

[JonCl]

Alright, I just wasn't sure about the precautions to take with heatpipes, as far as I know it's generally not a good idea to cut them up.

Those heatpipes are just copper tubes with a few drops of coolant inside and sealed in a vacuum. Nothing too dangerous with cutting them I don't think. At least luckily, I was not harmed in the processes.

By the way, I have some more pics of the waterblock that I installed on the RAID card. Why a waterblock on a RAID card of all things you ask? Well, I guess it was designed to run this hot, but then again maybe it isn't getting enough air down around the bottom of the card slots:

The install was pretty straight forward except the mounting plate needed a notch to fit the card:

 

[0ptional]

Yeah, my Perc 5/i is probably the hottest part in my system, crazy... there's a few popular mods to cool it down that I'll probably do myself soon here, especially once I find a 512MB stick that is fully compatible...