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So I bought a XP-90...

P

Phewl

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 14, 2005
Messages
83
...for my A64 3700+, and I've paired it with this fan.

The problem I am having is that I am not seeing much of a temperature difference, and I am not currently overclocked. Previously I was idling around 38 celsius with stock cooling, now I'm around 36-38, load around 50. I was expecting a bit more of a difference than this.

I've got this set up in a Lian Li PC-65B case, with 2 fans blowing in the front and a rear and top exhaust, all 80 mm. I have noticed there is a hot spot right about the PCI-e vid card, directly below the XP-90.

Any suggestions? I've tried reseating the HS, changing the direction of the fan ( which surprisingly made no difference), even the orientation of the HSF itseld. Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.
 
thermal paste? correct retention bracket and such? correct vcore and everything in bios?
 
Take the heatsink off and see how much thermal paste is on the bottom. That will show you what kind of contact its making with your processor.
 
fwiw, I had to lap my XP-90 to see a huge difference in temps. My load temp doesn't get past 43c, and idle temp has gotten low enought that my DFI board shut down the cpu fan.

check the bottom of the hs. If it has ridges that you can not only see but feel withOUT the use of your fingernail, then the surface is crap and you won't see any decrease until you fix that problem. If that's the case, you can either send it back in exchange for one with a good base, or lap it. I chose to lap it since I didn't care about warranty on a hs...and turnaround time was MUCH quicker :p

oh and like the other guy said...check the thermal paste to see what kind of contact your getting.
 
I am using the correct retention bracket, everything is locked into place as it should be. I am also using AS5, following the sites directions.

I am not sure what you mean by seeing what kind of contact it's making with the CPU. I know it is mushing all the AS5, so I have to assume it's a tight fit.

For what it's worth, I just moved my 7800gtx down a PCI-e slot and I'm now idling 33-35 degrees. Perhaps my air flow isn't sufficient?
 
you know...like how a dog drinks water? :p

j/k

lapping is when you take a rough or curved surface and smooth it out by using different grades of sandpaper on a perfectly flat surface. It's VERY time consuming to do it right. Took my around 8 hours, but it dropped my temps by around 8c load.

lots of people use mirrors as a surface, or a marble countertop...but anything that's as perfectly flat as you can get. Start with a rough grade of sandpaper and then gradually move to finer grades. I went from 80>120>180>400>800>1200. The rough grades are to smooth out any curves or grooves, the finer grades are to finish the job off. you'll still need thermal paste, but the amount you'll need could be drastically less than what you had before just for the cpu and hsf to make good contact.
 
I understand what you are saying. The only thing I don't understand is how they wouldn't make these things perfectly flat in their factories.
 
mass production ;)

the more they push out the door, the more they make. And prolly 90% of the people that get them don't even notice the surface quality of it.

Thermalright (or is it thermaltake....I get them mixed up all the time) usually stands behind their products though and from what I've heard their XP series usually have great base quality....but there's always some that will go out the door substandard. That's a given with anything that's mass produced.
 
For sh*ts n giggles, I took off the side panel. Now I'm idling around 30-31. I'm starting to think it's an air issue.
 
This case. These pictures show a pretty good layout of the fans. They are all 80mm, 2 blowing in the front, 1 rear exhaust and 1 top exhaust. I replaced the stock exhaust fans with Vantec stealth 80mms.
 
I like that case....not too fancy, not too plain ;)

anyway, if you left all the fan grills on....that's one of the first things I'd remove in order to increase airflow and reduce noise. It makes almost an amazing difference in the airflow and noise of your case when you remove the restrictive fan grills and either leave them open or use less restrictive grills in place.

so you have a lot of cables in the way that may obstruct airflow?
 
have2p said:
Take the heatsink off and see how much thermal paste is on the bottom. That will show you what kind of contact its making with your processor.
Click to expand...

I'm having a similar problem with my X2 4400+. Idle is at 40c. I put on my AS5 using the instructions that came with the XP-90. I put a very small drop on the proc and spread it thin with a credit card. Did the same to the base of the XP-90. Is the worry too much or too little?

Thanks,
BoB
 
Bob - could be too much. I use ceramique, but I only put a small dab on the cpu, then spread it very thin (so i could still read the etching on the A64 heatspreader). Then put the hsf on top. Didn't put some on both surfaces.

not sure where I read that method (probably from someone else here) but it's seemed to work the best for me.
 
That's too much as5 Bob. You only need about a rice grain sized drop on the cpu and with these heat spreaders you really don't need to spread it out, just clip the sink down and it will work it's self out evenly. And those vantec stealth fans aren't good if you're looking to keep anything cool. What are they, 21cfm? That's not much air movement.
 
Phewl said:
This case. These pictures show a pretty good layout of the fans. They are all 80mm, 2 blowing in the front, 1 rear exhaust and 1 top exhaust. I replaced the stock exhaust fans with Vantec stealth 80mms.
Click to expand...

The stock fans aren't that loud to begin with I don't think. I would imagine that a quiet 80mm fan isn't going to be putting out that much air. Just a thought though.

Also, you'll probably notice a larger difference when your CPU is under a load with the XP-90 than you would notice with idle temps. Plus, you have to let your AS5 "cure" for a day or two. Your temps will drop 2-3C or so (at least they did for me ;) ).
 
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