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Too hot to handle...

D

delta-v

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 26, 2000
Messages
297
Finally broke down and bought an i7 rig. I got a new waterblock (Heatkiller 3.0) to keep things cool. I've got it running stable at 3.31ghz, but it's running too hot and I don't want to push it up any higher. Loaded temps are pushing 80C (using RealTemp), and that ain't right. Water temps are running around 40C, and the fan air off the radiator is noticeably warm. Ambient air is around 72F. It's a fairly small rig with a single-fan radiator, cooling only the CPU. It was more than adequate to cool my old E6400 even at slow fans speeds.

With 35C difference between the water and the CPU, is the waterblock is working properly? The thermal paste was spread thin with a razor blade, and the HK 3.0 tightened to spec. I'm thinking the single fan radiator isn't able to pull enough heat out of the system. Do I need to pony up the bucks for a bigger radiator or scrap it and go air?
 
i'd say it's the single rad, lots of ppl on i7 are running triple radiators to keep things cool
 
A bigger radiator would certainly help. I would try a remount following the directions on the thermal paste first. Most do not direct you to spread the paste yourself but to put a small dollop in the middle and let the heatsink spread it out.
 
Single rad is not enough for overclocking an i7. My i7 @ 4ghz loaded temps are at 67C/62C/64C/61C and the cpu is the only thing in the loop with a triple rad. If you want a monster overclock get a triple rad. If you want a moderate overclock and save some money at the same time go double rad but I highly suggest triple.
 
Well, I'm not going for the mega-overclock, mostly just silent operation and getting heat and clutter out of the case. I'd be more than happy with 4gb...a nice round number! :cool: I guess I'm looking at a 3-fan rad with some slow-but-silent fans, and cannibalizing my existing pump and reservoir.

Does anyone make a bracket to mount the rad to the bottom of a desk? Seems like the best place to mount it out of the way (it's a big desk).
 
Erasmus354 said:
A bigger radiator would certainly help. I would try a remount following the directions on the thermal paste first. Most do not direct you to spread the paste yourself but to put a small dollop in the middle and let the heatsink spread it out.
Click to expand...
I redid the thermal paste per the manufacturer's instructions. It didn't look like the waterblock was making good contact with the processor, so I did some lapping on it. Dropped the peak temps down to 69C. Still hot, but much better.
 
maybe try upping the air flowing through the rad, either by turning up the fan speed or using a larger fan. That will tell you if you need more rad. I've always thought one of the bigger downsides to watercooling is how long temps take adjust. It just takes so much longer to fine tune and troubleshoot, but once you get it dialed in it's probably the best you can get without going overboard.
 
bigbadgreen said:
maybe try upping the air flowing through the rad, either by turning up the fan speed or using a larger fan. That will tell you if you need more rad. I've always thought one of the bigger downsides to watercooling is how long temps take adjust. It just takes so much longer to fine tune and troubleshoot, but once you get it dialed in it's probably the best you can get without going overboard.
Click to expand...
I thought about that, but the fan on there was already a 75cfm fan, so anything higher would be pretty loud.

I swapped out the single-fan rad with a 3x120 rad and some low-speed/low-noise fans. Since I had it apart, I also added a block in place of the Al heatsink on the Northbridge. That kept core temps under 60C. I was able to get it up to 180mhz BCLK stable, but that took temps back up to 80C under load. I noticed the AUTO setting on the CPU Voltage had the chip running at 1.4V, so I set it back down to 1.2V. It's now humming along at 21x180mhz with Turbo Mode enabled and staying around 62C after a couple of hours on Prime95, with a nearly silent fan setup. Idle core temps are hovering around 35C.
 
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