Fan arrangement and have I put my thermal paste on well?

JosephDuffy

JosephDuffy

JosephDuffy

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Joined
21 Jan 2011
Posts
52
Hi everyone.
I've had my PC for a few months, but it's getting into summer and I wanted a bit more cooling. I got 2 fans with my Define R4 case, and ordered 2 more of the same fans since they seemed pretty quiet and pumped a bit of air (I'm willing to buy other/more fans if needs be). The fans I have now: http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&category=4&prod=79
Here's a picture of my PC, slightly illustrated. Red is exhaust (hot air) and blue is intake (cool air)
http://d.pr/i/hTXY
Note: I also have an exhaust fan that on the side of my case, which sits next the GPU. I'm guessing getting 2 more intake fans, one at the bottom (next to the PSU) and one below the current one on the front (it'd blow over the HDD)
Is this a good arrangement? How can I figure out if it is? I don't really want to get too many more fans; I quite like a quiet PC :)
Furthermore, how easy is it to check if I've applied thermal paste correctly? Once I have my fans set up correctly, are there any (reputable) sources for what temperature I should be getting? I have an i7 3770K w/ Noctua NH-D14 and an EVGA GTX 670FTW w/ Arctic Cooling Twin Turbo II.
Thanks for any help!
 
Hi,

I can't really comment on the case or your choice in fans as I've never owned them. However, the first thing to do would be to see what temperatures you're currently getting.

Take a look at this thread: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17757620

Whilst there are loads of hardware monitoring apps you can use, I've installed CoreTemp. It works well and is nice and discreet.

If I were you, I'd install that and post back with your CPU and motherboard temperatures. From there you can get an idea whether your current cooling/fan setup is doing it's job or not.

For example, with your 3770k @ stock speed, you'd expect to see an idle temperature of around 30-32'C depending on ambient temperatures. If you're seeing higher temps, this may indicate poor thermal paste/heatsink application, or poor case circulation.

Hope that helps.

David
 
Fan arrangement seems fine

You can't really check if you've applied the paste correctly; it's all hidden away! Most important is the check the full load temps. Once setup, run Prime95 and note the CPU core temp using something like RealTemp and note the highest temperature value. Come back with it once you've got that and you can start comparing with other peeps :)
 
Hi, you might pull in hot air from the PSU adding a fan in the bottom of the case, don't forget the more load on the PSU the hotter it get's. It might be worth blocking of the bottom fan vent to stop any hot air being pulled in, remove the your hard drive cage and just fix the HD case floor. So the extra fan air flow at the bottom front is not restricted, thus doing a better job cooling.
 
Out of interest how did you apply your paste? Personally on my 2500k I followed the tips that Arctic cooling gave for the paste/CPU combo which was to prime the bast of the heatsink with a thin layer spread out with a credit card, then a single thin line in the middle of the CPU, followed by applying the heatsink and turning 90 degrees each way to spread it out.

Seems to have worked well and I get 25-30c idle and 50-65 under load while overclocked at 4.5GHz, I know it's a different processor but the paste is what I'm getting at.
 
OwenWill said:
Out of interest how did you apply your paste? Personally on my 2500k I followed the tips that Arctic cooling gave for the paste/CPU combo which was to prime the bast of the heatsink with a thin layer spread out with a credit card, then a single thin line in the middle of the CPU, followed by applying the heatsink and turning 90 degrees each way to spread it out.

Seems to have worked well and I get 25-30c idle and 50-65 under load while overclocked at 4.5GHz, I know it's a different processor but the paste is what I'm getting at.
Click to expand...

I think the general theory is to put a pea sized amount in the centre of the chip and let the application of the heatsink spread it out.
 
Personally I'd move the top fan rearwards so that it's pulling the hot exhaust up and out. Where it is now, in effect I'd say it's just pulling cool air being fed by the front intake.
 
SirChumpalot said:
Hi,

I can't really comment on the case or your choice in fans as I've never owned them. However, the first thing to do would be to see what temperatures you're currently getting.

Take a look at this thread: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17757620

Whilst there are loads of hardware monitoring apps you can use, I've installed CoreTemp. It works well and is nice and discreet.

If I were you, I'd install that and post back with your CPU and motherboard temperatures. From there you can get an idea whether your current cooling/fan setup is doing it's job or not.

For example, with your 3770k @ stock speed, you'd expect to see an idle temperature of around 30-32'C depending on ambient temperatures. If you're seeing higher temps, this may indicate poor thermal paste/heatsink application, or poor case circulation.

Hope that helps.

David
Click to expand...

After a bit of tweaking I managed to get my MoBo to put my CPU cooler on full speed (which I don't really want; I'd like it to put the fans up if and when required), so it's currently running at 1200RPM (according to SpeedFan).
With this my idle temps are 30-38ºC (still seems a little high :/)

OLDPHART said:
Hi, you might pull in hot air from the PSU adding a fan in the bottom of the case, don't forget the more load on the PSU the hotter it get's. It might be worth blocking of the bottom fan vent to stop any hot air being pulled in, remove the your hard drive cage and just fix the HD case floor. So the extra fan air flow at the bottom front is not restricted, thus doing a better job cooling.
Click to expand...

I hadn't thought of that! Would it be noticable to the touch? e.g. if I put my PC on full load and stuck my hand there, would I be able to tell if it was hot/cold air circulating there?

EVGAdominik said:
Hi, about the graphics card, can you let me know which clocks the card run under full load, and which temps you reach?
Click to expand...

I'm running with a 135% Power Target and +105MHz Clock Offset. I've not finished OCing yet since I wanted to wait until I had my cooling setup properly. It idles at 35-39ºC (30% fan speed, as is the lowest possible), and under load (using Heaven Benchmark) reaches ~80ºC.
I realise this is high, so at stock under full load it's more like 74ºC. EDIT: Had my side case on too low and the wrong way (better to blow the cool air onto the GPU). Now more like 67ºC
I'm not sure if I really applied thermal paste/the fan correctly, so I'm not sure how accurate these temperatures are.

I will note that my room is very warm at the moment, so that could be attributed to the few extra degrees.
 
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OwenWill said:
Yeah I saw this after I'd done it, but to be honest I can't fault mine just yet haha :)
Click to expand...

There are lots of ways to apply it. It seems it depends on the person doing it! Some prefer the pea method, other's use a line, some use a pea AND a line! I say, get it on and check your temps.

JosephDuffy - have you tried running a program like Prime95 yet? Those idle temps are OK. Yes, 38C is probably a little high but you can get this down by altering the voltage easily enough.

Run prime for an hour and see what your max temp is.
 
SirChumpalot said:
There are lots of ways to apply it. It seems it depends on the person doing it! Some prefer the pea method, other's use a line, some use a pea AND a line! I say, get it on and check your temps.

JosephDuffy - have you tried running a program like Prime95 yet? Those idle temps are OK. Yes, 38C is probably a little high but you can get this down by altering the voltage easily enough.

Run prime for an hour and see what your max temp is.
Click to expand...

After 2 hours on max load, across the 4 cores I had roughly an average temp of 70ºC, 78ºC, 78ºC and 70ºC, with max's of 76ºC, 84ºC, 83ºC and 75ºC.
My frequency is 100.10 x 42.0 (stock, I think) and VId of 1.2410v (I think might be OCed slightly?)
 
And I'd agree with andy, 70'C load is where you want to be at.

Reduce your clock speed from 4.2 to 4ghz for the time being. Leave the default cpu voltage in the Bios and set an offset of 0.07. This will reduce the voltage when less processing power is needed and up it when you do things like game, benching etc..

Let us know how you get on.
 
JosephDuffy said:
I hadn't thought of that! Would it be noticable to the touch? e.g. if I put my PC on full load and stuck my hand there, would I be able to tell if it was hot/cold air circulating there?
Click to expand...

Hi, put your PC on full load put your hand under the PSU Fan without putting your hand in the case for a short while first. You should feel the air flow getting hotter don't forget hot air rise's, then try it with your hand in the case. You might not be able to feel any hot air as the case side is off.

If you can't feel any hot air coming in and you do put the fan in the floor of the case, l would check to see if any hot air is being pulled in then as well, just as a precaution.
 
SirChumpalot said:
And I'd agree with andy, 70'C load is where you want to be at.

Reduce your clock speed from 4.2 to 4ghz for the time being. Leave the default cpu voltage in the Bios and set an offset of 0.07. This will reduce the voltage when less processing power is needed and up it when you do things like game, benching etc..

Let us know how you get on.
Click to expand...

Reduced VCore from 1.3V to 1.15V (default) and reduced clock speed from 4.2GHz to 4GHz.
Idle is now 30~36ºC depending on the core, and full load is looking to be 60-67ºC, and although it's quite been running for as long as the previous one, and I have my windows open this time, it's looking promising!
Edit: After over 1 hour of Prime95, mac temps were 61, 66, 69 and 60ºC respective of all 4 cores. What could the next step be?
Note: This is running the "In-place large FFTs" test in Prime95
 
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