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- Joined
- 28 Apr 2007
- Posts
- 3
I have some cooling problems. Idle temps are 50-53C and load temperatures go up as high as 70C. At least that is as high as I let them go. Even just sitting in the BIOS the temperature (starting at room) will slowly creep up to the 50C mark over several minutes.
I have a QX6700 on an Asus P5N32-E PLUS SLi motherboard in a Akasa Eclipse 62 case. It accompanied by 2 BFG 8800gtx and some dominator DDR2 RAM. On the advice of someone at overclockers (I never asked the guys name, sorry) I got an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler and applied the correct amount of thermal paste after cleaning it off with the proper chemicals. I have also tried a Zalman Aero Flower and an old thermaltake cooler I had in an old pc. All coolers give roughly the same temperatures.
The air flow in the case seems good. I have a 120mm 1200rpm fan (Scythe, not the ones that came with the case) at the front sucking and another at the rear blowing. All wires are cleared out the way and you can feel a good flow of air. I even added some makeshift ducting to direct the air where it would be most needed but it didn't make any difference which leads me to believe the air was going in the right place anyway. The temperature will drop about 4C when idle with the side of the case off but doesn't make much difference under load. Motherboard temps tend to max out at 40-42C.
Initially I thought the graphics cards were generating the heat but on inspection there is only a small amount of heat coming from them (after all they have yet to do anything heavy like run Oblivion) and most of that is going out the exhausts on the rear. The dominator memory covers seem to be get very warm in use and they are obviously right in front of the CPU cooler. Could this be causing hot air to blow through the CPU cooler? I did wonder if the CPU fan was pushing air through faster than the rear case fan could extract it but a quick hand test suggests the air is still moving at the back of the CPU cooler.
Is the CPU cooler just not up to the task, do I need memory coolers, should I alter the memory settings in the BIOS or is there anything I am missing? I am not new to computer building and overclocking but it has been a couple of years since I built a machine so my knowledge of current tech is a bit ropey.
Any ideas?
[Edited to add]
I have flashed my BIOS too just to make sure the temps are not being misrepresented.
I have a QX6700 on an Asus P5N32-E PLUS SLi motherboard in a Akasa Eclipse 62 case. It accompanied by 2 BFG 8800gtx and some dominator DDR2 RAM. On the advice of someone at overclockers (I never asked the guys name, sorry) I got an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler and applied the correct amount of thermal paste after cleaning it off with the proper chemicals. I have also tried a Zalman Aero Flower and an old thermaltake cooler I had in an old pc. All coolers give roughly the same temperatures.
The air flow in the case seems good. I have a 120mm 1200rpm fan (Scythe, not the ones that came with the case) at the front sucking and another at the rear blowing. All wires are cleared out the way and you can feel a good flow of air. I even added some makeshift ducting to direct the air where it would be most needed but it didn't make any difference which leads me to believe the air was going in the right place anyway. The temperature will drop about 4C when idle with the side of the case off but doesn't make much difference under load. Motherboard temps tend to max out at 40-42C.
Initially I thought the graphics cards were generating the heat but on inspection there is only a small amount of heat coming from them (after all they have yet to do anything heavy like run Oblivion) and most of that is going out the exhausts on the rear. The dominator memory covers seem to be get very warm in use and they are obviously right in front of the CPU cooler. Could this be causing hot air to blow through the CPU cooler? I did wonder if the CPU fan was pushing air through faster than the rear case fan could extract it but a quick hand test suggests the air is still moving at the back of the CPU cooler.
Is the CPU cooler just not up to the task, do I need memory coolers, should I alter the memory settings in the BIOS or is there anything I am missing? I am not new to computer building and overclocking but it has been a couple of years since I built a machine so my knowledge of current tech is a bit ropey.
Any ideas?
[Edited to add]
I have flashed my BIOS too just to make sure the temps are not being misrepresented.
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