Help me cool my VRMs

eddyc · 9 Mar 2011 at 00:43

So my motherboard VRM is overheating and throttling my cpu. No good.

Has anyone got any advice on cooling it all down?

I was looking at the akasa system exhaust blower and the antex spotcool system cooler. Does anyone know which would be better?

With the exhaust blower I imagine I could try to construct a small shroud which could focus it onto the VRM heat sink. With the spotcool I guess it would not matter so much, I would just point the fan at the heat sink.

I have messed around this evening with a spare 92mm fan. I managed to wedge it between the I/O ports and my baram (it fitted almost perfectly) and had it blowing away from the VRM. It improved stuff a lot but the mobo was still throttling when the cpu got up to 56*C or so.

Anyone got any ideas?

eddyc · 9 Mar 2011 at 08:18

tommytinkle said:
Hey mate,

56 degrees is too hot for the cpu, not your VRM. AMD's limit is very low for their line of cpu's. Why are you trying to cool vrms? Its the cpu or perhaps the motherboard that throttles down due to excess heat.

My friend 1090T idles at around 18 degrees and under full load at 3.5Ghz gets to thirty something degrees. What are you using to cool the cpu? I'd suggest changing it!

Thanks for the reply. I am pretty sure 62 is the thermal limit for the 1090T so it should not be throttling at 56. Also before I started cooling the VRMs it was throttling at 49/50. I believe it is a known issue with my motherboard that this happens when the VRMs overheat.

Your friends temps seem great. What cooling is he using? Are you sure your friend is looking at the right temp? The core temp is a software generated and inaccurate figure. It seems to generally show about 10*C lower than the real cpu temp (shown in hwmonitor / speedfan).

I am using a thermolab baram with an apache on it.

eddyc · 9 Mar 2011 at 13:32

Cheers HeX. Ordered - out of stock at OCUK so had to go somewhere else. Hopefully that will do the trick. My hopes for 4GHz are rekindled!

eddyc · 9 Mar 2011 at 20:41

tommytinkle said:
Sorry, what? The cpu temperature is from the coretemp program?

The core temp is a software generated and inaccurate figure. It seems to generally show about 10*C lower than the real cpu temp (shown in hwmonitor / speedfan).