High Core i7 Temps (Water Cooling) ...

RoEy

RoEy

RoEy

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Hi all,

Recently put all my system back together and upgraded to a 920 D0. I've overclocked my CPU to 4ghz with ram at 1600mhz.

Vcore - 1.3
VTT - 1.3

My loop:

Heat Killer (Nickel Plated) - with back plate
Koolance full waterblock 4870x2
TFC Quad Radiator
XSPC-DDCRES18W - XSPC Laing/Swiftec DDC-Pump 12V Ultra(18w) Acrylic Reservoir

I have a TJ07 and I've removed the topgrill and replaced it with the MurderMod version. So the only air flow I have in the case is the two rear 92mm fans going at 1300 rpm.

I have immaculate cable management with the 8pin & 24pin under the motherboard. I have a fan at the front of the case also for cooling the hard drives. When installing the heatkiller I got it as close as possible to 19.6mm.

Temps in IBT (Max run / 8 threads) after 20 mins were 76 74 74 70

NB / SB get to 59-60

GPU - at idle sits around 35/36 load - 40 - 42

A good friend of mine, PaulyD, told me these were too high and I should have lower cpu temps for my water cooling spec, even with a 4870x2 in the loop.

Fans on the rad are turned up over a quater of the way on the fan controller as I see no point in turning them up full while trying to test because I want to see if it's stable with normal/gaming fan use.

Initially I overclocked to 4ghz using 21 multi and 191bclk with 1.275vcore and 1.23vtt and ram was at 1532. Temps got to around 72 but it needs so much more for 20 multi and 200 bclk.

Feel gutted that I've spent a fortune and it's stuggling to cool at 4ghz.

Any help would be great. :(

RoEy

P.S. Forgot to mention, not sure what ambient temp was but I don't have radiator on in my study so it's cool.
 
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I have a much lower spec loop than yours and am getting <70 but I'm running stock volts and 3.8Ghz

I've got a swiftech dual rad, with [email protected] (stock) and a GTX260 in the loop. Both CPU and GPU are running 100% 24/7

Only thing I can think of is maybe the water flow direction, on the HeatKiller do you have the inlet as the central fitting and the outlet as the offset fitting?

I have Rad -> CPU -> GPU -> Pump -> back to Rad.

If you turn the fans up does it lower the temps?
 
Hi Biffa,

Yes I have the inlet as the central fitting and the outlet below it.

Setup is - res/pump - rad - cpu - gpu - res/pump.

I do have the fans quite low on the rad but that's because I want my system quiet, like we all do.

Not sure how fast they are going but when I test pc I have fans just over a quater of a turn on controller.

Is it ok to run them higher while testing, then drop them back down for normal use / gaming?

As the temps never get as high when not testing. I think ITB runs hotter than prime too but I'll check tonight.

RoEy
 
RoEy said:
Yes I have the inlet as the central fitting and the outlet below it.
Click to expand...

If the outlet is below it is theroetically possible that an air bubble is trapped in the cpu block, especially if you bled the case upright and didn't rotate it around during bleeding.
 
RoEy said:
I do have the fans quite low on the rad but that's because I want my system quiet, like we all do.

Is it ok to run them higher while testing, then drop them back down for normal use / gaming?
Click to expand...

As others have said as long as it doesn't go over 80 you are fine.

One other thing to consider is what fans you are using because its important to match the fans with the radiator type. I'm not an expert on fans, I'm sure someone will come along and help with that. But I think you need high pressure low speed fans. Anyway this might help http://martin.skinneelabs.com/img/TFC480-Thermal9.png

Its from this review http://martin.skinneelabs.com/The-Feser-Company-X-Changer-480-Review.html
 
mmj_uk said:
Your temps look normal, you aren't going to get much lower unless you disable Hyperthreading.
Click to expand...

I've thought about doing that. Is it something that others do as I was reading that HT doesnt make much difference to perfomance but adds 10-15c.

Apparently you get worse performance in games when HT is on! PaulyD said I'd be a fool to disable it because HT is what the core i7 is all about. :) Sorry to quote you mate.

RoEy
 
Biffa said:
As others have said as long as it doesn't go over 80 you are fine.

One other thing to consider is what fans you are using because its important to match the fans with the radiator type. I'm not an expert on fans, I'm sure someone will come along and help with that. But I think you need high pressure low speed fans. Anyway this might help http://martin.skinneelabs.com/img/TFC480-Thermal9.png

Its from this review http://martin.skinneelabs.com/The-Feser-Company-X-Changer-480-Review.html
Click to expand...

Got the Scythe flex 1600rpm mate. I'll have a read of the links now, ta.

RoEy
 
Well did some more testing last night. Certainly helps turning the fans up he he:D

Put the two rear fans to 90% (1400rpm) and turned the fans up on the rad to half way on the controller so they just went red on the displays (Zalman MCF1 Plus).

I managed to get PC stable on IBT for 10 runs, max mem and 8 threads:

4.1 - 21x196

vcore - 1.3
vtt - 1.325

Temps - MAX 72 70 70 66 - Was hovering around 67/68

NB/SB - 56

Gaming got to 62 59 59 57

I'm thinking I may drop down to 4ghz - 21x 191 as it needs a lot less volts.

Vcore 1.275
Vtt 1.23

Has made a big difference upping the rear fans.

Thanks all,

RoEy
 
Don't stop playing with it yet, I think there's still something wrong here.

S-flex 1600 are very good fans, I use them on a feser radiator myself. In the interests of diagnostics put them up to full speed while running intel burn test, if temperatures are much improved then you know the limiting area is getting heat from water to air. If it makes little difference, it's probably getting heat from cpu into the water that's causing problems. It's probably air in either the cpu block or the radiator.

Also of interest is the temperature difference between gpu and cpu, as if this is large (I think over 20 degrees when both under load would qualify as large) then this points towards problems with the cpu block. If the temperature difference is slight then the block is working fine/both blocks are mounted badly.

PaulyD knows what he's talking about, trustworthy bloke.
 
JonJ678 said:
Don't stop playing with it yet, I think there's still something wrong here.

S-flex 1600 are very good fans, I use them on a feser radiator myself. In the interests of diagnostics put them up to full speed while running intel burn test, if temperatures are much improved then you know the limiting area is getting heat from water to air. If it makes little difference, it's probably getting heat from cpu into the water that's causing problems. It's probably air in either the cpu block or the radiator.

Also of interest is the temperature difference between gpu and cpu, as if this is large (I think over 20 degrees when both under load would qualify as large) then this points towards problems with the cpu block. If the temperature difference is slight then the block is working fine/both blocks are mounted badly.

PaulyD knows what he's talking about, trustworthy bloke.
Click to expand...

What temps do you think I should be getting then?

Last night at 4.1 max temps were 72 70 70 66 running IBT max - half way on fan controller.

Then loaded L4D2 and went on that for 30 mins - cpu didnt get higher than 62 no higher than 59 on the other cores and the hottest the gpu got was 47, so real temp said - but normally stays around 42 when gaming.

You still think there's a problem then? I have the Heatkiller Nickel Plated if that makes any difference. But I can remember when I had the 920 C0 I was at 3.6 with that - 1.325vcore and 1.325vtt and temps were mid 60 and that was with two top fans in the tj07 too, now got murdermod togrill.

I seriously doubt I've badly mounted my gpu block. Plus, I fitted HK to 19.6mm

RoEy
 
I'd expect cpu temperatures at or just below 60 when the gpu is idling, but higher when running furmark + ibt. I'm basing this on my system and a guess that a 4870 under idle is about the same power as an 8800gt under load.

70 is hardly unreasonable with the fans at lowish rpm, so if you're happy then leave it be. It's probably worth filling it to the brim then tipping the case around while the pump is running to see if you can get any air out of the radiator.
 
The res is filled 3/4 of the way. I tried tipping it last night but didnt hear anything. I have a bleed valve on the rad at the back so I'll try that again tonight.

So I'm really 10 degrees above what you think I should be, which is quite a lot isnt it.

Not sure what to do. Apart from put fans on full blast to see if it makes a difference, but terribly loud so would only be for testing.

RoEy
 
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