Kuhler 620 running hot?

eyetrip · 12 Dec 2011 at 08:59

Recently picked up a kuhler 620, not for any real reason other than thought it would look nicer than huge heat sink, while offering good performance.

I am sure when I first installed it that when I was aiming for 5GHz on my 2500K, I was not even breaking 80 C with 1.4V.

Anyway, decided to re-orientate the thing, and add another fan, but I am only trying for a 4.6Ghz oc at around 1.36V, but I am hitting just under 80C on that - typically max 78/79 using IBT Max.

I have to mention that 78/79 is on the 2 hottest cores. Core 0 is typically 10C cooler than those 2, and core 3 is typically 5C cooler.

I have tried re-seating this thing many times now, and have used both MX-2 and Arctic Silver 5, but temps always high.

Or are these temps about right, and I must have imagined the better temps when trying for 5GHz?

For this OC and these volts, I was not really expecting to break 70C. Room is probably around 20C +/-

shadow_boxer · 12 Dec 2011 at 13:48

Which way is it orientated? Is it exhausting warm air out of the case or being used to intake cool air from outside? The latter will give better performance.

Are you using push/pull now, if so are both fans running at the same speed?

Also the pump header needs to be set to run at full speed in the BIOS.

eyetrip · 12 Dec 2011 at 14:00

shadow_boxer said:
Which way is it orientated? Is it exhausting warm air out of the case or being used to intake cool air from outside? The latter will give better performance.

Are you using push/pull now, if so are both fans running at the same speed?

Also the pump header needs to be set to run at full speed in the BIOS.

It is being used as an exhaust at rear of case. There are two different fans - the stock on pulling, and a sickleflow pushing. They do run at diff speeds.

There is plenty of air being pushed into the case - 2 front sickleflows, one bottom 140mm sharkoon power fan, one side 140mm scythe kama flex, in addition to the 2 fans on the radiator.

For some reason, when I have the radiator oriented with the pipes at top, temps are better by a few degrees - was getting over 80 with them at bottom.

What you say about the pump header needing to be set at full speed is interesting. I think I have mine set to standard for fan control. I think I may have had it before that fan control was disabled - hence would have been running full.

Will defo give that a look tonight.

Gizmowithatt · 12 Dec 2011 at 15:11

My 920 ran hot as I hadn’t screwed the block down tight enough, once done it never gets above the high 30s

Surveyor · 12 Dec 2011 at 15:31

Gizmowithatt said:
My 920 ran hot as I hadn’t screwed the block down tight enough, once done it never gets above the high 30s

Your i7-920 never gets above the high 30's at full load?

Gizmowithatt · 12 Dec 2011 at 15:52

Surveyor said:
Your i7-920 never gets above the high 30's at full load?

Not the i7 920 the Antec Kúhler H2O 920 using two Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm 1850

Surveyor · 12 Dec 2011 at 16:14

Gizmowithatt said:
Not the i7 920 the Antec Kúhler H2O 920 using two Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm 1850

In that case your first post made no sense.

If the cooler wasn't fitted properly it would be the processor getting hot not the cooler

Gizmowithatt · 12 Dec 2011 at 16:35

Surveyor said:
In that case your first post made no sense.

If the cooler wasn't fitted properly it would be the processor getting hot not the cooler

Mine ran hot about 50 (fluid temps as the Antec Kúhler H2O 920 has a temp monitor) till I screwed it down (my point) and not it runs as I said runs at high 30s

Prefect sense

Surveyor · 12 Dec 2011 at 17:15

Gizmowithatt said:
Mine ran hot about 50 (fluid temps as the Antec Kúhler H2O 920 has a temp monitor) till I screwed it down (my point) and not it runs as I said runs at high 30s

Prefect sense

Actually that makes no sense in three ways:

1) Your use of the English language

2) If the block wasn't making good contact with the processor before you tightened it then less heat would be transferred and the fluid would be cooler than after you tightened it to make better contact when more heat would be transferred.

3) It's the CPU temperature that's relevant and that's what you should be checking.

eyetrip · 12 Dec 2011 at 18:53

Well, I am about ready to give up on this cooler.

Tried setting cpu fan setting to max in bios.

Re-seated again.

Tried with pipes top and bottom.

Tried holding it outside case.

Thought would try another temp monitor util, realtemp (have been using hwmonitor), and realtemp shows the temps worse, hitting in low 80's!

Have even dropped the volts for 4.6 to 1.33, and still hitting mid 70's.

Did I expect too much form this cooler? The reviews showed it to be pretty good, but I just feel my temps are higher than they should be.

OrWolf · 12 Dec 2011 at 20:24

Those temps are high. I'm getting max temps of 62 degrees under full load. That's with two apaches on push pull. I wasn't certain that my mobo was giving the pump enough juice, so the kuhler is being fed by an akasa junior fan controller. I found the 620 fares better when drawing cold air into the case, with two fans drawing hot air out of the top.

It may prove fruitful to clean the heatsink, apply new tim and reseat it. Tightening each screw point at opposite corners and making sure the mount is fully secured( but not knuckle tight as you can easily snap the plastic lugs).

eyetrip · 12 Dec 2011 at 20:31

OrWolf said:
It may prove fruitful to clean the heatsink, apply new tim and reseat it. Tightening each screw point at opposite corners and making sure the mount is fully secured( but not knuckle tight as you can easily snap the plastic lugs).

I have done this a number of times now....

shadow_boxer · 12 Dec 2011 at 20:53

With an i7 920, also found temps were better with the pipes attached to the radiator at the top rather than at the bottom but some say otherwise. As for fans, I've got a couple of Akasa Apache's on their running at 100% intaking cool air into the case and exhausting it up and fowards and temps are fine. At 4.0GHz it idles at ~35ºC and at full load (prime95) will hit high 70's at the moment but in the summer was going to mid 80's.

OrWolf · 12 Dec 2011 at 21:12

The only other option I can recommend is to power the pump directly from a molex fan connector and see if it makes any difference. Your motherboard may not be supplying enough voltage to it.

Helios1234 · 12 Dec 2011 at 23:57

This could partially be due to the TIM you used when remounting being worse than the pre-applied paste. Other reasons could be that you overtightened it which isn't advisable as it can damage the fittings or even flex the motherboard so contact between the CPU and the block becomes worse. The 620 is shoddy.

eyetrip · 13 Dec 2011 at 09:13

Helios, do you run Vortez?

Did read a lot of reviews on there while trying to pick a cooler. Landed up getting one they didn't rate highly I think, but most reviews praised the 620.

Anyway, don't think I have many reseating attempts before the plastic blue clips break entirely. When first got, over-tightened before realising how fragile they were, and while I try not to over-tighten now, with the amount of re-seating have tried, don't think they have long left... Already emailed antec to try and get replacements.

Anyway, this morning I did 2 things:
1) Went into BIOs and instead of setting output to 100%, set the fan profile to turbo. I could actually hear the fan spinning up now which I am sure I didn't before.

2) Loosened the screws a bit more.

After this, I was seeing a max of 72C. This was at 4.6GHz at 1.36V. So better, but still sure I should not be breaking 70C at this. Also, ambient was probably a bit lower this morning too, so that could have offset it...

Anyway, am going to have to leave this until I get some replacement "clips". Will then give it one more day of tinkering to get it under 70C at these settings.

Helios1234 · 13 Dec 2011 at 11:43

I don't run Vortez but do the cooler reviews

. Yeah the Antec mounting bits are very fragile I find which not a lot of reviews pick up on. I did the same thing as you and overtightened it at first because there is no feedback telling you that you've done so unline spring loaded screws. It ended up flexing my motherboard and stopped my first RAM slot from being detected so I had to loosen it a bit for testing.

eyetrip · 13 Dec 2011 at 12:48

well, have got in touch with them and requested replacements and seems like should get some.

Think am going to also try a different TIM, and see how that goes. But if that don't work, then this thing goes.

PS - Great reviews by the way. Think I will pay closer attention to them if I end up getting another cooler

eyetrip · 14 Dec 2011 at 10:58

Well, have this now so that one core peaked at 70C, and next highest was 68C

Hottest cores typically running mid to high 60's

Am running 4x4gb 1600Mhz ram, and had the IMC set to 1.15 in bios which bios then reported as 1.2.

I dropped this to 1.1V, but was not stable at 1600Mhz, so have dropped to 1333Mhz.

So while temps still not quite as good as would have hoped, it is very close. Will see what else voltage wise I can change that may make a diff, and will try to get IMC voltage as low as possible.

Running ram at 1600Mhz at 1.65V is not going to give me much performance over 1333MHz at 1.5V, but has proven to drop temps so far.

eyetrip · 15 Dec 2011 at 18:38

Out of curiosity I put my old cooler An Akasa Nero AK967 which nothing special as far as coolers go really, but my temps are exactly as I keep getting with the 620.

And this is after reverting my case to it's original fan setup which is on intake 120mm and one exhaust 120mm, both only 1350rpm fans

With the 620 I had the 620 in push/pull exhausting. with 2 x 120mm sickleflow intakes at full 2000rpm, 1 x side 140mm 110 cfm scythe fan at about 75% and one bottom 140mm sharkoon power fan which I think is rated at over 100cfm running at full.