Mini ITX Build, possibly CPU overheating, need advice!

ne0

ne0

ne0

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CPU in question is i5 8400, sitting on a z370 mobo. (turbo boost for the cpu is ON in the bios)

So I've been monitoring temps very closely using MSI Afterburner since building my rig last week and I have some concerns about the CPU temp which is getting higher than I feel comfortable with (at least according to Afterburner).

Whilst playing Rainbow Six Siege, everything maxed out at 4k, the CPU was mainly hovering around the 80c mark, sometimes fluctuating above or below that, but at that temp I wasn't really concerned.

However, yesterday I played Doom, again at 4k, everything maxed out for probably about 1.5 hours. Everything seemed normal. I then jumped on to Rainbow Six Siege for a few games online and my CPU temp was in the high 80's and even got to 94c!!! Normally the CPU will only get as high as mid 80's in that game so it was only after playing Doom that this happened.

I am considering re-doing my thermal paste but it's a right pain as it's a mini itx case so will take a while to get everything out and then back in again (heatsink screws on via the back of the motherboard), so I want to be sure it's worth trying that before doing it.

I have 2 fans on the bottom of the case pulling air in and then one at the top above the CPU which is blowing air out.

At idle, the CPU temp is completely normal and even when running TimeSpy benchmark so the CPU is properly stressed it DID NOT get as high as 90+ degrees. This is leading me to believe it might be more of an air flow issue in my case rather than the CPU itself overheating, as it seems to be the fact I was running demanding games for a prolonged period that resulted in very high temperatures?

I have the case sitting under the TV and tbf there's not a huge amount of room around it so maybe that's the problem, I dunno?

I am not using the stock cooler; it's a Noctua - nh-l9x65, which is a decent cooler.

My BIOS is the latest version.

Any advice will really be appreciated, I don't want to take everything apart again unless it's absolutely necessary.

I guess I need to be realistic about what sort of cpu temps I should expect with this kind of build but the general consensus online seems to be that 90 is really dangerous!
 
Move the case out from under the TV, open as many panels on it as you can (you don't mention which case it is), and play Rainbow Six again. That'll tell you how much airflow has to do with it.
 
Danny75 said:
Move the case out from under the TV, open as many panels on it as you can (you don't mention which case it is), and play Rainbow Six again. That'll tell you how much airflow has to do with it.
Click to expand...

It's a Raven rvz03b.

I will try what you suggested, see what kind of temps I get. With that case I can just pull it out and take the top off it which I think should be enough to rule out any air flow issues.

Cheers :)
 
It's actually a pretty poor cooler and it came last in every test in techpowerup's review of it. That fan may be quiet but I would suggest that at only 92x14mm it is unable to push enough air through the cooler. Ventilation on that case isn't very good and is probably making things worse and forcing the cooler to try cooling with air that it has already heated up.
 
had 54c with my 8400 - but was in a case with 1x 120mm intake/exhaust fan using stock cooler

clean off CPU/Cooler and use this

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £7.73 (includes shipping: £2.74)​
​

found applying a thin layer over the chip compared to standard pea dot in the middle was better for coffeelake due to increase size of the die or its shape.

might have an issue with the TIM used between the Heatspreader and the chip. Have 8700k at stock settings/voltage that can hit 84c running Real bench on a 360 Custom AIO!
 
pastymuncher said:
It's actually a pretty poor cooler and it came last in every test in techpowerup's review of it. That fan may be quiet but I would suggest that at only 92x14mm it is unable to push enough air through the cooler. Ventilation on that case isn't very good and is probably making things worse and forcing the cooler to try cooling with air that it has already heated up.
Click to expand...

Flipping heck why didn't I see this review before?! :(

" Next, performance is lacking. While fine at stock, it still gets extremely hot. With just a mild overclock, the CPU thermal throttled. It is not a good cooler for overclocked systems or higher TDP CPUs under heavy load. "Niche" is the perfect word to describe this cooler because it is perfect for specific situations—my test system isn't one of those. Finally, the color theme won't be to everyone's liking, but come on, you knew that already, it's NOCTUA!"

The above seems to be exactly what I'm seeing seeing :|

Seems it's a good cooler but only in the right kind of build and maybe not even for high perfomance gaming set-ups? Does anyone know if it's possible for me to fit an all in one water cooler in this case and just have that attached to the exhaust output at the top? I haven't fitted one of those before, are they simple to do?
 
Sorry for the confusion but the actual cooler model is different to what I originally said, it's actually the NH-L9i.

Does this make a difference? Is that one also a crap cooler?
 
ok so I think I really want to change this out for an all in one water cooler but I've never fitted one of those before.

I almost bought one originally for this build but I was under the impression it wasn't possible in this case, but now I'm thinking actually it is. Looking at some of the coolers on this page, I can't see why it would be a problem?

Can anyone advise on whether any of the coolers on this page would fit in my mini itx raven rvz03b? https://www.overclockers.co.uk/air-cooling/coolers/cpu/all-in-one-watercooling

Also will a water cooler ensure my temps are as good as they can be? I am happy to shell out for the best if it means getting low temps as apart from this issue I'm really happy with the build.

Thanks for any help.
 
seems fan height could be the issue .

i've used silent loops which are silent and have a lot profile block but seems that 240 rad and fans may clash with GPU and 120 version has a really thick 45mm rad.

prob be looking at Silverstone slim line version

My basket at Overclockers UK:
 
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Thanks!

I had a look in the manual for my case and it does actually recommend an AIO water cooler that will fit, which is the:

SilverStone TD03 Slim

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Silverstone/Tundra_TD03_SLIM/

Looking at reviews it's not the best available but not the worst either. Surely it will be better than the temps I'm currently seeing?

It's about £50 and I will pull the trigger if it means my cpu will be cooler. Can anyone confirm this will be the case? Aren't water cooled solutions nearly always better in general terms?
 
@orbitalwalsh mentioned his 8400 with stock cooler was reaching 54C. With the case out of an enclosed area, and panel/s opened, the temps should be close to that, because that little Noctua cooler, while not great, is not worse than the Intel stock cooler.

So before forking out any money, I'd test. If temps are still bad, it could be a mounting issue and you just need to remount it (cleaning off and adding new paste while you're at it). If temps are good, that means it's the enclosed area/panels closed that is a problem and then you will know you actually need a new cooler to cope better with the circumstances.
 
ne0 said:
I had a look in the manual for my case and it does actually recommend an AIO water cooler that will fit, which is the:

SilverStone TD03 Slim

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Silverstone/Tundra_TD03_SLIM/

Looking at reviews it's not the best available but not the worst either. Surely it will be better than the temps I'm currently seeing?

It's about £50 and I will pull the trigger if it means my cpu will be cooler. Can anyone confirm this will be the case? Aren't water cooled solutions nearly always better in general terms?
Click to expand...
Danny75 said:
@orbitalwalsh mentioned his 8400 with stock cooler was reaching 54C. With the case out of an enclosed area, and panel/s opened, the temps should be close to that, because that little Noctua cooler, while not great, is not worse than the Intel stock cooler.

So before forking out any money, I'd test. If temps are still bad, it could be a mounting issue and you just need to remount it (cleaning off and adding new paste while you're at it). If temps are good, that means it's the enclosed area/panels closed that is a problem and then you will know you actually need a new cooler to cope better with the circumstances.
Click to expand...

Thanks that's great advice, I'm going to do exactly as you've described. The trouble with me is I'm extremely impatient so thanks for reeling me back in haha.

I will report back when I have results from the testing :)
 
I'll have to dig out results, sure under Asus RealBench and Intel Xtreme max was 75c , that's after 2 hours of running, with case next to a radiator when it was -5- outside

Paste is key with coffeelake due to the poor job Intel did. Any little help there, will help out the cooler as well as spreading it thinly . The die underneath is longer the generations before it
 
hey

So after testing, it turns out the issue is definitely air flow. With the case pulled out and the top off, the CPU stayed in the 60's for the majority of the time whilst gaming, not even going above 71c which whilst really nice to see obviously leaves me with a problem in terms of cpu cooling in the set up I'm going for.

I've order a water cooled solution in the Corsair H60. I did some measuring and it should go in to the case perhaps with some difficulty but it only takes up a tiny bit more room than the recommended Silverstone cooler the Tundra TD03. I decided against the latter as it just gets really average to poor reviews and it seems the H60 should perform better.

I'm taking delivery of the H60 tomorrow so I'm hoping that a. I can get the thing installed and b. it will solve my heat problem :/
 
Yeah that needs more cooling for sure. You could do a bit of under-volting even with the H60. Lower Vcore and LLC a bit, could knock a further 5C off or so, long as it's stable. Would also help the board VRM's not to get too toasty, as with the H60 they won't receive the cooling that air cooling provides (or the airflow from case fans in a larger case).
 
ne0 said:
hey

So after testing, it turns out the issue is definitely air flow. With the case pulled out and the top off, the CPU stayed in the 60's for the majority of the time whilst gaming, not even going above 71c which whilst really nice to see obviously leaves me with a problem in terms of cpu cooling in the set up I'm going for.

I've order a water cooled solution in the Corsair H60. I did some measuring and it should go in to the case perhaps with some difficulty but it only takes up a tiny bit more room than the recommended Silverstone cooler the Tundra TD03. I decided against the latter as it just gets really average to poor reviews and it seems the H60 should perform better.

I'm taking delivery of the H60 tomorrow so I'm hoping that a. I can get the thing installed and b. it will solve my heat problem :/
Click to expand...

is there any way of mounting the H60 in the GPU section and having just a fan installed in the side panel blowing air over the VRMs?
 
i have owned that case its not a bad case, you need a GPU with a blower cooler, if you use any other cooler your just dump hot air into the case and cook everything
Use the fan mount on the top panel to take air in. and the fans on the bottom also to take air in.
 
orbitalwalsh said:
seems fan height could be the issue .

i've used silent loops which are silent and have a lot profile block but seems that 240 rad and fans may clash with GPU and 120 version has a really thick 45mm rad.

prob be looking at Silverstone slim line version

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Click to expand...

you have to note that the CPU cooler will now feed the GPU hot air..... playing games at 4K max setting and feeding the GPU hot air, i cant see a problem with that set up
 
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