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!
 
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 :)
 
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.
 
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?
 
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 :)
 
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 :/
 
hey

so trying to fit an h60 into this case was a really bad idea, it just does not go in, at least not without kinking pipes and risking damaging something. I made the decision to just redo the thermal paste on the Noctua and put everything back how it was.

I've been running it tonight switching between Doom and Rainbow Six with the pc in the unit under the TV where it was before and after a few hours of gaming the only issue I've had is playing Rainbow Six Seige. In Doom the CPU stays in the 70's and only goes up to 80c ish which is perfectly acceptable. if I switch to Rainbow Six it adds another 10c to the CPU temp instantly so it's definitely the game. The weird thing is that the CPU doesn't appear to be under that much more load than when playing Doom so I'm not sure why Rainbow Six causing my CPU to heat up so much.

BTW I agree that my card is probably contributing a lot to the temperature in the case as it's not a blower; it's a 1080ti with traditional fans. I'm keeping a lid on its own temp with software and it has been performing very well so I have no concerns there, but, I do agree that it's probably not helping when trying to keep my CPU temp under control.

Anyway, I'm going to just live with it for now, as the only time the CPU gets too hot so far is with Rainbow Six. Doom it's a good temp, especially considering my set up. If things get too hot playing Rainbow Six then I'll just pull the case out onto the floor, it's no big deal.

I will see how things go and perhaps try the suggestion of flipping the bottom fans round, see if that helps the cpu out a bit.

Thanks all :)
 
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