Watercooling Isse

Bucks85th

Bucks85th

Bucks85th

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Joined
13 Jul 2010
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29
Location
High Wycombe, Bucks
Hi Guys,

I have just added a water cooling system to my machine and am having problems.

Briefly, I am cooling an Intel i7 920 at 4Ghz (previously using a Corsair H50) and 2 x Nvidia GTX 580.

So the water cooling I have added are as follows

Swiftech MCP655 variable pump - currently set to 4...maybe it needs to go to 11 ;)
XSPC Dual-bay reservoir
Black Ice Stealth 360 Gen 2 triple-fan radiator
Swiftech Apogee CPU block
2 x EK GTX580 waterblocks

This is all wedged into a Coolermaster HAF-X case.

I noticed that ArmA2 was causing GPU1 to run upto 3 degrees higher than when using the card's stick cooling (stock upto 90 degrees, last night got to 93 before I decided to shutdown).

Flow is as follows: Reservoir to radiator to CPU to GPU1 to GPU2 back to reservoir.

I think I may have isolated one problem...

I have 3 Gelid Silent Series 120mm fans mounted below the radiator blowing out the top of the case (I, erm, liberated them from work to save a few pennies), but am now thinking they are not man enough for the job, as they are only rated at 37 CFM airflow. I have ordered 3 x Akasa Viper FN059 (up to 83 CFM) to replace them.

Can you think of anything else I should look in to as I'm not 100% convinced these will necessarily solve this? I'm concerned I have underestimated the requirements to water cool this?

Was running with just 12v to the pump to test it for >12 hours, and had the PC on all angles/sides and detected no leaks or anything dire like that.

Moochos grassyarse in advance!
 
Try this for your loop:

Pump -> CPU -> GPU1 -> GPU2 -> Radiator -> Reservoir -> Pump


My Core i5-2500K and HD6850 on a 120.3 radiator was running at about 45 degrees with just a single Antec Tri-Cool fan on lowest speed - I've now put in 3x Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 fans, and that's down to 32 degrees - which is also what it tends to idle at - so basically NO increase in temps.

For yours to be running at 90 degrees - something seems very wrong!
 
Lol moochos grassyarse. I'm definitely stealing that.

90 degrees is definitely high, though 120x3 for two 580s and an overclocked i7 is pushing it a little bit.

Try changing the fans first, then increasing the pump speed, then remounting the 580 waterblocks. See if there's any improvement and report back :).
 
Hi, how long has it been up and running? its quite possible you might still have air in the Rad with it being flat, put something under the the feet of the case to raise the Rad up a couple of inch,s fitting side which will make it easier for any trapped air to flow out the Rad over a couple of days.

My loop took a couple of days to bleed properly > Rad > Res > Pump > CPU > GPU > Rad, my temps i7920 4.2GHz hottest core 66'c room temp 22'c / GTX 470 850:1700:2000 50'c, under full load.
 
Would probably need more Radiator and fan surface area to deal with an overclocked i7 and 580 sli. Another radiator between cpu and gpu might help but see how you get on with the new fans and increased pump speed
 
if your rad is at the top then you are sucking warm air through the rad and exhausting it out the top...this isnt helping.....ideally you want to suck cool air in from the top through the rad and exhaust it out the back or front.... your choice...just dont have fans fighting against each other.....i would recommend you get another 3 fans to (6 in total) for a push/pull setup if your cooling 2 x580 and an i7...this will make a world of difference
 
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Biggest problem you have is the choice of a slim rad to cool a pair of 580's and a clocked cpu. I also believe that to get the best out of those slim rads you need a high cfm fan although i could be wrong there. Do you have the res mounted just before the pump? Does your cpu block have a dedicated inlet, if so is it set up correctly?
 
Lots of suggestions above many of which will cost you a lot of money. A thicker rad might be a likely solution as pastymuncher has said but first i would also check the contact between the GPU blocks and the cards. Those sky high temps suggest that proper contact is not being made. What are your CPU temps under load?
 
Thanks guys,

After shutting down Arma2, I ran up Speccy and that was showing the CPU at 72.

I have 3 x Akasa Viper fans which should be there when I get home from work today, so hope to get those in today. Will crank the pump up to 11 (or 5 I guess as it doesn't go to 11) So I'll see what happens just swapping those straight over.

I currently have the front and rear fans sucking air in, and the 3 fans attached under the radiator blowing out through the rad, and then out the top of the case. So I can re-arrange this and the airflow as the next step.

Can check the contacts on the blocks too, but given all 3 items (1 x CPU and 2 x GPU are all running hot), I'm fairly confident at the moment that they are OK. Would have to leave this 'till the weekend as it's a bit of a longer job!

If I have to change the rad to a meatier one, or add a second rad, plus maybe change the flow order (which will mean I will likely need to order additional hosing too), then this may have to wait a wee while, as I just also change 2 tyres on my car (480 quid), and will need to change the font ones too (another 480 quid), plus I have car tax this month too (never rains but it pours...)

Boomshanka!

Jim
 
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pastymuncher said:
Biggest problem you have is the choice of a slim rad to cool a pair of 580's and a clocked cpu. I also believe that to get the best out of those slim rads you need a high cfm fan although i could be wrong there. Do you have the res mounted just before the pump? Does your cpu block have a dedicated inlet, if so is it set up correctly?
Click to expand...

This. One thing that hasn't been mentioned which I almost made the mistake of doing in the weekend is the barb spacers on the 580 blocks. If you failed to put these in, then it could be possible that the threads are blocking the flow of water. I don't don't think the fans have anything to do with 90 degree load temps given that my 480 (which shoud run loads hotter) doesn't even get to 70 when stress testing on OCCT.

I do however think that if your running SLI then you either need a bigger rad or a dual loop.

Best of luck mate :)
 
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I wouldn't touch the order they're in as it makes very little difference. You're doing the right things:

more powerful fans and pump to 5

This is the easiest thing to try. Where possible use 38mm fans not 25mm as this makes a huge difference to the static pressure.

Block fitting.

Are they properly fitted? if the gpus are significantly hotter than the cpu it is likely that the contacts are bad. If one gpu is significantly hotter than the other, you have a mounting issue. If they're all hot, then the cooling (radiator/fans/pump) isn't adequate.

There used to be online calculators that could work out what the C/W rating of your system was which hen combined with the power inputs of the cpu/gpu you could determine what the delta over ambient should be. Those seem to have disappeared.
 
Sounds to me you either have bad flow because of your blocks (good idea to check the gtx 580 spacers) or you simply don't have enough rad. I have no experience with that rad so I wouldn't know, but I know people who run 2 480gtx and an i7 on a pa 120.3 and their temps are fine.

If you have good flow then moving it from 4 to 5 aint gonna make zip difference increases in flow after about 1 g/m make virtually no difference. Unless your fans are really poo changing them to better models or 38mm is not going to account for the problem temps you have.

A simple way to test if your rad is exeeding its capacity is to remove one of the 580's from the loop for a while and retest your temps or even easier stick a thermal probe in your res and test the water temp. If your water temp has a delta of less than 12 degrees (basically difference between water temp and air temp) then you can be sure your rad/fan combo has enough capacity to cool your gear if not you need to add/replace your rad. If you water temp is within that zone then basically you have a contact/flow problem on your gpu's, i.e. the heat aint getting dumped into the water from the cards or the water aint reaching your rad in the first place for it to cool down.
 
One thing you have not mentioned, what type of coolent are you using? Distilled water? Feser? If the later or some sort of colored varient it is possible that you have some sort of blockage.
 
I think you deffinately need a thicker/bigger rad, the gts rads are notoriously poor performers and especially with an overclocked i7 and 2x580's. I'd be looking at a 120.4/140.3 for that kind of setup to get decent temps with reasonable fan noise.
 
JeffyB said:
I think you deffinately need a thicker/bigger rad, the gts rads are notoriously poor performers and especially with an overclocked i7 and 2x580's. I'd be looking at a 120.4/140.3 for that kind of setup to get decent temps with reasonable fan noise.
Click to expand...

this

gts rads are crap....120.4 plus 6 fans in push/pull....will cool it no probs :D
 
Under water, all of your temps should be pretty much the same, across CPU and GPUs.

If they are all at 90 degrees, then you've got an issue with your cooling capacity. If just one item is massively hotter than the rest, you've got an issue with your mounting on one device.
 
Thanks for all the input Guys! This is very much appreciated!

So after fitting the 3 Viper fans to the bottom of the rad, there is at least a marked improvement. I've left the pump on 4.

You can feel the increased airflow just by placing your hand over the top of the case.

When idle, the temperatures are approximately as follows (using Speccy for CPU temp, and Afterburner for GPU temps:

CPU ~45
GPU1 ~36
GPU2 ~33

I haven't fired up ArmA2 as yet, that test will come, maybe later, probably tomorrow (I've concluded ArmA2 could kill a Cray!)

But I have run Heaven 2.1 (DX11, Stereo3D Disabled, Shaders high, Tess normal, Anisotropy 4, AA off, full screen 1920x1080) and the peak temps were as follows (checking CPU immediately after closing Heaven, but monitoring GPU via the G510 LCD Afterburner display)

CPU 56
GPU1 66
GPU2 55

So there is a marked difference in GPU temps when under load. I forgot to note down the temps using the old fans, but a figure of ~80 degrees seems to ring a bell on GPU1, with GPU2 8-10 degrees lower. I am just using distilled water with some form of additive (I forget exactly what as I inherited this from a friend).

So although there's an improvement so far, it's maybe not what I was hoping for and I'm certainly not planning to o/c the GPUs yet (they are the Black Ops Editions so very fractionally o/c'd out of the box. Disclaimer: This is not because I like CoD:BO. They were the only I could find in stock at the end of Dec when I was trying to beat the VAT increase as I was ordering a load of other bits too!

Consequently, I think I should go with the general consensus here and admit defeat. The 120.3 simply isn't man enough for the job.

So what I'm thinking of is adding a 120.2 (not a slim-line diet one) hanging off the back of the case.

What I am thinking of is:

- BlackIce GT Extreme 240 Radiator (it gets good reviews and appears to be named after an AC/DC album!)
- Koolance BKT-HX001 bracket
- Zalman ZM-MFC1 Plus fan controller

Plus any additional fans/hose/barbs etc.

I was then thinking of the flow as follows:

Pump/Res -> 120.3 rad -> CPU -> 120.2 rad -> GPU1 -> GPU2 -> Pump/Res

Alternatively, just switching the rad order over.

Do you guys think this would give me the desired results?

Once again, many thanks for all your help & advice!

Jim
 
GPU1 still looks a bit too high in comparison to the others - notice how GPU2 and the CPU are the same temperature - I'd be looking at removing the block from the card, and re-mounting it with some fresh compound.

Also - try swapping your rad fans round so that they bring fresh air from outside, down through the rad and to the inside of the case. Even so, 55 isn't a bad temperature under load, especially if it's still nice and quiet.
 
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