Whats the trick to the tuniq tower 120?

[mrbios]

i see so many people with temps idling around the 30s and very low 40s with this thing but i cant seem to go an idle temp of anything lower than 50oC

what could i be doing wrong? ive refitted it about 6 times, i find it difficult to screw one of the screws without taking a lot of time over it because of the crazy cooling system that gigabyte P35 DS4 has, if i fit it wrong the heatsink sits slightly on a little row of capacitors (which i noticed about the 4th time of trying to reseat it)

i just ont seem to get good contact at all, when i left it off it looks as though i either A. have half the base touching or B. have little bits all over it touching (like lines where the paste has gone on it in little bits)

this is incredibly frustrating, whats the trick to it low temp folks?

 

[mrbios]

i just wonder if the heatsinks stupidly curved or something, as its really not sitting how it should

i read a comment on some review saying something about how gigabyte boards might need a different backplate? it didnt have any information and i havent found anyone else having any problems with it so im not sure what they meant :S

EDIT: oh poo why didnt i post this into overclocking and cooling, bah

 

[mrbios]

at least your idling at a temperature id be happy with, im idling at 52oC right now, with 67oC at load, the sides off my case and a crappy no name cooler i bought from a local shop was doing a better job than this is, ive reseated it 3 times this evening and im getting increasingly ****** off, especially as my neighbours are taking the **** with the amount of noise there making for the 3rd day in a row

 

[mrbios]

hmm i just tightened all screws all the way, is that wrong? also using enough force (though it doesnt require loads) i can still move the heatsinks angle slightly

 

[mrbios]

now got temps of 57/56oC maximum load (at 2.8ghz 400x7)

just stoped P95 and waiting for temps to lower, lowest they have gone so far is a bit more respectable: 45oC/45oC

you know why? because i had set the overclock on and hadnt set the voltage staticly, it was auto adjusting itself and it was set to 1.4v (as it shown in speedfan, now at 1.30v)

im still not too impressed as im sure it should be lower, but i can certainly live with those temps until my fingers have healed up from the red raw pain there in after unscrewing and rescrewing them in 20+ times >_<

 

[mrbios]

ok its balanced out at 45-46oC on both cores idle, i didnt run prime95 for long so im not sure thats the maximum temperature yet, im 99% sure theres not proper contact with the cpu but im not sure whats causing it to not sit on the chip properly, it has to be that the corners arent balanced, ill try loosening one corner at a time until i find one that might be unbalanced

afterall that bracket that goes on the back is quite crap, when i tighten them i tend to do 2 corners at the same time (2 opposite each other) then the other 2 at the same time

 

[mrbios]

haha im too stressed out to reseat mine again, think ill wait till the weakend to try and get some more umph out of it, i wish there was a tool for turning those screws!

 

[mrbios]

is it possible to spread the TIM too thin? i just wonder if ive not put enough on as i always put on literally just enough that a lot of spreading is able to paint the whole heatspreader

also these temps ive got now are the best ones ive had so far, and this time i didnt just spread the TIM on the cpu but i put a very mi-nute amount on the bottom of the HSF

 

[mrbios]

Try spreading a thin layer accross the surface just enough so you cant see anything but silver then add a rice grain size in the middle might help create a better contact and tighten those screws until its hard to turn them anymore by hand.From what you say it does sound like it's not making proper contact and is not fitting properly on that board ? have you tried taking the board out and seeing what the idle temp is when it's run outside the case
Which case have you got out of interest ? if heat is building up in the case it will be like running it on a hot summers night and we all get high temps then.
Also are you sure the fan is running ? as 50 idle sounds like what it would be without the fan on.
To see how concave your chip is get a straight edge on it and hold it up to the light.

hmm i might try that suggestion of spreading then putting a blob on, my case is a lianli pc61, and yea ive tried it out of the case, same temps as im getting now (44 idle 68 max load)

 

[mrbios]

well.... it looks like these core2duos really are dipping in the middle, just lapped both the HSF and the chip, knocked 7-9oC off my idle temp (ah the joy of living 30seconds from halfords lol)

now idling at:
36oC both cores and seeing temps as low as 34oC occasionally

max load temps of:
53oC both cores - pretty close to what i was idling at at the start!

did the line type application with the TIM too, did a few twists to make sure it spread out properly, i did notice while i was lapping the chip that as it all turns copper you definately see the edges go way before the center does

im much happier now

 

[mrbios]

prime on both cores for the max load temp

sort of overclocked, i was waiting till i got this sorted to overclock really so im only running at 2.8ghz at the moment (400x6 i think ive got it sat at - for some reason vista thinks im running at 3.6ghz :S)

 

[mrbios]

There was paste over the entire surface of the chip, I only discovered them when I cleaned the layer of paste off, and there was a complete layer over the chip, no particularly thin sections, the scratches were in random locations.

my chip scratched the heatsink in all 4 corners (the highest point of the chip) when i lapped my chip i noticed the sides go copper way before the center, naughty intel and there failure @ flattening

 

[mrbios]

clairvoyant try another temperature monitor program and see if that gives you anything different