Question Noctua NH-D9DX i4 3U giving me horrible results

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jamesdsimone

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I was looking at temps for my W-2145 while under full load. The stock P520 cooler was running about 28-29c idle and 78-79c under full load. Clock speeds were hitting around 4Ghz but it looked like temps were keeping it from turboing above that. Since I am going to use the system for gaming I wanted to get more clock speed. So I pulled the cooler and reapplied the thermal paste. I think I used Arctic Silver. That did help some, idle temps dropped to 27-28c and full load dropped 1-2c. Boast speeds when up about 100Mhz. The Stock cooler is a single tower with a single fan so I decided why not add a nice after market and get the temps down even more. After doing a little research I picked this Noctua.


It fit the Lenovo motherboard without having to tear it down to change the back plate and got good reviews. I installed it and installation was pretty easy. But when I checked temps Idle temps went up to 30c and full load showed individual cores hitting over 80c with the fan going like a leaf blower. I added a second 92mm fan as well. I'm reading people getting temp much lower than that. I can't imagine the it performs worse than the stock cooler? I must be doing something wrong. I used the Noctua thermal compound included. The only issue is the mounting bracket wouldn't let me mount it so the fans point front to back. I have the side panel open at the moment.
 
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WilliamM2

WilliamM2

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jamesdsimone

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WilliamM2 said:
92mm low noise fan, and only 4 heat pipes. I never understood the love of high priced Noctuas. A better fan might help.

I find mass is needed for cooling, and that cooler in only 532g. I use one of these, 6 heat pipes and 900g:

Scythe | CPU Cooler | Mugen 5 Rev. C | United States

www.scytheus.com www.scytheus.com

And replaced the fan with this for better airflow:
Click to expand...
That cooler does not appear to fit socket FCLGA2066.
 
WilliamM2

WilliamM2

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jamesdsimone said:
That cooler does not appear to fit socket FCLGA2066.
Click to expand...
It says it fits Intel 2066. And it's dead simple to install.

As far as the Deepcool, no experience with that brand. But it should work better than the Noctua.
 
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jamesdsimone

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WilliamM2 said:
It says it fits Intel 2066. And it's dead simple to install.

As far as the Deepcool, no experience with that brand. But it should work better than the Noctua.
Click to expand...
The Newegg listing does not show 2066 as one of the sockets? But the link you sent shows that is it compatible with 2066 square ILM which I assume means the mounting screws form a square. I looked at the Deepcool because you mentioned the mass. It is 1456g. Simple installation is high on my list of requirements.


Maybe this?
 
WilliamM2

WilliamM2

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jamesdsimone said:
The Newegg listing does not show 2066 as one of the sockets? But the link you sent shows that is it compatible with 2066 square ILM which I assume means the mounting screws form a square. I looked at the Deepcool because you mentioned the mass. It is 1456g. Simple installation is high on my list of requirements.


Maybe this?
Click to expand...
Never tried that either. But I know the Mugen 5 rev.C fits. The manufacturer probably knows more than Newegg. I think any of them would probably work fine.
 
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StefanR5R

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jamesdsimone said:
I was looking at temps for my W-2145 while under full load. [...] Since I am going to use the system for gaming I wanted to get more clock speed.
Click to expand...
Sounds to me as if you plan to cool >200 W (from the CPU alone, along with GPU heat in the same case). Instead of a 3U cooler, try a 5U cooler. I.e. one which can be fitted with two 140 mm fans. And as @WilliamM2 alluded to, compare coolers by their number of heat pipes, and also by their weight which is an indirect hint on radiator surface.

When you found one or another cooler which meet these criteria, check your case for available clearance. If it doesn't have enough, consider a different case... Third, make sure that the case fans produce about as much air flow as the CPU cooler fans and the GPU cooler fans do combined. Forth, make sure that the CPU cooler is not going to pull mostly heated air coming from the GPU cooler.
 
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jamesdsimone

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StefanR5R said:
Sounds to me as if you plan to cool >200 W (from the CPU alone, along with GPU heat in the same case). Instead of a 3U cooler, try a 5U cooler. I.e. one which can be fitted with two 140 mm fans. And as @WilliamM2 alluded to, compare coolers by their number of heat pipes, and also by their weight which is an indirect hint on radiator surface.

When you found one or another cooler which meet these criteria, check your case for available clearance. If it doesn't have enough, consider a different case... Third, make sure that the case fans produce about as much air flow as the CPU cooler fans and the GPU cooler fans do combined. Forth, make sure that the CPU cooler is not going to pull mostly heated air coming from the GPU cooler.
Click to expand...
The CPU is 140w but it is hitting over 80c withe the Noctura cooler so keeps throttling back. This is a Lenovo workstation so can't change the case. The GPU fans face away from the CPU so don't think that is an issue.
 
BoomerD

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Noctua sez that cooler is appropriate for the CPU/socket…perhaps you didn’t get the TIM applied correctly?
 
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StefanR5R

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jamesdsimone said:
The CPU is 140w
Click to expand...
Depends on what the BIOS allows.

I don't have Skylake-SP/-W or newer myself, just Broadwell-EP. The TDP of 22 core BDW-EP is 145 W, but as I let the BIOS drive it at turbo clock for unlimited time, it can pull ~220 W depending on the software running (from what I gather from the wall power meter; the Linux version here doesn't have a socket power reading).

BoomerD said:
Noctua sez [...]
Click to expand...
[...] that NH-D9DX i4 3U has got an "NSPR" ("Noctua’s Standardised Performance Rating") of "88".
https://noctua.at/en/noctua-standardised-performance-rating
This is a rather obfuscated figure which, AFAICT from Noctua's explanations, merely allows a very rough relative comparison across Noctua's own coolers.

More to the point, Noctua rates NH-D9DX i4 3U specifically for Xeon W-2145 as "
g1.png
= compatible without turbo/overclocking headroom".
Which @jamesdsimone basically confirmed in the OP.
https://ncc.noctua.at/cpus/model/INTEL-Xeon-W-2145-1473

Edit:
Actually, Noctua rates all of their LGA2066 compatible coolers as "compatible without turbo/overclocking headroom" for Xeon W-2145, which is braindead.

Edit 2:
Noctua's guidance on which CPU cooler to use for which purpose is just as useless as the guidances which I have seen from other cooler makers. With one difference: Noctua chose to obfuscate it all, whereas other makers quote absurdly high TDPs for their coolers which they only reach with jet engine style airflow.

Edit 3:
Also I mention once again, just in case, that the best cooler doesn't cool if it pulls pre-heated air.
 
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jamesdsimone

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BoomerD said:
Noctua sez that cooler is appropriate for the CPU/socket…perhaps you didn’t get the TIM applied correctly?
Click to expand...
That was my original question. I'm thinking I must have made a mistake when I installed it because it should do at least as good a job as the stock cooler. I'll pull the cooler. Is it possible to use too much thermal paste? I used a little more than I usually do or maybe it wasn't seated properly?
 
WilliamM2

WilliamM2

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Too much paste won't raise temps much, most of it squeezes out. I think the difference between a perfect application and a poor application is a 2-4 degrees f at most.

Maybe it's not seated well, wouldn't hurt to check. Or see if you can raise the fan speed in the bios, but with a Lenoveo, I doubt it.
 
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jamesdsimone

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WilliamM2 said:
Too much paste won't raise temps much, most of it squeezes out. I think the difference betwwen a perfect application and a poor application is a few degrees f at most.

Maybe it's not seated well, wouldn't hurt to check.
Click to expand...
I reseated it and will test it tomorrow.
 
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jamesdsimone

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Looks like my error as I thought. Not sure exactly what I did wrong but when I reseated the cooler I reapplied the paste since there seemed to be a spot in the center of the CPU that didn't have good coverage. I also reoriented the it. The extra fan interferred with the ram so I had to move it up some but I don't think it affected airflow much. I'm not 100% sure but one of the mounting screws might not have been tightened properly. The idle temps went to about 27c with no increase with light computing like copying files. I installed a game and the temps maxed at 35c. Under full load, temps dropped to 72-74c with individual cores going as low as 68c. Very occasionally the temps hit in the 80's. Boast speeds also increased to 4.3Ghz.
 
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jamesdsimone

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StefanR5R said:
Looks good!
I guess I worried about available air flow too much.
Click to expand...
Actually airflow might be a problem. I've been running it with the side panel off because I've been tinkering with it. The case fan situation is poor. It only has one 80mm exhaust fan. There is an intake fan that I had to more from the front panel to fit the video card. Seems pretty weak cooling. With a 900w PS and 2 8 pin connectors Lenovo must have assumed a graphics card with a high power requirement would be eventually used.

bigboxes said:
So, not the cooler. I'm glad you got it figured out.
Click to expand...
Nope my own error. Not sure how the Noctua compares to some of the other coolers but I have another W-2145 build so I'll check out another cooler. So far I would recommend the W-2145 now that I have the cooling situation solved. There are tons of used workstations available but most have low clock speed budget Xeons. The W-2145 is not common. The W-2135 is pretty common. If you can find an E5-16xx/26xx that has a decent clock speed they are inexpensive too.
 
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jamesdsimone

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WilliamM2 said:
I find mass is needed for cooling, and that cooler in only 532g. I use one of these, 6 heat pipes and 900g
Click to expand...
I ended up replacing the Noctua with this Deepcool. Full load temps dropped from around 75c to 62c. It is huge though so I can't put the side panel back on. It's 1456g. The Noctua would be fine if you need a compact cooler but I plan on stressing this CPU so best to have top notch cooling.
Unfortunately now I'm getting a CPU fan error at boot so got to figure that out

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www.newegg.com www.newegg.com
 
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