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Exos 2

B

Balthazar

Golden Member
Ok, so, a little while back I bought an Exos 2. Yay me right?

Wrong.

I had a S754 MSI K8N Neo Platinum and a 2Ghz A64 to go with it.

Now, I HAD been using a Alpha PAL8xxx with a decent fan on it and that would let me do 2.0Ghz all day long.

With the exos....I couldn't even hit 2.0Ghz reliably.

So after several months I just bought an Abit AN8 SLI and figured "maybe the crapy mounting plate had something to do with it", kind of a stretch but hey.

I bought a 2Ghz A64 Venice E stepping (known for being a good overclocker), and install it, lo and behold, stock speed with the Exos 2, its not any cooler than the last CPU, maybe a couple degrees but that should EASILY be made up for by the notable drop in vcore right?

Anyway, long story short I can't even hit 2.3Ghz with this thing and right now, fan speed set to 5, under full load I am hitting 113F

Thats only a few degrees above stock temps at full load too btw.

So I am looking for any info from you guys, I KNOW this isn't right, there is no way a $400+ (after waterblock) water cooling setup should not be able to outperform a $40 HSF right?

Any tips, suggestions, ideas, people who have had the same problem, etc. etc.

Also, sitting here under Prime95 the temp bounces back and forth every few second between 111 and 113 F

If anyone has any ideas, please, share them.

TIA
 
I would contact Koolance support. Something's not right with your setup. While it's far from the best water cooling system you can buy. It's definitely one of the best pre-built ones out there. At worst you should be hitting high end heatsink/fan results. I have no experince with the EXOS, but I plan to get one as i've read nothing but shining things about it. Well, except for your issue. Hopefully you'll get the issues worked out. running correctly you should get some nice OC'ing results.
 
115F (45C) isn't that hot, and under full load it's just fine, I doubt there is anything wrong with your setup. I've seen people reporting idle temps around 86F (30C), and I flat out don't believe it. I think they have a wonky diode in the cpu.
 
Its not that hot no, but are you really suggesting that a $400+ watercooling setup can't do better than a $40 HSF?

I kid you not these temps are no better, and sometimes a little worse, than that alpha PAL8xxx+decent fan (mid-range airflow, nothing crazy).

And yeah, I contacted Koolance, they sent me out another unit, same exact results, the thing that really burns me about koolance is their support is VERY lacking, everytime I called I either got no call back, or I got the same thing over and over "check the tightening nut", two different nuts, no change.

So yeah, I gave up on their tech support.

In the manual they say to fill it "about" 1/2" from the top of the res, but that if you hear running water while its on you need to add more, I've used every trick I can think of to put more water in and I STILL hear that noise.

I mean, I'm ok with not geting 1Ghz overclocks, I'm not expecting a ton here, but, come on, no better (and in order to compete it has to be just as loud) than a $40 air cooler?
 
Air and water coolers both have the same lower limit, ambient temperature. You can?t get below that by blowing air over a heat sink or a radiator. And the closer you get to ambient, the less efficient that exchange becomes. In my setup, the idle temps are higher than I thought they would be (41 to 44C), but the load temps are only 5C higher no matter how far I push the cpu. That?s where water cooling really works. My system also seems to be water block limited, as the temperature stays the same with the fans at full power (170 cfm total) or at half speed.
The only other thing I can tell you is what I tell everyone who wants to try water cooling, air is pretty darn good. When I do my next upgrade, I?m probably going to use a HSF, unless I do a crazy overclock and have to push the voltage way up.
 
I'm cool with that, but heres the deal.

This doesn't afford me some crazy overclock, this doesn't even afford me as much as the air cooler did.

My temps at dile, not that good, my temps under load, not that good.

I mean, no matter what I try, this Exos 2 just will not perform better than that air cooler. And dont get me wrong, that wasn't an OEM HSF by any stretch, but it alsy wasn't $400+, so its like, wtf did I waste my money on?
 
It wont go very high at all, and again, I got better results (on the exact same hardware) with that air cooler.

$400+ vs. $40 and the $40 setup works better?

Eek....
 
Well, the whole point of this thread was asking if anyone had any suggestions or tips or ideas, or common mistakes, or anything that might help.

Going back to air isn't really going to help, I'm still out, at this point, close to $500 (three waterblocks) and I KNOW other people out there are getting great results with koolance systems.

If I cant find a way to increase the performance (i.e. does the stock koolance cpu-300 waterblock just suck, should I get a different one?) and thats my last option I will go with it, but what I'm looking for is helpfull information, ideas, etc.
 
I've never dealt with water cooling, but I really hope this isn't the case for Exos 2... I was looking into it as well. 🙁

I hope someone that had great success with it comes along and gives advice or something.
 
Sorry, did get a bit off topic. Just for grins you should try running just the cpu and air cool everything else, see if that helps.
 
I started out just CPU, its just CPU cooling right now too, to no avail. 🙁

And you know, I don't want anyone to think I'm just say watercooling nay-sayer, I was looking SO forward to getting this system, getting it setup, thats why it has been so disappointing, because I really looked forward to it, and I thought, maybe its just the motherboard right, maybe the backplate was goofy or something, nope, it didnt make a bit of difference.

I'm not entirely opposed to trying another waterblock, if anyone has a suggestion that will work with this Exos 2 (I know there are waterblocks designed for high pressure and ones designed for high flow, not sure which is which or which I need, I THINK the Koolance stuff is meant to use high head pressure and not high flow rates).
 
What are some of these "great results" that other people are getting? Do they have about the same setup as you? Watercooling isn't really about getting a lower temperature; it's about getting a STABLE, working temperature. When overclocked on load air coolers may not be able to remove heat fast enough, resulting in a rising CPU temp that eventually may get unstable. Watercooling, on the other hand, removes heat fast enough so that the temperature will rise a little bit, but will then plateau out at a working temperature. 45C is a perfectly good, stable temperature. You should only be worried if under load those temps increase, oh, perhaps 6C and more above idle temp.

If your watercooling temps top out around 45C at load, and you can't overclock any more, chances are you've reached the limit of your CPU because 45C is not thermally limiting your overclock.

"Now, I HAD been using a Alpha PAL8xxx with a decent fan on it and that would let me do 2.0Ghz all day long.

With the exos....I couldn't even hit 2.0Ghz reliably. "

Did the Exos and the Alpha have the same idle and load temps? If the Exos had the lower load temp AND lower overclock... that's weird... because it's saying that something other than temperature is affecting your overclock or lowering your temps actually decreased stability.
 
A lot of people have trouble with bubbles in their EXOS-2, do you have any?

Also those temps look pretty much okay, keep trying to OC it and thats when the watercooling will kick in, otherwise you are going to be around stock speed

PS, the EXOS is one of the best kits out there, hope you find a way to fix it
 
Great results being 500-800Mhz OC's not uncommon at ALL.

And yeah a couple of the people I tracked down had everything, down to the brand of memory and video card, I did. Same waterblock, same everything.

Which is why I can't help but think its not the Exos 2 thats the problem.

As for temps, idle and load using air vs koolance was within a degree or two at both ends.

I expect the temp to hit a "normal" temp, what I don't expect is for it to not OC worth crud, and again, the previous CPU I had OC'ed HIGHER with the HSF than it did with the koolance, s the CPU couldn't be limited.

As for the second post, I don't THINK I do, I haven't really seen any and I've filled it the best way I know how and left it running for a bit, filled it again, rinse repeat till it wont accept anymore. Any idea about whether or not the exos 2 really only needs to be filled to within half an inch of the top of the res? It just seems like such a flaky number, I mean they said "about" and nothing really solid other than you shouldn't hear running water, but I can fill until it wont take anymore (which still isn't full) and I still hear running water.
 
Cooling is not limiting your overclock. 113F is no where near the upper limit of your cpu. If you were getting up around 140F when oc'd then you would have a cooling issue, but the temps you're running are not whats holding you back. Not all cpu's oc the same, some go much higher than others, it's just the luck of the draw, and it looks like your's is not a good oc'er.
 
I don't think thats the case.

Whenever I use the air coller and I run prime95, it goes up in temp, but realtively slowly, it builds up.

When I use the Exos2 and hit toture test, boom, almost maxes out in the first second.

And I assure you, the air cooling speed WAS stable, it ran Prime95 for 2 days straight (and that includes during the day when I was gone and the ambient temp got about 1-2f higher than when I'm home), ran 6 or 7 loops of 3DMark 2003, ran just about everything I could think of.
 
Thats it, on the K8N however it was rotated 90 degrees from that pic, so the inlets were on the left or right instead of top or bottom.
 
Yeah, it definitely sounds like more is going on here than it seems at first. My CPU load temps typically don't top 49-50C unless it's real hot in the room, and this is with a 754 Newcastle at 2.4GHz on a supposedly worse cooling system. I don't think it's the waterblock, as I have the same one, except with 1/4" fittings.

Not sure how much you know or don't know so I'll just list off everything I can think of for possibly improving temps. See if changing the flow orientation works as describe above, if possible. Also make sure to check the regulars too, such as too much thermal compound, blocked air flow, etc. Another tip is to make sure the EXOS unit is receiving nice cool air as opposed to air coming from your PSU or case, which happens if you have it behind the case. Also, take some 12V rail readings at full load, preferably in an app using multiple components, like a game.

It may also not be related at all to the watercooling system, such as having an inadequate PSU (you want at least 400W with >20A on 12V rail), overly tight memory timings (this gave me quite a headache when I was first using my WC case), or SATA drives connected to the "crappy" ports. I don't know if NVidia ever fixed that problem on the NF4s.

Anyway, good luck getting your system where you want it.
 
Originally posted by: Balthazar
Well, the whole point of this thread was asking if anyone had any suggestions or tips or ideas, or common mistakes, or anything that might help.

Going back to air isn't really going to help, I'm still out, at this point, close to $500 (three waterblocks) and I KNOW other people out there are getting great results with koolance systems.

If I cant find a way to increase the performance (i.e. does the stock koolance cpu-300 waterblock just suck, should I get a different one?) and thats my last option I will go with it, but what I'm looking for is helpfull information, ideas, etc.
Click to expand...

Try buying a bottle of isopropyl alcohol (the generic 70% kind) and mixing 1/5 of that and 4/5 parts distilled water. Should perform a bit better and prevent corrosion/algae/scum.
 
Hey, thanks for the suggestions guys, BUT, those were apparently NOT the problem....

Victory is mine!

So what WAS the problem you ask?

Their mounting bracket bites hard. I always thought it left the waterblock too loose against the CPU, turns out I was right.

The bracket apparently got bent a little (and I do mean a little) and because of that it didn't put even pressure (or apparently enough pressure) on the CPU, hence, it was being cooled, but it scaled miserably. It was like it was just enough contact/pressure to cool it a smidge above stock, but beyond that, forget it.

And its been like this since the first time I installed it.

Now I can take my Nancy Drew shoes off and go back to just USING my PC. Oh and as you can see, not a terribly high bump in vcore (0.1v) and it does 2.6 with the fans set at lvl7 so, hoorah, I could probably do more but, why bother, I'd have to load up more noise and a higher voltage, 600Mhz over stock is pretty decent. 🙂
 
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