Haswell high temps? Case fan setup? CPU heatsink setup error? Some help here!

[goblinapoel]

Guys,

After 5 years I built a new Haswell PC. I have some issues and questions for the experienced here so please be patient with my post

1) I bought the below heatsink for the CPU (I use Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste, I don't know if I applied correctly but I used the pea size amount in the middle of the CPU!). Here in Cyprus these days is very hot and my room ambient temp is pretty high. Around 30 Celcius. I get around 42C idle temps with fans set to low-medium and around 38C when fans are set to high. Running Prime95 raises the temps to 80-85 C!!! And this is with slight overcloking provided by ASUS software (3,7-3,8 GHz). And the other bad thing I don't have a GPU installed in the system yet! Should I replace the default fans the heatsink came with?!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-020-AL

2) I'm using my old Coolermaster Cosmos case which uses 4 x 120mm fans. One fan is used as intake on the bottom of the case, two fans are used as exhaust fan on the top of the case and the fourth one is used as exhaust fan at the upper rear part of the case. I'm considering to change those four fans. What do I have to do? I read a lot of things about CFM vs SP etc etc but i'm lost! Also, I read that I have to take into account the exhaust fan of the PSU etc etc. By installing 4 same fans is a good practise? What to take into account? CFM in - CFM out = ? As I said, I'm lost!

Please enlighten me here because I've been reading reviews and posts for 2 days now and I don't have a clue on how to proceed! I know that by changing the case fans will really help. What about the heatsink fans? Shall I try to re-paste the PSU? Deliding the Haswell is not an option for me because I'm not a capable moder

 

[Ketchup]

Hello goblinapoel, now that I know your situation, I don't think fans are the answer. I would really recommend you consider water cooling for your build. One of the Corsair kits (like the H80 or H100) would do you well here. When it come to fan cooling, there is just no getting around ambient temps. Added to that the fact that Haswell is a hot sucker, I think you would be wasting your money if you try to get much cooler on air.

 

[goblinapoel]

The temps i mentioned above are not acceptable?

 

[tizm]

Guys,

After 5 years I built a new Haswell PC. I have some issues and questions for the experienced here so please be patient with my post

1) I bought the below heatsink for the CPU (I use Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste, I don't know if I applied correctly but I used the pea size amount in the middle of the CPU!). Here in Cyprus these days is very hot and my room ambient temp is pretty high. Around 30 Celcius. I get around 42C idle temps with fans set to low-medium and around 38C when fans are set to high. Running Prime95 raises the temps to 80-85 C!!! And this is with slight overcloking provided by ASUS software (3,7-3,8 GHz). And the other bad thing I don't have a GPU installed in the system yet! Should I replace the default fans the heatsink came with?!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-020-AL

2) I'm using my old Coolermaster Cosmos case which uses 4 x 120mm fans. One fan is used as intake on the bottom of the case, two fans are used as exhaust fan on the top of the case and the fourth one is used as exhaust fan at the upper rear part of the case. I'm considering to change those four fans. What do I have to do? I read a lot of things about CFM vs SP etc etc but i'm lost! Also, I read that I have to take into account the exhaust fan of the PSU etc etc. By installing 4 same fans is a good practise? What to take into account? CFM in - CFM out = ? As I said, I'm lost!

Please enlighten me here because I've been reading reviews and posts for 2 days now and I don't have a clue on how to proceed! I know that by changing the case fans will really help. What about the heatsink fans? Shall I try to re-paste the PSU? Deliding the Haswell is not an option for me because I'm not a capable moder

Haswell just runs hot and sucks for overclocking unless you delid and have optimal cooling overall. I don't think there's anything wrong with your cooler or your fans... and realistically changing them out for slightly better will only yield a few degrees difference, if that.

The problem, if it isn't your heatsink mount with your AS5 (sounds like you did it right with the pea sized method), could be the automatic Asus software spiking your CPU voltage unnecessarily high for that slight overclock. So unless you don't mind manually setting voltage and constantly testing, you'll have to bear with those temps. Your chip can handle more than 80-85 though, which is kind of bad for just 3.8-3.9 overclock, but nothing you need to worry about as real world temps will be lower than that.

 

[Ketchup]

The temps i mentioned above are not acceptable?

Those temps are fine. My suggestion was based on if you want it to be cooler. If you get a dedicated video card, the temps are going to go up even more. It won't hurt anything, but if it gets hot enough you may start to see throttling.'

Considering those temps, I don't know if I would overclock to make the situation worse. If you do, as tizm mentioned, setting voltage manually would be your best bet.

 

[goblinapoel]

I'm considering the delid option but I know it is very risky one right? I dont really want to play games but I may run 4-5 VMware machines for my job purposes so I dont know if overcloking is really needed here...I like the Hydro option but I spent an amount of money for the air coller for the CPU and if I buy something else it means that it is a waste of money right....

 

[tizm]

I'm considering the delid option but I know it is very risky one right? I dont really want to play games but I may run 4-5 VMware machines for my job purposes so I dont know if overcloking is really needed here...I like the Hydro option but I spent an amount of money for the air coller for the CPU and if I buy something else it means that it is a waste of money right....

The hammer vice method is safe as long as you take precautions. There are plenty of videos on youtube on how to do it. Then again you use your machine for work so if you can't afford the mistake, don't risk it.

Getting one of the corsair hydro coolers will help, sure, but for the price and possibly a ~5 degree difference I just don't see that being worth it. Your air cooler is already good. Again, 80-85 isn't that bad for prime95 and even with all those VMs you probably won't ever get those temps.

 

[Ketchup]

I'm considering the delid option but I know it is very risky one right? I dont really want to play games but I may run 4-5 VMware machines for my job purposes so I dont know if overcloking is really needed here...I like the Hydro option but I spent an amount of money for the air coller for the CPU and if I buy something else it means that it is a waste of money right....

Considering your use, overclocking really doesn't make sense on that rig, in which case your temps at stock speed will probably be fine. I would not consider a delid for a work machine.

 

[goblinapoel]

Ok guys thanks. I'll give it a good testing before buying anything else like case fans and watercooled CPU heatsink. I will have to also "experiment" with my motherboard settings for overclocking right? Shall i delete motherboard software though?

 

[Ketchup]

Shall i delete motherboard software though?

Why would you want to do this?

 

[goblinapoel]

Quote: Originally Posted by goblinapoel View Post Shall i delete motherboard software though? Why would you want to do this?

When manually overclocking, what is the purpose of it?!

 

[Ketchup]

When manually overclocking, what is the purpose of it?!

OK, I guess you need to specify what software you are talking about. If it is some Asus software that just does overclocking, then yes you don't need it. If it is part of a suite that does other things, like temp reporting and fan control, you may wait to leave it alone.

 

[goblinapoel]

OK thanks I'll give it a look!

 

[Nec_V20]

Guys,

After 5 years I built a new Haswell PC. I have some issues and questions for the experienced here so please be patient with my post

1) I bought the below heatsink for the CPU (I use Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste, I don't know if I applied correctly but I used the pea size amount in the middle of the CPU!). Here in Cyprus these days is very hot and my room ambient temp is pretty high. Around 30 Celcius. I get around 42C idle temps with fans set to low-medium and around 38C when fans are set to high. Running Prime95 raises the temps to 80-85 C!!! And this is with slight overcloking provided by ASUS software (3,7-3,8 GHz). And the other bad thing I don't have a GPU installed in the system yet! Should I replace the default fans the heatsink came with?!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-020-AL

2) I'm using my old Coolermaster Cosmos case which uses 4 x 120mm fans. One fan is used as intake on the bottom of the case, two fans are used as exhaust fan on the top of the case and the fourth one is used as exhaust fan at the upper rear part of the case. I'm considering to change those four fans. What do I have to do? I read a lot of things about CFM vs SP etc etc but i'm lost! Also, I read that I have to take into account the exhaust fan of the PSU etc etc. By installing 4 same fans is a good practise? What to take into account? CFM in - CFM out = ? As I said, I'm lost!

Please enlighten me here because I've been reading reviews and posts for 2 days now and I don't have a clue on how to proceed! I know that by changing the case fans will really help. What about the heatsink fans? Shall I try to re-paste the PSU? Deliding the Haswell is not an option for me because I'm not a capable moder

You didn't mention the CPU so I am going to assume that you have the i7-4770k. Intel has done their customers an extreme disservice by using something they call a TIM between the CPU and the lid but in reality it is more of an insulation than anything else.

This is totally inexcusable and has been shown to be inexcusable by the videos out there of what a difference just delidding and applying proper thermal paste can do to the temperatures. I would strongly advise against using something like Arctic Silver or any other thermal paste which is conductive and go with something like Arctic Cooling MX-2 or MX-4 if you ever did decide to delid.

So the cheapest (and potentially the most expensive if something goes wrong) solution would be to delid the CPU clean it with 99.9% Isopropanol (DON'T USE ANYTHING ELSE) and then apply a proper thermal paste. Of course you void any warranty.

How well an air cooler performs is heavily dependant on things other than the design or efficiency of the cooler itself. Essentially what the air cooler does is that it takes heat away from your CPU and dumps it into your case. It is up to the case ventilation to get rid of that heat.

In a poorly ventilated case essentially what happens is that warmer and warmer air is recycled and used to "cool" the fins of the air cooler. The other thing is that a higher ambient temperature within the case will also effect the cooling of other components on the motherboard or the graphics adapter. Also the higher ambient temperature where you live in Cyprus is also going to exacerbate this problem. You are not really supplying the cooler with enough air to do its job.

In your case (pardon the pun) I think the cheapest solution would be to get an AIO water cooler such as the Corsair H100i (which will fit into your case, I checked) and exhaust the air out of the top. This will (not should) allow your CPU to run cooler - unfortunately you will be stuck with the very good air cooler you presently have.

For the H100i I would strongly suggest that you buy two Noctua NF-F12 fans because the ones Corsair supply with it basically suck. Just from the design of them they are not up to the job.

First of all the fans they supply are round, then they have some rubber around the mounting points which raises the fan from the cooler even more. Now what you want if you are using a radiator is a fan that effectively makes a seal around the fan and the square frame of the radiator so that the air being sucked into the fan has nowhere to go except through the radiator. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realise this.

Not so however Corsair. Their fans have a round frame, and being raised a bit off the cooler by the rubber around the mounting points they defeat the purpose of having an SP120 fan (SP in this case stands for "Static Pressure") supplied with it. A lot of the airflow generated will take the path of least resistance which is outwards and around rather than through the radiator.

If you decided to replace the fans then obviously this solution would no longer be the cheapest.

The next cheapest would be to get a new case and I personally am VERY happy with the CoolerMaster HAF XM. With this case you have two 200 mm fans venting out the top (it only comes with one), you have another 200 mm fan as an intake from the front (supplied), and you can add another 200 mm fan on the side as an intake (again not included). You have a 140 mm fan exhausting out the back (supplied). All the intake ports have mesh which will help to keep the dust out.

I also have a CoolerMaster HAF X case, which I have been using for my main machine for three years now (it runs 24/7), and although I like that I just think that the HAF XM is better thought out.

This solution would allow you to keep your existing cooler and actually give it a chance to do its job by supplying enough fresh air into the case.

 

[Ketchup]

So the cheapest (and potentially the most expensive if something goes wrong) solution would be to delid the CPU clean it with 99.9% Isopropanol (DON'T USE ANYTHING ELSE) and then apply a proper thermal paste. Of course you void any warranty.

This could work, or it could make your CPU useless. Plenty of people have done it wrong. not worth the risk, and there is nothing wrong TIM, except people who make a big deal about nothing. Who is this a disservice to? You mean people who like to overclock? Users in this forum have shown that, while the temp difference is noticeable, the overclocking headroom is not, and Intel has designed this chips to handle plenty of heat anyway.

Contrary to what others may say, delidding does not majically reduce the amount of heat from your computer. It just allows the heatsink to expel it faster.

 

[fuzzymath10]

Did you double check the mounting? Sometimes it may appear fine but the temps don't agree. On more than one occasion re-applying the TIM and reseating made a big difference for me.

 

[Nec_V20]

This could work, or it could make your CPU useless. Plenty of people have done it wrong. not worth the risk, and there is nothing wrong TIM, except people who make a big deal about nothing. Who is this a disservice to? You mean people who like to overclock? Users in this forum have shown that, while the temp difference is noticeable, the overclocking headroom is not, and Intel has designed this chips to handle plenty of heat anyway.

Contrary to what others may say, delidding does not majically reduce the amount of heat from your computer. It just allows the heatsink to expel it faster.

No the disservice is to those who run the CPU within its specs with no overclocking whatsoever and they experience wildly different - and dangerous - temperatures on the cores when running something like Prime95.

This has been credibly documented and is beyond dispute.

OK so one is entering the Silicon Lottery when one buys a CPU but surely one should not also be entering the TIM lottery as well.

In my reply I added the part about delidding last (although it appears first) because it is the cheapest - and as I stated potentially THE MOST EXPENSIVE if something goes wrong - way of reducing temperatures. I added it to round off the options that the OP has, and not as a recommendation.

The person asked what his options were and I answered him to the best of my personal knowledge.

I used to live in Bonn in Germany so I know what kind of hassle the OP is going through with the Summer temperatures he is experiencing living in Cyprus. Back in the day (in the early 1980's) I used to have to low level format my 20 MB MFM hard drive every Spring and Autumn because of the difference in ambient temperatures.

You have never experienced torture until you try backing up your entire hard drive to 360 KB 5.25" floppies

Heat is what destroys CPUs over time, and what Intel has done with their useless TIM is to artificially lower the life expectancy of their CPU even if one is not overclocking but one is using the CPU to its full capacity. They should be called out on it.

Personally I will be getting an i7-4770k next month and if I experience high temperatures on it under load (such as with Prime95) or wildly different temperatures from core to core it will be going back to be replaced. And I will keep on getting the replacement replaced (with a letter from my lawyer) until I have one that does the job it is supposed to within acceptable thermal parameters.

And before you say, "Good luck with that", I took a Fortune 500 company to court and won - all that is necessary is that one has the facts on one's side.

 

[felang]

For the H100i I would strongly suggest that you buy two Noctua NF-F12 fans because the ones Corsair supply with it basically suck. Just from the design of them they are not up to the job.

First of all the fans they supply are round, then they have some rubber around the mounting points which raises the fan from the cooler even more. Now what you want if you are using a radiator is a fan that effectively makes a seal around the fan and the square frame of the radiator so that the air being sucked into the fan has nowhere to go except through the radiator. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realise this.

Not so however Corsair. Their fans have a round frame, and being raised a bit off the cooler by the rubber around the mounting points they defeat the purpose of having an SP120 fan (SP in this case stands for "Static Pressure") supplied with it. A lot of the airflow generated will take the path of least resistance which is outwards and around rather than through the radiator.

If you decided to replace the fans then obviously this solution would no longer be the cheapest.

Actually the included fans aren´t bad at all, they are just noisy. Most people swap them out to improve acoustics not to gain more performance.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6391/120mm-radiator-fan-roundup-part-2-fan-harder/6

 

[Nec_V20]

Actually the included fans aren´t bad at all, they are just noisy. Most people swap them out to improve acoustics not to gain more performance.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6391/120mm-radiator-fan-roundup-part-2-fan-harder/6

"Bad" is such a relative term. I realise that what I would consider "bad" today I would have considered "miraculously great" five years ago and I always try to keep that in mind.

You are absolutely correct in your reply. My only reason for ordering a Noctua NF-F12 fan with the H60 for my NAS (based on an AMD A8-5600k) was for the express purpose of making it as silent as possible. That was my one and only consideration.

Just for fun I installed the "cooler" that came with the APU and after loading the monitoring software for the motherboard I started Prime98 and within seconds the temperature shot up to 62 degrees Celsius and I broke off the test and binned the cooler.

I then installed the H60 and just out of curiosity I used the fan supplied with it.

Now everybody's rig is different and so my results have no bearing on what someone else might get under different circumstances. The results however are 100% definitive for me.

For the following I ran Prime95 in the CPU punishing mode and ran four Videos on four instances of VLC (different videos for each instance) just to give the GPU portion of the APU something to do.

If I had the Corsair SP120 fan turned down to where it was still audible but not annoying the temperatures crept up and there was a six degree difference between the low setting of the fan and the high setting.

I then exchanged the fan for the Noctua NF-F12 and I was gobsmacked to notice that the APU only ran one degree hotter with the NF-F12 fans turned down to 1200 RPM than the Corsair SP120 fans running full whack.

When I ran the test again with the NF-F12 turned up to the max (1500 RPM) the APU ran four degrees cooler than the SP120 going flat out.

This was NOT the result I was expecting considering that (pardon the pun) the Corsair fan running at 2700 RPM should have blown away the NF-F12 only running at 1500 RPM flat out.

The only way I can explain it is that the Corsair fan is just not getting the air through the radiator but rather that most of the air is escaping, and it is pretty obvious to me why.

 

[goblinapoel]

Thank you all for your replies. Yesterday I noticed a terrible mistake. I placed the fans of the CPU cooler to blow downwards instead of upwards into the case! Now I get 3-4 degrees lower temps. Still while running Prime95, my CPU hits 63% load and temps rise to 80C. How can I set Prime95 to drive the CPU to 100%? I also noticed that my only intake fan, doesn't seem to provide so much air into the case when I place my hand close to it.

Based on your comments above, I decided to avoid the delid option for now. I remain with 3 options:

1) Replace case fans and one fan on CPU cooler. I'm considering adding a Noctua intake fan, one Noctua on the CPU cooler and three cheaper fans as exhaust. About 70 euros solution

2) Buy the Corsair H100i. About 110 euros solution if I don't replace stock fans on the watercooler and any case fans.

3) Get a Thermaltake HAF X or HAF XM case (This solution is the most expensive but I don't know if it's going to help with my problem). 130-210 euros solution. Also, I may need extra money if i'm going to install extra fans on the optional positions.

 

[Ketchup]

The front fan is for the hard drive (s), not the CPU. The CPU will grab air from wherever it can, so I wouldn't worry about front fans all that much. A fan in the front pulling a bunch of air will also be quite loud.

As I have stated before, it the temp thing is really bothering you, go with option 2. The other two are just spending money with no guarantee it will help with your problem.

As you have stated, the CPU is in a warm room, and there is no getting around this. Throwing more air over the chip won't solve this problem.

 

[moguai]

Hi guys. Im having the same problems with my brand new i7 4770. The case is well ventilated, 6x120 vents, full tower case, room temp 26 27 degrees. In idle i got like 45 47 degrees, in normal load goes up to 70 but it stays at 65 regularly...and in full load with intel tuning utility 99 100 degrees and i can see the Mhz frequency going down then...no turbo boost...
I bought artic cooling ceramic 2 paste to re apply the stock cooler...but i have the same dilema...should i invest 50 euros in a brand new bigger cooler? I didn't had the time yet to do many test as i've just finished installing it. I have to mention that i use the integrated gpu also, no discrete gpu yet.

 

[Ketchup]

Hi guys. Im having the same problems with my brand new i7 4770. The case is well ventilated, 6x120 vents, full tower case, room temp 26 27 degrees. In idle i got like 45 47 degrees, in normal load goes up to 70 but it stays at 65 regularly...and in full load with intel tuning utility 99 100 degrees and i can see the Mhz frequency going down then...no turbo boost...
I bought artic cooling ceramic 2 paste to re apply the stock cooler...but i have the same dilema...should i invest 50 euros in a brand new bigger cooler? I didn't had the time yet to do many test as i've just finished installing it. I have to mention that i use the integrated gpu also, no discrete gpu yet.

Welcome to the forums moguai. Your CPU temps are probably a bit high due to the fact that you are using the integrated video.

What directions are your fans going? Your temps do seem a bit high for that many fans.

An aftermarket cooler would be a good idea. Just make sure your other fans have air going in the proper direction.

If you are regularly seeing 65-70 under load, that is not a bad temp. If you are seeing 65 to 70 constantly, that is a bit high. Just for comparison, my laptop has an Ivy Bridge i7-3720QM, and I see 45-50 degrees at idle and mid 60's under load.

 

[moguai]

Thank you for the answer. I will double check the airflow, but i'm pretty sure i've installed the fans right as the case manual said. As i have a controller for rpm for all of them i'll raise them to the max and play around again...as i have more time with the new rig...
Under full load i got 100 degress, that's worrying...

 

[goblinapoel]

Bow can i fully load the cpu? With prime95 i saw max load 65%