- Jun 25, 2004
- 5,530
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I've been running with CLU between my bare-die Ivy's core and my copper waterblock for close to 9 months now (same mount). In the past month, I found I was getting instability at voltage/frequency combinations that used to be stable despite my reported temperatures being as good as ever (under 75c IBT @ 4.6GHz) and I feared that the CLU had infiltrated the die perhaps, or that my chip was experiencing degradation.
Yesterday I pulled everything apart and found that the CLU had somehow clumped and formed round, lumpy, crystal-looking structures between the die and the waterblock. I'm unsure as to how this could have happened as I have pretty high mounting pressure, and the CLU should have been liquid at normal operating temperatures. There were solid CLU lumps stuck on both the die and the bottom of the block.
Removal of the CLU was difficult - the steel-wool-like scrubby pad that was included with the CLU was effective at getting it off of the die (though it left visible microscratches on the surface), but the waterblock had to be lapped to get the surface flat again, as not even a razor blade was able to get the CLU off effectively. Even after lapping there is still a silver stain on the bottom of the block.
I switched over to Noctua NT-H1 which I use on everything else and reassembled, and found that my previously stable overclock is now stable again.
My best guess is that perhaps when the CLU hardened/crystallized, it left gaps in places between the die and the waterblock, causing hot spots and instability despite the temperature sensor reporting that all was well.
Yesterday I pulled everything apart and found that the CLU had somehow clumped and formed round, lumpy, crystal-looking structures between the die and the waterblock. I'm unsure as to how this could have happened as I have pretty high mounting pressure, and the CLU should have been liquid at normal operating temperatures. There were solid CLU lumps stuck on both the die and the bottom of the block.
Removal of the CLU was difficult - the steel-wool-like scrubby pad that was included with the CLU was effective at getting it off of the die (though it left visible microscratches on the surface), but the waterblock had to be lapped to get the surface flat again, as not even a razor blade was able to get the CLU off effectively. Even after lapping there is still a silver stain on the bottom of the block.
I switched over to Noctua NT-H1 which I use on everything else and reassembled, and found that my previously stable overclock is now stable again.
My best guess is that perhaps when the CLU hardened/crystallized, it left gaps in places between the die and the waterblock, causing hot spots and instability despite the temperature sensor reporting that all was well.
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