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Noob builder with possible heat issues

M

Milkman_Al

Junior Member
Hey all, long-time lurker here. I just cobbled together my first PC, and I think I may be having (mild?) problems with my CPU temp. First off, here's the gear I'm working with:

Core i7-2600k (stock everything, no overclock)
Zalman CNPS9900NT
Rosewill Thor v2

I (probably foolishly) tried to use Indigo Xtreme as my TIM after seeing the rave reviews for it but just plain couldn't get it to flow properly. My temps then were okay-ish: low 30s at idle and doing stuff like internet browsing and 60s when gaming, but they skyrocketed to throttling within about 15 seconds under Prime95.

Not satisfied with those results, I removed the Indigo Xtreme per the instructions and tried some Shin-Etsu X23 instead. I used about 0.14g in a pea-sized bead since I'd read in several places that you needed to use a little more than most compounds due to how thick the stuff is. That resulted in pretty much the same idle and gaming temps (30s and low 60s, respectively), but the Prime95 load temps decreased to the upper 70s. Still, that seems a fair bit higher than air cooling temps I'm seeing in a lot of reviews. It looks like my load temps shouldn't be much more than the upper 60s. More importantly, gaming temps of 60-65 intuitively seems pretty high. Since that's what I'm doing the majority of the time, I'm worried I'm leading my CPU to an early demise.

The case is ventilated pretty darn well, and given that the rest of the components stay about as cool as I'd expect them to (XFX 7970 is about at mid-upper 30s at idle and mid-50s under normal use, for instance), I don't think airflow is an issue. The ambient temperature is probably somewhere in the mid-20s. I'd say my chief concern at the moment is that I slatehred on too much TIM, causing the CPU to insulate a bit, but I dunno. It's entirely possible that I'm just botching the cooler installation completely and not getting good contact, though it seems to seat well and is tightened evenly at all corners. I haven't played around much with varying heat sink pressures, but I'd say it's on at medium tightness at the moment.

So...I guess I'm mostly curious if I need to fix anything in the first place, and if so, what? I've also heard that the 9900s are mediocre coolers for the i7 series. Should I bother with changing heatsinks? Thanks in advance for any help.
 
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Those are a bit high. They'd be consistent with an overclocked 2600k, but if you're not OCing... yeah.

I'd try installing the HSF one more time. Wipe everything nice and clean (Q-tips and rubbing alcohol are what I usually use, but everybody has a fave) then reinstall one more time and see what you got.

The following are mistakes I have made:

Apply any applicable BIOS updates, and make sure your motherboard is set to auto-detect voltage. (BIOS updates will often make temp sensors more precise, and if it was overvolted for an overclock at some point and not un-overvolted, you're throwing power at the CPU for no reason and generating waste heat.) Also, make sure all your fans are actually working. If you have shrouds or filters on them, you might not notice them not spinning.
 
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Like Dave said, check your voltage settings in the BIOS. It could be that your motherboard is pushing a little extra juice to the CPU which will make the temps higher. I had that issue with a recent build, but with a 3570K. Got the voltage down to what it should have been running at and my temps dropped between 6 and 10 degrees across the cores.
 
Thanks a lot for the advice, guys. I'll be giving your suggestions a go once I get home from work. I've got some lint-free cloths around, as any good nerd should, and I have some TIM left over for another application. We'll see what happens.
 
It could be getting mounted wrong. I don't know much about this particular air cooler but make sure its put together the right way around with the right bracket etc. You should also take a picture (and post it here) of the tim on the CPU and the bottom of the heatsink so we can have a look at the contact pattern, something might become obvious once we can see the remove heatsinks pattern.
 
I think I'm squared away. Thanks, everyone!

I checked the voltage, and that wasn't the issue, I don't think. It was 1.152 which seems pretty average, per the specs I could find. Consequently, it was off with the heat sink.

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As you can see, it looks like I got pretty good coverage on the CPU. What you may not be able to see in my crappy pictures, though, is that the TIM was fairly thick on the left side of the heat sink. It looks like installation was, indeed, part of the problem since the cooler didn't/couldn't get tightened down evenly on that side.

I also realized that I was using 0.14 mL of TIM, not 0.14 grams. I used a little more than half as much this time around, and my temps look way better so far. Absolute load temps haven't really gone down much (still in the mid-70s or so), but gaming temps are at 47-50. Idle temps are down a few degrees, as well. I used the last of my X23 for this application, so I'd need to get some more before trying again. Is it worth the $7, or should I be happy with my current situation?
 
As long as your CPU isn't close to throttling when pushed to the limit I wouldn't worry about it. You wouldn't kill your CPU by running it in the 70s even if you did it 24/7. The fact that it's in the 40s/50s for your most stressful normal usage is peachy.
 
you are pretty good. I think you could lower the voltage on your cpu to 1.11 vs 1.152. you are not oclng your cpu if I read you correctly.

If no oc for speed you can down clock stock voltage just a bit. Of course that depends on your mother board.
 
Thanks again for the help. I may go spelunking through the BIOS later to fiddle with voltages and clock speeds, but I'm fairly happy leaving things alone for now. I guess it's kind of academic now, but here are the pictures again. You can also see the strip of Indigo Xtreme on the CPU that I frustratingly could not get off. It looks pretty thick and bumpy in the picture, which is odd since it's actually quite smooth and very thin.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/684/imag0156te.jpg/

imag0156te.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/6/imag0157rl.jpg/
imag0157rl.jpg
 
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