OT one of my X6 machines just died

[VirtualLarry]

I got my X6 1045T rig partially built last night. Unfortunately, I think I put the TIM on wrong, for my OCZ Vendetta heatsink.

I don't have any drives in it yet. Strange behavior, it booted to UEFI BIOS menus, even when I didn't hit DEL or F2. However, I put a bootable USB 2.0 stick in a port, and selected to boot off of it in the BIOS, and it did. So I guess it's not defective.

 

[Uppsala9496]

I've messed up putting mx-2 on 4 times now. I was able to get a stable (i think) clock at 4.3, but the temps are too high for my liking. Running the antec 620 in a push pull, intaking outside air versus pushing the air out.
THe last TIM application resulted in some crazyass spikes in temperature. As soon as I saw 70* I shut down.
I'll try this again.

 

[blckgrffn]

I used to think that this was super easy - rice sized grain in the middle and let the heat sink squish it out.

The advent of these heat pipe coolers that have tiny gaps has been messing with me. I can't use my main rig to crunch as one core goes through the roof temp wise while the rest stay under 60c, easily. I have a huge tower cooler on there and Cooler Master 690 with five freaking 12CM fans - it has to be an issue with the TIM.

Good luck Uppsala, can't wait to see that guy crunching

 

[petrusbroder]

I have turned the process of applying the TIM around: I don't put the TIM on the CPU, I put it on the base of the cooler. Works very nice indeed because all the small cracks (close to the heat pipes) get filled.

 

[Sunny129]

I have turned the process of applying the TIM around: I don't put the TIM on the CPU, I put it on the base of the cooler. Works very nice indeed because all the small cracks (close to the heat pipes) get filled.

yup, that's exactly what i had to do to make sure that the small gaps between the flattened heatpipes on the bottom of my CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ didn't have any air pockets in them. to be honest though, i've applied thermal paste several different ways and never to the detriment of any CPU. in fact, i've had just as much luck spreading a super-thin layer onto the heatsink with a small spatula/spreader as i have using the squished dollop method.

 

[ZipSpeed]

Everyone seems to have their method of TIM application but my thought is, as long as you achieve great temps, who cares how it's applied? :biggrin:

Here's my method:

I put a tiny, tiny amount on the base of the cooler and then with a ziploc bag, i rub the TIM to make sure it fills the imperfections. After, I apply about the size of a grain of white rice on to the CPU heat spreader. Using the blade of a small swiss army knife, I evenly spread a thin layer. Mount. Been using this method since the day I heard of Arctic Silver and hasn't let me down yet. I've switched to MX-2 a few years back and is my preferred TIM. Really easy to spread. I heard some good things with MX-4 but I still need to finish my MX-2.

Does TIM have a shelf life? I still have enough Arctic Silver 5 for a few more applications but I think the stuff is pushing 6 years old.

 

[Uppsala9496]

What's frustrating is I am not getting good temps at all with the antec 620 kuhler on the fx 8120.

Running a push pull configuration on the radiator, pulling ambient air into the case/radiator. THis is located in the rear of the computer.
I pulled the antec fan that came with it and installed 2 yate loon 1200rpm fans. At full they are quiet.
Top fans are exhaust (2 800rpm scythe slipstream) and front has 2 coolermaster silent s12 fans for intake.
THe 620 being a self contained water cooler, the only thing that matters is keeping the radiator cool.
Right now at a very modest oc of 4.00ghz with stock voltage, I am getting temps under full load (SIMAP right now) of 56-58*. That is just unacceptable.
With voltage increases, I can get up to 4.4ghz+ but as soon as I start to P95 test my temps are just too damn high (once they hit 62 I shut it down).

So, do I have a defective 620? Is it functional and I am just out of luck? I really don't want to take a 212+ off another machine to test the theory since pulling the mounting brackets is a royal pain in the butt.

I should note that ambient in my place is about 77*F with all the computers running. I open the window (a nice 1*C outside) and the temps drop nicely (49-50*). Do I just need better fans on the radiator? I want to keep this machine as quiet as possible.

My X6 running about 6 feet away from the FX8120 has a push pull 212+ on it and temps are at 56*. That has a slight oc to 3.5ghz (not making the same mistake twice and pushing that machine).

 

[blckgrffn]

The Kuhler just can't handle the TDP of the 8120 at OC? I mean, it isn't magic, just good, right?

And we know power consumption goes up up up when you get north of 4Ghz with BD.

 

[Uppsala9496]

That isn't a fun answer!
I'll have to really scale back when the weather starts getting warmer.

 

[Sunny129]

i really know nothing about water cooling, and i know this is like comparing apples to oranges, but consider that the hotter-running of my two X6 CPUs, which is clocked @ only 3.7GHz, never goes above 48°C and operates 24/7 at 100% load. and this is with air cooling only, specifically, the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO (the 212+ is on my other X6 CPU) w/ 2 Scythe SY1225SL12LM-P PWM fans @ ~1000rpm in push/pull configuration and Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste. also consider that this is in a case that is designed more for silence than it is for cooling. and i'm sure that my HD 5870 doesn't help the situation, as it crunches Milkyway@Home and SETI@Home Astropulse @ 100% load 24/7 and uses a dual fan open air cooler that dumps warm air inside the case (as opposed to the blower-style coolers that exhaust all hot air out the back of the case).

now, as i said before, i know nothing about water cooling...but i was always under the impression that even the most inexpensive and economical closed-loop water cooling solutions were as good as (if not better than) the average mid-range air cooler. then again, maybe your 620 would be running on par w/ my air cooler if you dropped your OC to 3.7GHZ, or if i alternatively increased my OC to 4GHz. just some food for thought...

 

[blckgrffn]

That isn't a fun answer!
I'll have to really scale back when the weather starts getting warmer.

I know (for the first part)

And you are right, that 212+ is a PITA. I went into the basement thinking it was going to take like 5 minutes to upgrade the cooler. Unsnap, clean, paste, snap on. It's only Intel where you have stupid back-plates and such right, because AMD has those out of the gate? Hah. I learned.

i really know nothing about water cooling, and i know this is like comparing apples to oranges, but consider that the hotter-running of my two X6 CPUs, which is clocked @ only 3.7GHz, never goes above 48°C and operates 24/7 at 100% load. and this is with air cooling only, specifically, the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO (the 212+ is on my other X6 CPU) w/ 2 Scythe SY1225SL12LM-P PWM fans @ ~1000rpm in push/pull configuration and Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste. also consider that this is in a case that is designed more for silence than it is for cooling. and i'm sure that my HD 5870 doesn't help the situation, as it crunches Milkyway@Home and SETI@Home Astropulse @ 100% load 24/7 and uses a dual fan open air cooler that dumps warm air inside the case (as opposed to the blower-style coolers that exhaust all hot air out the back of the case).

now, as i said before, i know nothing about water cooling...but i was always under the impression that even the most inexpensive and economical closed-loop water cooling solutions were as good as (if not better than) the average mid-range air cooler. then again, maybe your 620 would be running on par w/ my air cooler if you dropped your OC to 3.7GHZ, or if i alternatively increased my OC to 4GHz. just some food for thought...

I don't think they have the ability to dissipate the heat of much large radiators though, the amount of water in them can only handle so much... I hope these links work, an acquaintance of mine just finished a build...

http://i.imgur.com/hS2hU.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DYWsz.jpg

That'll dissipate some heat, I think. Mrk6 has a pretty sweet setup here on the forums too, I believe. I don't know what it takes to set up these big radiators and such, but I might try it on my main rig refresh post-Haswell.

 

[petrusbroder]

I use an Antec 620 cooler on a FX8150. 100% (WCG) @ 4GHz (no over voltage) the temps are 46º - 47ºC in ambient teperature of 26ºC (= 78.8ºF).
At 4.2 GHz the CPU temp rise to 53ºC, at 4.5 GHz it is 58ºC-60ºC.

For the radiator I have two Antec fans running @ 100% speed in push-pull configuration pushing the air OUT of the case. I have also two Noctua NF-P12 fans pushing air into the case (front and bottom ) and one Noctua NF-P12 fan on top pulling the air out. In the case there are also two GPUs (GTX 560Ti OC'ed to 950MHz) with cooling which pushes the air both out of the case and into the case ...

It is harder to push air into a case if the case is closed and you have one or two other fans pushing air into the case. You probably need to balance the input vs. the output. Try what happens if you take the side of the case. That should negate any elevated pressure inside the case and make the air move faster through the radiator. If the temps drop you have the problem (too high air pressure inside the case) and the solution (move the ait out somehow, e.g. reverse the direction of the radiator fans)

 

[Uppsala9496]

I'll reverse the fans in the morning. I want to switch the orientation on a machine with the 212+ (CM elite 371) to have the hot air go out the top versus out the back.
It'll be move fans around day tomorrow.

Thanks for all the advice. I'll keep everyone in the loop on how it goes.

Oh and I just got another machine up and running. Slowly building my farm. 29 cores now. Still pondering pulling the X3 in favor of the X2 555.

 

[petrusbroder]

In the tests Antec 620 is doing quite well. Some top tier air coolers are as good or better. I found however, that my CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO with two push-pull fans worked less efficiently in the above system than the water cooler; the temp difference was approx 4ºC at 4.5GHz.
For TIM I always use Arctic MX-2. I got myself - in a sale - 2 big packages (20 grams each), which probably will last 3 - 4 years or more; OTOH: I do use it on GPU-coolers too (I have replaced the TIM and blown away dust om 6 GPUs recently and the temps dropped a whopping 8 - 10ºC!).

 

[blckgrffn]

It's pretty awesome to get such relevant advice around here. It's been making me wonder why I didn't come into this subforum earlier?

My big-boy stick of Arctic Silver 3 is years and years old as I don't replace the TIM on stock coolers anymore and my PC habits slowed with /job/house/marriage/baby - maybe it's time to retire it. Installing the 212+ I actually just used the included stuff...

Uppsala, that's getting pretty sick Your condo is going to be a sauna this summer :awe:

I have been increasing too - up to 28 now w/4 more come race days (HTPC). Some freelance VMware work is going to net a 2500k bundle upgrade for my home ESXi lab, I believe, so that'll increment me up in the next few weeks. I think my expansion spree will be curbed

 

[Uppsala9496]

I went ahead and reversed the radiator fans from intake to exhaust. Actually made it worse. Temps went to 58*. Put them back at intake and moved/adjusted some fans in the case and now run at no higher than 54.8*.

If I crack with window and get some good, clean, fresh air, the temps will drop to about 47-48*.
I really want to put one of my 212+'s on there to see what kind of temps I get, but it is just too much of a PITA. And I am down to about 1g of the 4g of mx-2 that showed up earlier in the week. Lot's of part swapping going on.

Oh, and the January electric bill showed up. Wife yelled at me for that one. 1,725 kWh. The meter actually spun past 99,999 to get me to 248 during the January cycle. I feel like a person who just rolled the odometer on their car.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Oh, and the January electric bill showed up. Wife yelled at me for that one. 1,725 kWh. The meter actually spun past 99,999 to get me to 248 during the January cycle. I feel like a person who just rolled the odometer on their car.

Hey, if you build enough computers, and it spins around twice in one month, willl they only charge you for one rollover?

Still, I wonder, I burned something like 1100 KWh last month. And that's with:
Q9300 @ 3.0, no voltage increase, and a GTX460 1GB @ 715 (part of the time it was at 820, with no voltage increase)
Q9300 @ 3.0, minor voltage increase, and a GTX460 1GB @ 715
AMD 45W dual-core 2.3Ghz / Thuban X6 95W 2.7Ghz (swapped out partway through the month for the X6), with four 9600GSO 96SP cards.
1.9Ghz C2D Celeron laptop, running 100% CPU time on Correlizer
2.3Ghz AMD 45W dual-core in HTPC, running 60% CPU time on PrimeGrid

 

[Uppsala9496]

I have been messing with the FX lately to see what impact upping/decreasing the cpu voltage has in terms of temps.
A slight increase (I think it was 0.025v; whatever the lowest setting is on the gigabyte board) results in a 2-3*C increase in temps.
No other changes. Same ambient.

So, I guess the lesson here is don't increase the vcore unless you absolutely have to, and even then, think twice about it. I am really surprised at the temperature impact bumping the vcore one notch has.

 

[blckgrffn]

I have been messing with the FX lately to see what impact upping/decreasing the cpu voltage has in terms of temps.
A slight increase (I think it was 0.025v; whatever the lowest setting is on the gigabyte board) results in a 2-3*C increase in temps.
No other changes. Same ambient.

So, I guess the lesson here is don't increase the vcore unless you absolutely have to, and even then, think twice about it. I am really surprised at the temperature impact bumping the vcore one notch has.

Can you get 4 Ghz on stock vcore? That would be sweet spot, I would think. I would estimate that it would get ~20-25% more work done at that point than an x6 @ 3.5 ghz. Pretty crazy that a 700 mhz OC nets you 8*700 = 5.6 Ghz more throughput? IPC, what?

(Maths = 8*4 = 32Ghz, 3.5 * 6 = 21 ghz, 32*80% = 26.6 Ghz of Thuban Equivalent IPC?)

Next question - does it it use 20-25% more power (more? less?) to do that extra work?

 

[Uppsala9496]

Running 4ghz with stock voltages. Once SIMAP runs out of work in the next 30 hours or so I will run prime at 4.1 stock volts to see if it is stable and see what the temps are.
It's settled to 53-54*C. I can live with those temps considering ambient is 77*F.

No idea how much power it is pulling. All in all I'm happy with the performance.