High temps? Look here for cooling solutions

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One of the many frequently asked questions about cooling is how to reduce your CPU Temperatures at full load whether it’s on the urge of overheating (50ºC+ Full Load), which can cause lockups or to provide head room for more overclocking. To provide support for our members, I have compiled several solutions to help users with their cooling problem.

I have posted each solution as separate posts to not confuse people that this is a rather long post which they should ignore.

The accuracy of your motherboard in socket thermistor or diode

The first thing to look at is whether your motherboard in-socket thermistor or diode reports inaccurately. You can ask this in the appropriate motherboard sections here:

AMD Motherboards (http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=5)

Intel Motherboards (http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=4)

Before posting, I highly suggest you use the search button to search for the answer. Most of the questions asked are already answered and can be found within the forum database.

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Thermal Paste

Moving along... If your motherboard doesn't report inaccurately, make sure you have thermal paste in between the CPU and Heatsink. The objective of the thermal paste is to transfer heat from the CPU onto the heatsink to dissipate it. You want a thin layer because you want it to transfer as fast possible, having a thick layer will create resistance and it will affect your temperatures may rising them.

Arctic Silver 3 is currently the best thermal paste. It is made up of silver which is one of the best affordable materials that transfer heat very well. “Arctic Silver uses micron zed silver compounds to increase the thermal conductivity of the compound in order to better transfer heat from the CPU to the heatsink. Using Arctic Silver over the white grease will yield a 3-8C drop in temps over the white compound allowing you to have a cooler CPU and potentially more room to overclock with. Once you have Arctic Silver 3 you need instructions to apply it which can be found here. (http://www.arcticsilver.com/as3.htm). You must be very careful with Arctic Silver 3 because it is capacitive meaning it will link leads or traces together which it isn't designed to do and can be problematic. Do not skip the instructions. I highly recommend you to buy Arctic Silver 3 to get the full performance and get what you paid for into a top of the line heatsink.

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Mounting a heatsink + better Heatsink

If you are already using Arctic Silver 3 and still having cooling problems, perhaps you mounted the heatsink incorrect. On AMD Machines, you must have the supporting clip (The clip on the heatsink that slips on first) go on the left side of the lugs and the right side you clip down to the right. Another way to look at is, flip the heatsink upside down, one of the sides will have a clearance in height and that side goes on the right because that part of the ZIF Socket is higher so the heatsink will never be completely flat. P4 Users have bolts and brackets which are pretty straight forward and you can't really reverse that. Make sure you mount a heatsink after applying thermal paste you don't put it on the core of the chip. Hold it tight in mid air and attach stuff in mid air then clip it in mid air while not maintaining such a firm grip as before so you don't break anything. Whatever you do, just don't put it on the core because you then smudge your layer of thermal paste which then creates loss in heat transfer.

If your heatsink simply sucks and nothing you've read so far helped then perhaps you need a better heatsink. You can use this table put up by Overclockers.com to assist you in picking out a heatsink: http://www.overclockers.com/articles373

You should judge by CPU Die Simulator because it is a machine that puts out a certain amount of watts and an external thermistor measures the temperatures on the heatsink so it's accurate instead of the motheboard measuring the temperature because it isn't always accurate. Here's a little more information on the CPU Die Simulator:

http://www.overclockers.com/tips263/index02.asp

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Lapping

Manufacture's don't have all day to make the base of the heatsink perfectly flat, the base is flattened by power tools such as machine grinders. Manufactures sometimes do a poor job of it and leave lots of sanding marks and a concave or uneven base. The uneven base creates less contact with the CPU. Lapping involves buying waterproof (Very important) sandpaper and using a flat surface such as glass and sanding down the heatsink to a flat base. Not only will a flat base improve your performance, but to remove the scratches so there will be contact within the base instead of none in between the scratches. Lapping can improve your temperatures from 2-5 degrees on average. Here's a guide written by Maximus Nickus:


http://www.overclockers.com/tips1015/

Also lapping is very useful for other things such as, say you bought the heatsink off a friend who uses AMD. AMD has codes on the heatsink which is imprinted in your heatsink no matter what and the codes are all different so you lap it to take it out. Also if you are using Arctic Silver 2 and switch to Arctic Silver 3 you should lap it because you want 100% of the thermal compound not mixed and that will result in higher temps. Lapping it with high grit should remove a tad off the base of the heatsink and leave only the base with no thermal paste in between scratches etc.

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Airflow + Ducting

The heatsink itself doesn't do the entire job -- you need airflow. Airflow consists of intake (Air moving in) and exhausts (Air moving out). You want an equal amount of both and you should have quite amount of CFM in your system if you overclock while maintaining a quiet system. Intake should always be at the front and bottom. Cold air is always at the bottom and exhaust is always at the back and at the top. Hot air rises so you don't want to intake from the top of the case or in the middle because all of the cold air is at the bottom. You can mod your case with hole saws or dremel to add more fans such as 120mm as blowholes or intakes on the side panel which is very beneficial. You can buy very quiet 80mm's or loud ones and have lots of CFM. If you are crazy you can buy hole saws and everything and install 120mm fan everywhere. Fans can be controlled by a rheostat which controls the voltage through it and you can control the CFM/RPM of the fan. It’s very useful for flexibility and east to maintain a quiet system while having great temperatures. You should clean up any unnecessary cables such as ATA cables, power cables out of the way as they do restrict airflow. You can get rounded airflows which don’t restrict airflow however it doesn't give you an excuse to be messy. Use your bays to hide your cables, unhook everything and organize it so you see no cables anywhere.

Ducting

Ducting is the process in which you have a fan which pushes more CFM on top of your CPU Fan. It draws cold air in or sucks hot air out and you create a tunnel from the fan to your fan area hence duct. It should drop your temps. Although I don't recommend it, many people still do it lowering their temps but I don't like it because it screws up my airflow. I prefer to add them to the bottom of the side panel or as blowholes since they look nice as well.

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Shims

Shims is an object to protect the core but it will raise your temps by a couple degrees because it prevents the heatsink from getting full contact to prevent it from chipping or crushing the core. I don't think shims are necessary unless you are something extreme such as air-cooling a TEC on an MCX462+ whereas you have to buy longer screws and tighten it yourself. If you run stock heatsinks, they all apply a certain amount of pressure to give the best performance and not crush the core or damage it. The only possible way to do it is you actually screwing up. If you take your time, it shouldn't be a problem. The people who rush will screw up. If you still feel unsafe and want to get a shim, cool. Be sure to look for a non-conductive shim because if it's conductive, it will cause problems.