Water Cooling Temps high with Opteron

Hey guys,

Well I've had the same watercooling system for about a year now, recently upgraded to an Opteron 148 from a Pentium 3.2e. First AMD. So the only thing I did was switch the bracket on the waterblock.

Here is the setup:
Swiftech MCW 6002
Boneville Heater Core w/ 2 Panaflo 120mm fans
Shroud
Quiet One 300lph Pump
1/2 ID Lines
~85% Distilled Watter/ 15% Car Refrigerant.

Seen here, except all new computer parts now:
http://www.ocforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=35533&stc=1

Looking around most people with the DFI boards and opterons are getting in the Mid 40s on good air. I'm getting 31C Idle, and 38C full load at stock speeds, which is BARELY better than air.

Odd thing, is the coolant lines are room temperatues, water block top is *cold*. I figured maybe the heat transfer is bad. So I let it run prime 95 for a while, and then quickly took the waterblock off.

Result was the top of the Opteron was *barely* warm. So my question is, should I worry about the temps, or is the sensor just off?

Thanks for the advice.

38C full load is pretty good really. It depends on the sensor too though. a lot of the time they are rediculously inaccurate and you will need to provide your own probe to get a proper reading. My msi reads 27º Full load on one bios version and 38º in another. If you installed everything right, i wouldnt see a reason to worry at all.

31C idle and 38 load is hot?

those are good temps man

it also is gonna matter how hot it is in the room your in, ambient temp is one of the biggest portions of cooling, take that in mind.

Thanks for the advice so far.

Well I continued overclocking, and got it running prime95 stable so far at 3003mhz, but at 1.56v.

This scaled the load temp to 51C. And yet the waterblock is cold to the touch, the lines are cold too. I think the IHS is simply not transfering any energy to the waterblock.

I'm planning on pulling the IHS tomorrow. Should I bother if load is at 51c?

Did you ever have this processor cooled with air? If you did it would be easier to compare temperatures, but if you did, I suppose you wouldn't be posting this...

One thing you may want to do is try a different BIOS, sometime you can get wildly different readings with certain revisions. Check the DFI section to see if any particular BIOS has known issues with temp sensor readings.

FWIW, I run my Opty 146 at 2.9 Ghz at 1.5V and my load on Prime reaches 53C with my case cover off and my fan on full blast. I'm also cooling my 7800GT and I'm using an MCP-350, Apogee, and BIX 120. This is with ambient temps of 76F. The system has no problem keeping my 7800GT at 38C/45C and the MCW-55 and Apogee are basically the same block design. I've gone so far as to remove my IHS and replace the TIM, and glue her back on (my system is too cramped to try and mount the block on straight with just the bare die).

Massive, have you modded that MCP at all?

No, I'll probably buy a modded top if they come down in price.

MassiveOverkill said:

FWIW, I run my Opty 146 at 2.9 Ghz at 1.5V and my load on Prime reaches 53C with my case cover off and my fan on full blast. I'm also cooling my 7800GT and I'm using an MCP-350, Apogee, and BIX 120. This is with ambient temps of 76F. The system has no problem keeping my 7800GT at 38C/45C and the MCW-55 and Apogee are basically the same block design. I've gone so far as to remove my IHS and replace the TIM, and glue her back on (my system is too cramped to try and mount the block on straight with just the bare die).

Click to expand...

Massive- Did removing and and replacing the TIM on the IHS help at all? As far as temps go.

I'm considering removing mine today. How vulnearbable does the chip look alone?

My IHS was making good contact, so it didn't change anything. Temps were the same as before. I would use some stabilizer pads like those found on socket A CPU's if you're going to mount to bare die.