WC Temps, help please...

I was just wondering if anyone could give me their thoughts about my water cooling set up.

EVGA 133-K8-NF41 W/ newest BIOS
Opteron 144 around [email protected]
Danger Den Copper TDX water block
ViaAqua 1300 water pump
Big Heater core from a Van w/2 92mm ducted fans @7V
All 1/2" plumbing

My question is that my cooling set up has always seemed to run warm, by this I mean 38C @ idle which is good, but jumps up to about 57C @100% load. When I bump the fans up to 12V I get around a 1-2C drop, not really worth the noise. This same phenomenon happened when I had a t-bred on my NF7 with a Danger Den Maze 2. I can get the chip to run stable at around 2.7ish, but I'm just curious. Sound like the pump is too restrictive? Any thoughts? I don't really care if the motherboard is misreading the temps, but a 20C jump is hard to overlook. I'll try to post some pics later.
Thanks in advance

WOW !

peeps get better temps on air !!

That pump is good for flow.

Is the block restrictive or fairly open channeled?

By restrictive, I mean, like a WW, with narrow internal channels.
Open, I mean, large passage way.

I tried that exact pump on my WW and the water barely came out.
-No pressure.

I currently use a Ehiem 1048 pump, D-Tek WW, a single 120mm & HC @ 7v's
and get 32C idle & 34C FULL FOLDING LOAD @ 1.55volts.

I'd say it's either your pump or block or the combination.

I'd start with the pump.

I think your pump is under powered. Via's 2300 might be a good alternative. Its beefier than the 1300 (600GPM and a 7' head) but still cheap (brand new they're about $25). On the other hand if you happen to have the expendable income, than an ehiem, iwaki, or some such high-end brand would be a good choice.

You should remount the waterblock, I got a 10 C drop in temps on my graphics card when I remounted-it wasn't making good contact.

that pump is pretty powerfull, check the my temps are too high thread.

as you can see, there is not much tubing and the heater core is fairly large and ducted, maybe the water pump is too weak, but I always thought it was pretty strong when I tested it before installing it in my system.

Looks to me like your outlet hose on your w/b has a pretty bad kink in it.

Have the fans push rather than pull? Move to other side or radiator.

I got this picture from the overclockers.com water block test page. this is almost the exact water block I have, just a different revision and it uses that channeling plate to speed up the water when it enters the block. Maybe this type doesn’t work too well with the Via Aqua?

And I know there is a little kink coming out of the water block to the radiator, but when I fix it, there is no change in temps at all.

I also bumped the fans up to 12V which is much louder but did help a little, but still around 50C at full load.

Thanks again for the comments.

I blame poor contact with the CPU or too much TIM paste.

Hey,
unless I am seeing things...it is 1am over here...I see bulges on your tubing in that first pic. Also, is there dust in your heater core's fins? Take a can of air and clean it out if it is. If that's the case you are not getting enough CFM to your heater core. I would also like to see the tubing on your HC because if it's too wide it will never wc properly...so I have been told...

Agree.. tubing looks bad especially rad to CPU..... Flow would be greaty reduced if it is flatening.

ECH said:

I see bulges on your tubing in that first pic.

Click to expand...

CrustyDemon said:

Agree.. tubing looks bad especially rad to CPU..... Flow would be greaty reduced if it is flatening.

Click to expand...

But...

Slmhofy said:

And I know there is a little kink coming out of the water block to the radiator, but when I fix it, there is no change in temps at all.

Click to expand...

I'm with Sentential, reseat the waterblock 4 times and check the temps each time. Then you will know what kind of mount you're getting.

learning curve said:

Looks to me like your outlet hose on your w/b has a pretty bad kink in it.

Click to expand...

Yup I see it to, right where it bends. Instead of it being oval shaped it's almost rectangular shaped. This can cause your temps to increase. You need to get yourself a hose clamp, maybe 2-3 of them place it where the kink is and tighten down on it until it's an oval shape again.

Temps should improve...

Location...from the pump to the H/C. At the point where the tube bends...It's flatlining man...

The kink is bad news for the waterflow, but I think it's that the stiff tubing is puting sideways pressure on the block and messing up the contact.
I'd go with remounting the block with a very thin ammount of paste and make sure it's well tightened down. If you can get some more flexible tubing (if only for that one piece) I would.
Dipping that piece into boiling water (when it's out of the case) will allow you to shape it some. Just dip it for a few seconds, bend tightly until it cools, dip it again...it lets you work a natural bend into a previously straight piece of tube. It works great on the stiffer PVC tubes.

By the way, if you're temps are jumping that much, and the radiator isn't warming up an equal ammount, that usually points to a poor contact between the cpu and the block (wether by tim or mounting pressure).

One more tip that might help, you could shorten up that piece of copper tube between the heatercore and the T-line. To make a hose barb on it, you can solder/JB-weld a brass ferrule (also called a compression ring) to the copper tube. Just get one with the same ID as the copper tube's OD.
A more trustworthy connection, allowing you to shorten it up quite safely.

Yup, what Fool said. The rad temp is a very good indication of the situation, if its cold to the touch and the CPU temps are high then there is likely to be a problem with the contact.
Also touch the block itself and the tubing.

I would change the 92mm to 120mm much more airflow and pressure. Should help the temps!

Diagnosing temps is like working on a car that has that annoying little noise you just cant find. It's search, fix what you see, search, fix what you find again. I'd start with the obvious. The hose. Fix that and reseat the cpu. If that doesnt work test the pump. If thats not it, check the rad. Go until you find it.

I noticed one thing that you did that I personally think is pretty slick and I never would have thought of it. You used the wc tubing to run you wires through. Nice move. Keeps them out of the way for sure.

well...I guess I fixed the problems. As you might be able to tell, when I upgraded last month, I was kind of in a hurry to get it all together since it had been almost two years since I'd ripped my machine apart and upgraded. And I guess I sort of half assed some stuff and over looked some others such as air in the (kinked) lines. I also remounted the water block and amazingly combined, made a huge difference. I'm idling at around 32C with ambient temps around 29C and max load gets up to about 41C and this is all at [email protected] Pretty good I guess. thanks again for all the input.

I'm glad you got it working right. Hope it keeps churning right along for you.