ASIII Fiction or reality ?

Well i've been putting some AS3 on both my XP2000+ and XP2100+ yes i put some on the heatsink and wiped so that some gets in the tiny cracks of the heatsink and yes i put it paper thin on the cpu core, yes i have checked and the cpu and heatsink make a good contact with the AS3....

But i have yet to see any improvements from this in fact i seem to be getting same temps has first day it was put on the cpus, and this is also with 2 different heatsinks and cpus, could it be that i hit some kind of Air Cooling brickwall with my rig and that no extra cooling is going to help any ?

One thing i have noticed is on my XP2100+ it's running 35 c idle and 39 c full load @ 1.85 volts and fsb @ 144 (very stable btw).
But when i put the vcore back at stock and fsb back @ 133, my idle temp just goes down to 33.5 c, and i know before it would go down like 4 degrees from overclocked to stock, so hmmm.... a bit disapointed with AS3, don't seem to be getting that 1 to 2 degrees drop over time as advertised, anything i'm missing here ?

Thx
Fender.

hmm have you checked your heatsink to see if it is clogged with dust/ and or cigarette resin (if your a smoker) that could be one thing hampering your performance, or 2 is the fan on your heatsink not running as well as it used to, also have you used the clip on your heatsink alot, becuase too much on and off will cause the clip to not apply as much pressure as it used to. also you didn't happen to touch your heatsink base or cpu core with any part of your skin? becuase if you did the oils in your skin can hamper performance, I'd check into these first before continuing.

Welcome to the Forums!!!

Thx you, i love this forum

It's a new heatsink so the lugs are ok.
The fan is spinning at 6200 rpm rated 6000.
I am not a smoker but of course i did handle the thing.
I'll try removing it and cleaning it.

How many days has the HSF been on with the AS3?

at least 2 or 3?

Yes it had been on for more than 3 days, and the other cpu was the same.

Update :
----------------------
Well i just removed the heatsink and i could see the AS3, cpu and heatsink had mated perfectly
I removed heatsink, thurroughly cleaned it with acetone and rubbing alchool (same with cpu), making sure i didn't touch the heatsink.
Before putting it back on i checked for dust particules on heatsink and removed them. (The Volcano7+ bottom of the heatsink is almost mirror slick, pretty cool).

And guess what... back to 35 c #&$^&# can't seem to get better than that.
Although it hasn't cured, but i'll bet 10 bucks in 200 hours it's still 35c.

well then it could be your heatsink holding you back, after all the volcano 7 isn't the greatest sink out there, although your temps are very good as they are I wouldn't worry too much, however with a new heatsink and some as3 you should see an improvement.

what are you using to measure your temps?

I"ll give you a little story about my "play" rig, when I was messing around with it last night (xp1800, on a kr7a-raid mobo, sk6 w/ delta fan on rheostat):

I came home to find the computer sitting at "invalid boot disk, insert system disk and hit any key" (or something similar) and heard the infamous click of death eminating from my hard drive.

So, after juggling stuff around on my spare backup hard disk in my main rig, I installed it on the KR7A system, left the side off the case and went into the bios to make sure it recognized the HD.

Well, when I was looking in the case, I noticed the rheostat was turned ALL the way down, and the fan didn't look like it was spinning fast enough to move much air. I looked at the bios screen, and sure enough... the in-socket probe was reporting 50C.

So I turned up the rheostat and got the fan spinning at full speed... the temps started to drop pretty quickly. at 45C I turned the rheostat back to the slowest setting... but the temps continued to drop for another 30 seconds... got down to 42C. Go figure...

In socket probes are the biggest waste of space to use when trying to compare actual temps. On my watercooling rig, I use probes that touch the side of the core... they tend to stay consistent no matter if air is blowing over the socket, or not... in-socket probes tend to vary depending on lots of things, including airflow BEHIND the cpu.

I have a volcano 7+ also and mine idles around 39 and loads up to 44...

coldest I have seen it was 32*C under seti load with an ambient of about 64*F outside/all windows open with the side of the case off.

Now I am getting 40 idle and 45 load/Prime95 with the side on since I reversed my rear exhaust and made a POS cardboard duct that dosen't direct air into the HSF but blows it over the HSF for it to suck down into the fins

Ok.... so if your getting 40 c with your side on, and i'm doing 35 c with an insulated case which is sitting in a big insulated "Iso Ghetto Box", then i guess i'm doing ok, i just wish i could get more out of it like 32 idle would be great.

I'm thinking maybe one more intake fan, current setup is one 80 mm Antec intake at bottom, one more 80 mm Antec which is aluminum ducted to cpu fan (gives me 5 c drop btw), one 80 mm antec going out top, and 2 from Antec true power, one drawing hot air just below cpu (should help a bit),and one going out back.

Steenky, thx for replying, i'm using on die temp sensor.

12am, i have the Volcano 7+ which is all copper and is rated has one of the best. I know, I know it aint no slk800 or ax7, but it's still at the top of it's class. Thx for replying to you too.

I turned the cpu fan on low setting, which is 3375 rpm and the thing is virtually quiet, and under light computer work and surfing it's hanging around 39 c, that's kinda cool.

What are you comparing to, AS2?

I think I read somewhere that AS3 in the general scheme of things works a little better on average than AS2 because it's self settling, i.e, clumsy applications don't hurt so much, therefore exquisitely applied AS2 may be the same as AS3.

Road Warrior

I have also never experienced the drop in temps over 2-3 days as they say but AS3 is definitely good stuff. It will drop temps from 7-10C over using a thermal pad and 2-3C over the cheap generic thermal goop.

The only thing that really dropped my temps is switching my HSF from a Swiftech MCX370 to an AX-7 and temps dropped 5C under full load. And my AX-7 has a quieter fan too