[Valk]

I installed a zalman 80c to my radoen 9800np the other day. I wanted somthing to allow me to oc the holy bejesus out of it, buuuuut the noise of my system has been nagging lately, so i baught this.
thing is, i wonder if i might installed it incorrectly. in the instructions, it tells you to touch the heatsinks after a few minutes of operation. they should both be at similar temperatures...
after a few hours of halo gameplay, the primary side heatsink is very warm *not hot enough to burn like the stock cooler was O_o*, the heatpipe was really hot and the secondary side is only warm to the touch? I know there is better airflow there. my case exaust fan and my 92 mm panaflow over the cpu.

did i install it incorrectly? its not unstable or anything. buuuut yea. the heatpipe is very hot, one would think the heatsink would be hot too.

[archilochus]

Don't the heat pipes carry the heat away from the HS's base? My SP-94 HS base never is hot to the touch and it has heat pipes.

[wannaoc]

Well if the base is cooler than the pipes it must be working properly.

I would say put a fan blowing directly at it. That might help it cool some more. Also keep in mind Halo is one of the most demanding games out right now so it was working pretty hard.

[clocker2]

I have the same setup ( well, not the card...) and have observed the same phenomonon.
Basically, the upper heatsink is in a much more advantageous position to radiate heat, so it should be cooler.

There is a fairly simple way to test this...
I removed the PCI slot covers from the back of my case and zip-tied a 80mm fan to the opening below my vid card...blowing right at the lower heatsink.
The upper unit cooled right down.
If you are stable I wouldn't worry about it.
Zalman can't account for the way every case may be cooled...I think their instructions cover the most likely scenarios.

[Valk]

cool cool. i was just worried the the heatpipe wasnt making prper concact with the secondary heatsink. it does get lukewarm. so i guess it works. but one would think that with the heatpipe as hot as it is....

It allowed me to hit 430 mhz on air stable. i should fiddle around with it a bit more, but im pretty happy with it so far ^^. looks kinda cool. and not needing a fan is beautiful.

[rxc]

Don't worry about it this is normal, in fact while researching the heatsink some reviewers chose just to leave the bottom heatsink and heatpipe off and got similar temperatures to the complete install.

[Valk]

Makes me wonder if my ideas for down the road are even worth it =\ I was going to fassion a mount to use two sk6+'s with this things heatpipe.

oh well. ic ant really complain. i know a vga silencer would be damn good for overclocking, but i cant say anything bad about this. it has absolutly no fan on it now. im still clocked at 400 mhz core and its perfect. no artifacts. My cpu fan is at 7 volts, and my two case fans are at 5.
now, if only i felt inclined to replace the fan in my psu. but its a cheap pos anyway. i expect it to die. I might get a antec PSU and replace the fans with panaflows. then i would have the ultimate in low noise, yet still overclocked computing.
based on how much noise my case fans make even at 7 volts, unrestricted, i doubt even a water system can compare to the low noise of this setup right now.

[Joe Camel]

is there thermal compound between the heatpipe and the HS?

i JUST ordered one of these and this:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles950/
to go under it

[rxc]

Yes, you put TIM between the heatsink and the heatpipe on both sides.

Directions:

http://www.zalman.co.kr/usa/product/ZM80C-HP.htm

[Valk]

I used actic silver on all surfaces in the same manner i would for my cpu heatsink. a paper thin later that i applied with a peice of glass.

as for the heatpipe, that was a little trickier. at first, i applied some to the heatpipe and used a peice of paper to kind of smear it all around the heatpipe. looked like a less weasteful meathod than simply putting a whole bunch in the channel.

this time i took it all appart and applied it to the channel.
the heatpipe is quite warm. its hotter than the front side heatsink in fact. so heat is transfering effectivly. what i cant figure out, is why that heat is not transfering back to the backside heatsink. i thought that i applied the TIM incorrectly to that side, or didnt screw it in place properly. so i took that whole assembly appart..
the temp on that backside assembly is unchanged. merely luke warm.

there has to be somthign wrong. for the temp that heatpipe is getting to, it should be making the backside heatsink MUCH warmer. in fact, they should be at similar temps. so i will have to re evaluate my backside heatsink mounting I guess. this would indicate why putting my smart fan 2 on the back side was ineffective in oc cooling tests last night. the heatpipe is simply not conducting back into the heatsink. so i would be better to add a fan to the primary side, and as some have said, do away with the heatpipe.

I want this to work properly though. if i cant make this work. my plans for the sk6+ dual sink will not work either.

Ill reevaluate my mounting of the secondary sink when i have some time.