Tuniq Tower flakey?

I have a duo core Conroe OC'd to roughly 3.71 MHz, with voltage set to 1.43 in BIOS. In windows, CPU-Z is showing 1.34v. Mobo is an Asus Striker, along with OCZ pc2-8500 RAM, OCZ 700w power supply.

Anyhow, I have a Tuniq mounted on the CPU and the idle temps according to CoreTemp are at 40/38. This overclock is Orthos stable tested over 10 hours with load temps peaking at a steady 60 per core.

I am wondering though, are these temps right with the Tuniq? The thing that is kind of throwing me off is the fact that the fins and the heat pipes leading from the base are very cool to touch compared to chipset fins around the CPU, the RAM, video, etc. Even the base of the Tuniq barely feels warm.

I figured the first time around that maybe I spread too much paste and that the base needed to be lapped. So, I lapped the base and spread the thermal paste very very thin across the CPU and remounted. Still the same results... in fact core 1 went up a degree at idle (used to be 39).

I think maybe the CPU needs to be lapped, but I don't want to step into that territory. So I'm kind of lost here as to what to do. I want to keep the Tuniq, but I'm open to any suggestions.

Wellcome to OcF !

IMO, as long the OC-ed rig is stable after been through the burning/stability test process, with that kind of cpu temp, there is nothing to worry about.

Btw, how tight you turned those 4 screws ? Mine HERE !

Also regarding the HSF base or CPU IHS flatness, if you don't mind to do some dirty job, click my sig on "IHS + Ketchup are Tasty !" for testing their flatness.

Hey, thanks for having me aboard!

The heatsink is held in place pretty well. It doesn't budge at all.

BTW, I used MX-2 for the thermal paste. I don't know if it would make much of a difference using AS5 instead. I'm just a bit skeptical since the tower is not hot at all, but compared to the stock cooler it is an improvement.

Also, idle temps are at 38/37 now. Seems pretty much the same as before.

I've done before, try fanless, yes, try pull that fan out and set your CPU to stock speed, it wont' hurt your rig.

Try run it idle for few minutes, and keep touching the HSF, trust me, your finger will feel the temp increase.

Welcome Dusty.

It is vital to post your ambient temps when providing you idle/load temps. This way other people have a base line to judge your temperatures off of. For an example, you say that your load is 60 degress C. Now if your ambient temp are early low, a load temp of 60C would seem to be very high. But if your room temperature is very warm, say 28C or higher that 60C load temp be be an expected temp.

I believe ambient temp is probably between 50-60F right now. Fall is starting to roll in. I did lower voltage a tad to 1.410 (testing the lowest possible voltage for this OC). So that dropped the temps to about 35 idle, 50-55 load.

temps are correct for this overclock. they are actually pretty good, seeing that you are not going into 70+ territory. nothing to be afraid of - the temps are being read from inside the cpu's core as opposed to one of the surfaces as we were used to before. it's going to read hotter - sometimes as much as 15-20C.

still, mounting tuniq could be tricky. make sure the fan blows from the front of the case to the back and the "flame" things on the sink point to the bottom of the case.

also, do yourself a favor and read up on a proper application of tim. go to arctic silver site, they have guides for different cpus (even if you don't use their tim, the method will work with most pastes).

mcoleg, the tower is mounted as you've described. The fan is blowing out to the exhaust. I still think it's weird that the tower feels cool to touch.

For the thermal paste I applied a thin coat, using an old credit card to spread it evenly around. I'd say the coat is paper-thin, but enough so that the surface of the cpu is not visible. I might try to do what's described at the arctic site, but I don't know if the difference would be marginal.

marginal - yes; but you'll benefit from it in the long run after the paste is settled. even a paper-thin coat of tim will create a heat-shield when it's dried. the idea is to fill in the inperfections in metal surfaces, not to create an additional layer in-between. you'll get a feel for it after a couple of hundred of applications .

don't be afraid to tighten it well - the backplate will prevent the board from warping too much.

mine feels barely warm at the base and cool at the fins as well. i think it's an indication of the heatpipes actually doing their job and spreading the heat efficiently.

..or.. try click my sig on "TIM Applicator Expert Training", you will know how much goop is enough !

dusty baylor said:

mcoleg, the tower is mounted as you've described. The fan is blowing out to the exhaust. I still think it's weird that the tower feels cool to touch.

For the thermal paste I applied a thin coat, using an old credit card to spread it evenly around. I'd say the coat is paper-thin, but enough so that the surface of the cpu is not visible. I might try to do what's described at the arctic site, but I don't know if the difference would be marginal.

Click to expand...

I also have a cool Tuniq Tower and also think it a bit wierd. When Prime95 is cranking away at 3.3GHz (60deg / 28 deg ambient), the copper block and the tubes leading from it are barely warm to the touch on my Q6600.

FYI, I used Arctic Silver, following the line method (no spreading) that Arctic is recommending for quads: http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appinstruct/as5/ins_as5_intel_quad_wcap.pdf except I used two vertical lines, which should be right down the middle of each duo die. I just mounted the Tuniq Tower 2 days ago, so I doubt that it has had time to become fully effective, yet.

However, my initial results are FAR from satisfying because I am getting a 24 deg C rise from idle (2GHz) to full 4 core busy (3.3GHz.). I was doing just as well with my Arctic Freezer 7 Pro.

I had expected results to be more in line with this review http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2906 ...

24C rise is not bad. what's the load temps?

MColeg,
When ambient is 25 C. or so, the 4 cores are running at 36 C in an idling state (60% clock) at about 2GHz. When I start Prime 95 (Small FFTs), the clock increases to 3.3 GHz and core temperature shoots up and levels off to a full load temp of 60 C after 30 secs. or so. This computes to a delta T of 24 C.

I would expect to find the copper block and heat pipe tubes hot- or at least uncomfortably warm under full load conditions.

I would also expect the Tuniq Tower to do better than the Arctic Freser 7 Pro, under the same conditions.

What do you think?

have you tried freezer? i have on my system, it doesn't hold a candle...

to put it in perspective, that 60C you are reading is the tjunction temp. tcase (as in what you'd read with previous generation cpus) is about 50C or lower. does that sound better?

the delta on these processors is pretty high, nothing can be done as long as you are on air. people run quads up to 80C and count their blessings.

so, don't worry, 60C under full load is actually pretty good.

MC,
I am not worried about frying the CPUs at 60 degrees but I did install the Tuniq Tower to give me the head room to clock higher. When I pushed the Q6600 to 3.5GHz, the temperature was moving into the low 70s and that is too hot for continuous operation. I do hope that the Tower efficiency will improve with some breaking in.

BTW, If you mean Arctic Freezer Pro, that was my original heatsink and it had a delta T of 23 degrees C.

i think low 70C is not too bad for a quad - they've got tmax of 100C so it's not reaching the limit yet.

but you've got a point there with the delta...

lets see; copy/paste : "make sure the fan blows from the front of the case to the back and the "flame" things on the sink point to the bottom of the case."
surprisingly, the above can affect the temps to a large degree.

how's the air-flow in the case? sufficient? large sinks like tuniq are pretty dependent on it.

another thing - have you checked if the cpu's surface is actually flat? concave/convected heatspreaders are very common. way back i had to lap my c2d to get anywhere with it.

Tower and fan orientation are OK. The airflow thru the Antec 900 is great and, of course, I have already commented on how cool the Tower is to the touch while all four cores are maxed out.

I'm going to let the Arctic Silver bake in for a week or so and if I don't see any improvement, will check the chip pkg for flatness.

cool, keep us posted