Cooler Master Sedion 120M on x4 980

[stadcx]

Wanting to stretch out the life of my phenom ii x4 980 by overclocking a bit I bought the cooler master seidon120M RL-S12M-24PK-R1 water cooling setup for my PC. Before this on the stock clocks and stock AMD heatsink I would never go over 50-55c playing games or about 60 c during a load test (using AMD overdrive for that) and idle around 45c.

I installed the water cooler today and now it idles at around 45-50c! During load tests about 2 minutes in its already at 58+c and I shut it off. A quick session of planetside 2 resulted in temps approching 60C

I just pulled it back off and looked at the thermal paste, it looked a bit thin so I applied some more with the credit card method, still no dice the temps are the same. I have the fan hooked up to the stock fan plug (set at 100 percent) and the pump hooked up directly to the power supply using a converter plug.

Could there be something wrong with the pump etc, or is this simply not enough cooler for my CPU? Unfortunately I purchased this before finding out this forum existed. After reading the FYI section for noobs it seems like I need a 240 for it to even work?

My setup:

AMD phenom ii x4 980 black
Asus M3A78 pro
8 GB ram

BTW, I noticed that after a load test getting up to 60c it took FOREVER to come down to temp, the air coming out of the radiator was still ice cool, and the radiator itself was not hot. Seems like the water is not getting pumped correctly?

Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[pigpottomus]

I haven't used any watercooling yet, but from what you said, it does seems like its the radiator pump?

 

[ASUS ROG]

Software are usuallu not reliable and even at 60C it's still consider ok temp, so no need to worry about temp unless it got over 80c

 

[stadcx]

My main concern at this point is the water cooler was working worse than the stock and cooler (air) I put back on. I'm going to RMA it to newegg, the question is to replace or refund? Should this this be working better or is it just no good for my CPU?

 

[Conumdrum]

It's a teeny 120x1 AIO watercooler. Not worth the cost. Or HIGH RMA rate, they are crap. Meaning it could be bad.

Go 120x2 for a cooler or don't bother. Even a great 120x2 AIO beats a TOP air HS by a bit, but with the right case and good airflow it's the best you can do besides buy real watercooling at more $.

If you didn't take data measurements for your previous cooler and then do the same for the overclocked values and don't have any DATA on the new cooler, we can't help a lot.

Retry the installation. You do know about cleaning the CPU and heatsink etc before installing a new cooler? We see it all, even last week someone didn't. Had no clue.

Where do you fit in? New, no clue or have some experience? HONESTY here dude.

 

[Meathead]

My main concern at this point is the water cooler was working worse than the stock and cooler (air) I put back on. I'm going to RMA it to newegg, the question is to replace or refund? Should this this be working better or is it just no good for my CPU?

I think you need to slow down a bit before you go off and just RMA what could be a perfectly working product and learn about your system. When I had a 1090T, I remember most temp monitoring programs reported false temps and/or whacky data. Use the search function or post in the amd section and see what people are using for your chip.

Second, have you felt where the pump is? Does it vibrate at all or give you any indication that it is on? Take some basic trouble shooting steps. You double-checked the CPU contact so that's good. You also said the unit is staying cool to the touch. This leads me to believe you need to read up on your chip again.

You said the TIM looked a bit thin. Are you sure you followed proper mounting techniques? It sounds like a lack of mounting pressure as a possible issue.

*edit* Yea and do what Con said. Although Con, I had just fine temps with an i7-920 and a 1090T with one of those old corsair hydro coolers so I'd save the crap product conclusion for last. Bought it for my benching station as a quick way to test a proc for stability. Had no issues running full load.

 

[stadcx]

Temps above are all on stock clocks. Stock and cooler sees 40-45c @ idle and 55-60 under CPU full load test. Watercooled was in 45-50c idle and 60c within 1.5-2 min of full load test where I cut it off (was still rising).

Before install I used a two part cleaning kit ( cleaner then prepper). Installed artic silver with a credit card. Tried it and saw the temps. Pulled back off and smoothed/added more paste, no change.

Popped the and cooler back on temps went back to the above (cooler than the water).

I will admit I had the rad upside down ran for maybe 20 min like this. Would the hoses being on top ruin the pump by starving it? The instructions were terrible I only caught this by watching a YouTube video. When I put it hosesdown there was no change.

I don't think a 240 setup will fit in my case (no spot to mount) and I don't really want a loud CPU fan

Edit: on the mounting it has little springs to apply the right pressure u just screw the bolts till they completely stop. I did em in a cross 4 way pattern and turned the block a bit to squish the paste a few times during tightening. I plugged it into my PSU after putting the stock air sink back on and it vibrates still.

What concerns me is even with a possible false reading of temp it should be overall lower right? It does go up and down with load.

 

[Conumdrum]

Possible. Thse could have bubbles etc, preventing the loop to cahrge. Imagine 500 of the se built in a day by one person, overworked at 16 hours a day.

Could have a bad one.

So temps are worse than stock? Even after using Artic Clean and redoing paste? Bad stuff.

The cooler you got is worse than a top air cooler in the best circumstances. Get your money back or RMA it, try again.

There are better ways to apply Tpaste, The 'larger than a grain of rice, smaller than a pea, let the heatsink/cooler spread it out'. Mentioned in MANY posts here and elsewhere. But that takes reading posts and becoming a PC modder seriously. Learning.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Refund it and grab a 120.2 AIO since you're OCing a 125w TDP CPU. With the OCing it sure is going to be more heat. I am not sure but have heard of certain older AMD chips can only go up a certain amount in temps as compared to some of intels. Not sure if this is the chip.

As for the existing AIO you have now, did you touch the tubing to see if its really hot? You also stated that the radiator felt cool. If that was the case than that could possibly mean that the pump is dying.