EK Liquid Gaming High Temps

[PaXe]

So..
I recently got myself the Ek Fluidgaming A240 but when stresstesting with prime95 i get up to 84°C on my i5-6600k non overclocked and while gaming it also gets in the 70+ area.
It seems a bit high in my opinion or is it really just so bad?
I looked at some benchmarks and people are getting by far better results than me even with the a240g version.
My room temperature is about 25-27°C and idle temps of the cpu are usually around 30°C
The Ariflow in my case shouldn't be bad either. I got 3 Intakes in the front, 1 exhaust in the back and 2 exhaust in the top with the 240mm rad.
I tried reaplying thermal paste but nothing changed, used different brands as well (EK included and AS5).

So my questions:
Is this normal and I'm just stupid?
What might be wrong?
What can I do to lower temps and overclock?

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Yeah, that's not normal. You should be getting far better temps than those, especially on that chip. I would check and see while benching for say 30 mins so the loop gets saturated, touch the tubing, touch the rad for heat. If you're able to slightly touch the top of the CPU block as well. Make sure the pump is working and there's flow. See if changing the pump settings helps.

A few questions, does the kit come assembled or not? If not, did you clean our the gear before assembling? I ask this because if you never cleaned your gear, you could possibly have blockage or debris of some sort that is slowing down your flow.

Too many variables to say what is wrong but check out the few things I've said and report back.

 

[S_I_N]

did ya pull the sticker off the bottom of the block before mounting it??

 

[PaXe]

Yeah, that's not normal. You should be getting far better temps than those, especially on that chip. I would check and see while benching for say 30 mins so the loop gets saturated, touch the tubing, touch the rad for heat. If you're able to slightly touch the top of the CPU block as well. Make sure the pump is working and there's flow. See if changing the pump settings helps.

A few questions, does the kit come assembled or not? If not, did you clean our the gear before assembling? I ask this because if you never cleaned your gear, you could possibly have blockage or debris of some sort that is slowing down your flow.

Too many variables to say what is wrong but check out the few things I've said and report back.

It does not come assembled and I didn't clean it.
What would be the best way to go about cleaning it?

I'm sure there's flow though because I can see the water spinning inside the reservoir.

did ya pull the sticker off the bottom of the block before mounting it??

Yes, I took the sticker off, smeared about 2 tubes of thermal compound underneath the sticker and slapped it back on.

Jokes aside, Ofc I did..

 

[trents]

One thing is you are fighting high ambient temps. The other thing is you may have one of those Skylakes that runs hot from the factory because of the crappy TIM Intel uses under the hood and so could benefit dramatically from delidding. But even at that, something is wrong. You shouldn't be getting temps like that on a stock clocked 6600k with that water system.

 

[batboy]

While that setup is not optimal, I agree something's wrong. First, make sure you have good water flow through the loop. If not, look for blockage in the block and rad. If all seem ok and no tubes pinched, maybe the pump is going bad (even new pumps can be defective). If you have good flow, then the culprit is probably the seating of the water block and CPU. Check thermal paste and reseat block. Make sure the block is tightened evenly. I might check the block to make sure it's not warped.

 

[bigtallanddopey]

If you didn't clean out the radiators you could well have bits blocking the inside of the cpu block. Not enough to stop flow but perhaps enough to hamper your cooking performance.

Also what speed do you Have the fans running at on your case and radiator? This could also be a factor although not a big one.

Do you have an air cooler that you can use to just see of these temps are caused by the cpu or the water cooling ?

 

[trents]

I do think, as others have said, you need to disassemble the system and flush the radiator by pouring hot water trough it.

Also, did you connect the hoses to the block correctly? There may be an inlet and an outlet side to the block.

 

[Sentential]

My bet is poor contact. Similar issues on recent AWs which have prompted every owner with the ability/means to disassemble and repasted, specifically with liquid metal. The issue is two fold the spring arms that apply pressure to the die are not strong enough to offset the counter pressure made by the VRM thermal pads. What you get are similar temps to yours high 80s low 90s and core deviation of 15-20c*. After repaste and repad with care taken to make sure the heatsink is level you see 1-2c* split between the cores at worst and loads in the 60s.

My guess is that something similar is happening here, I'm betting pressure is uneven or too little thermal paste is being used either under or over the IHS. As others have said it might be under the IHS and if that's the case there isn't much you can do other than to RMA the CPU or delid. On my 13r3 laptop I'm getting low 30s idle and mid 60s load on a 6700HQ so there's no excuse for why yours are almost 20c* higher than mine.

 

[trents]

Counter pressure made by the VRM thermal pads? What? Were talking about cooling the CPU not the VRM. I don't understand what you are trying to say.

 

[Sentential]

Counter pressure made by the VRM thermal pads? What? Were talking about cooling the CPU not the VRM. I don't understand what you are trying to say.

I guess I wasn't clear.

Core 2-3 same temps
Core 0-1 similar temps

So that half of the CPU is getting better contact than the other half and the split between them ie 79 vs 84 is 5c* where it should be 1-2c* if not dead even. In my case 5c* is as good as you can get because the heatsink Dell uses is warped because there was a manufacturing defect that caused the heatsink not to be level without sanding or heavy modification hence the use of liquid metal. It's a known issue on all the current gen AWs and I was trying to share a similar experience and what I did to resolve it.

My suggestion was he could be seeing something similar where his block is warped or not making full contact on the IHS either on the surface level or underneath because intel botched the TIM under the IHS

 

[GTXJackBauer]

I think a lot of great advise was given but I think the OP needs to focus on making sure the loop is healthy and nothing wrong with it before we jump to other areas. If the loop comes out ok, I'd suggest what was said with the rest.

 

[PaXe]

Okay
So i took it apart and flushed the block and radiator
Idle temps are still pretty much the same as before which isn't bad i think(?)
also took off the cpu block and made sure the perfect amount of thermal paste is on and put everything back together. with preassure equally applied.

Temps in Idle:


Temps prime95(maximum heat for 10 mins):


Temps prime95(maximum power consumption for 10 mins):


Temps Firestrike Extreme:

(You'll have to look at max/min temps cuz I cant start coretemp during the benchmark)

Sooo..
I think the temps are looking pretty okay now though I have to note that my fans are currently most of the time at minimum speed cuz I want my system to be quiet.

Are those temps good now or should i try some more stuff?

Sorry it took so long, had some annoying stuff going on at work ^^

 

[bigtallanddopey]

Yeh they look a lot better, much more in line with what I think we would expect to see using prime 95. Although a water cooling system does take a lot longer for the heat to saturate the whole system than air cooling so you may want to run for half an hour or so.

Otherwise looks good to me you have reduced your temps by 20 degrees just by cleaning the equipment out. Also if you are running your fans on minimum speed then you cannot complain too much.

Maybe someone will disagree but I think all is ok now.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

I agree, it looks better.

Now try benchmarking as already stated for about 30-60mins and have the fans set to max. Record those readings and at the fan levels you prefer for low audibles. See if there's much of a difference and try replicating the same environment when you had those higher temps.

One thing I had forgotten to ask. Is this a CPU only loop?

 

[batboy]

Excellent! I agree, the temps now look more in line with what I expected. Good work. Sometimes those water blocks are hard to install without messing up the thermal paste layer. I've had problems getting water block tightened down evenly before. I find I have to hold my tongue against the inside of my right cheek in order to properly install a water block onto the CPU... hey... don't laugh, it works.

 

[trents]

I think you are doing much better but for future reference I think you need to run Prime95 longer than 10 minutes to get a more accurate idea of what max temps will be under load, I find that 18-20 minutes is need for CPUs that engage the AVX 2 instructions.

 

[Sentential]

Okay
So i took it apart and flushed the block and radiator
Idle temps are still pretty much the same as before which isn't bad i think(?)
also took off the cpu block and made sure the perfect amount of thermal paste is on and put everything back together. with preassure equally applied.


......

Sooo..
I think the temps are looking pretty okay now though I have to note that my fans are currently most of the time at minimum speed cuz I want my system to be quiet.

Are those temps good now or should i try some more stuff?

Sorry it took so long, had some annoying stuff going on at work ^^

Can't really do much about idle temps given your high ambient temps otherwise everything looks fine, my guess is poor contact to the IHS but it looks like you got it on straight now.