Sick of my Corsair H60

[Kado]

When i bought it i thought it was a great way to cool my processor. but it dragged up a major problem. I lost the airflow that comes from having an air cooler that close to the motherboard, soon i noticed my temp sensors on my motherboard going sky high. I have messed with different set ups from moving the radiator to different parts of the case to rigging in more fans. I have become sick of dealing with these problems simply because i wanted better CPU cooling i have sacrificed pretty much everything else. I have a CoolerMaster 600 Gladiator case.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119206&Tpk=coolermaster gladiator 600
any ideas to gain better air flow are welcome, i'm running out of ideas.

Thank you

 

[Kado]

I have heard many good things about this Zalman cooler.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019

 

[eSZee]

I've honestly never heard of zalman as being anything more than quiet. That's a lot of money for a pretty old, mediocre cooler.
How much do you wan to spend?
I would suggest the hyper 212+ over the zalman but maybe you might prefer something that blows air down onto the mobo and not a tower sink?

 

[Kado]

I am willing to spend around $80 dollars for a replacement.

 

[muddocktor]

That cooler would be totally inadequate for your Phenom II. That is an older design that wasn't meant to handle today's heat loads. For that kind of money you can get much better cooling. I would suggest a Cogage True Spirit and buying the Thermalright AM2/AM3 Rev. 2 Bolt-Thru Kit if you want to replace your H60. BTW, that mount does work with the True Spirit (tested by me).

But before you buy a replacement, have you tried running airflow normally with the H60 fan sucking air from inside the case and exhausting through the back side? If your case has decent airflow the temp difference on the processor will be minimal and you will restore normal case airflow with it set up in that configuration. That is where I differ with Corsair in their suggested setup on their LCLC cooling systems such as your H60. Also, have you thought about adding another fan to your H60 and running a push pull fan setup on the radiator?

 

[Kado]

I have tried running airflow normally thru the H60 like it was an exhaust fan. still no luck with better temps. I do have it set up in a push pull setup for the first time sitting at home. But due to girlfriend and an early morning i did not get time to test it in its current configuration. i am not replacing anything until i get to put this set up thru some tests.

 

[muddocktor]

Good job then. Test it in the push pull config with it exhausting from the case and if it still doesn't look like you are getting good airflow around the mobo, then consider the True Spirit. That is a great bang/buck replacement and performs within a hair of a TRUE Rev. C or other tier 1 high end coolers, all at a bargain price. It also handily beats the Hyper 212 Plus in performance. That is from my own personal testing. If there is another heatsink you are interested in, post a link up in this thread and I will take a look and comment on it for you. I have tested quite a few heatsinks.

 

[Kado]

Thank you very much! I hope that this current setup works for me.

 

[Kado]

also on that note, I have another question. The 890FXA-GD65 mobo has this lovely massive heatsink on the left side of the processor. i didnt get to look closely at it but im pretty sure i beat the hell out of the upper corner while i was working with H60 trying to mount it differently. While i believe it wont have an affect i figured i would as if some slight damage to this heatsink could affect its performance?

 

[wagex]

i think something like the antec spot cool might help with your problems it mounts to a motherboard screw and you can point it to blow on any individual components and you can keep your h60

 

[eSZee]

also on that note, I have another question. The 890FXA-GD65 mobo has this lovely massive heatsink on the left side of the processor. i didnt get to look closely at it but im pretty sure i beat the hell out of the upper corner while i was working with H60 trying to mount it differently. While i believe it wont have an affect i figured i would as if some slight damage to this heatsink could affect its performance?

That's the VRM sink, and yes, it could have an effect. If the beating somehow loosened the bond between the sink and the vrms, you could have problems.

 

[Kado]

I checked the heatsink, everything is ok there. i took a spare fan i had on hand and with a few zip ties made a nice cooling fan setup for my northbridge chip and got it down to 43c, which is where i want it. I did have a stupid moment and forgot to plug the H60's back in to power the pump...long day and was not paying attention and when i saw temps in the mid 80c i powered it down super fast and plugged it back in. all seems to be well now. running prime95 to make sure that 1 or 2 minutes of use without the cooler didnt fry anything...dont think so but better safe than sorry.

 

[muddocktor]

I don't know about AMD systems(haven't messed with them in a while), but that is one nice feature with my Intel systems. If you start overheating badly it just shuts everything down gracefully instead of burning things up. And it's saved me a few times when I forgot to plug in fans or pumps. The stupidest one I have pulled was to set up 2 fans with both blowing into the heatsink instead of having 1 feeding air and the other exhausting air from the heatsink.

 

[Kado]

if i could have afforded the 2600k, i would went Intel.

 

[muddocktor]

You could have gone with a 2500k then. I just built another cruncher system with one, which I got from Superbiiz for $205 shipped. I installed it on a $115 Biostar TP67B+ that I won in the Rosetta contest some months ago and it's happily running at 4.7 with a load vcore of 1.332v and I have a copper TRUE on it with 2-S-Flex SFF21F fans. Rosetta crunching temps are running in the mid 50's on the hottest core, which is actually pretty damn cool for Intel.

 

[Kado]

My next system will most likely be intel, this is also pending on Bulldozer and what future is in store with the FM1 and FM2 sockets from AMD.