Swiftech H220 not cooling as expected

[ZeSneakyNinja]

Hey guys, I installed my new H220 yesterday and decided to run a 30 minute stress test (with case side panels off). The results were saddening, I was only at 4.1GHz and my temperatures were much higher than should be expected with this cooler. Anyone have any ideas? I was really hoping to get around a 4.3 to 4.5 OC without going over 70 degrees.

System specs:
Intel i7 3770k
Asus P8Z77-i Deluxe/Wd
MSI GTX 670 Power Edition
Crucial Ballistix sport/16GB

Case: Bitfenix Prodigy

Screenshot of test results and all that good stuff:

 

[Janus67]

What are your ambient temperatures? What speed do you have the fans running at?

 

[ZeSneakyNinja]

Ambient temperature was 23 during testing, I wasn't watching fan speeds but I know they weren't maxed (they max at startup, I know the sound)

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Was the radiator and tubing warm on the touch as well as the pump and did the pump vibrate at all or make any noise?

 

[greg2601]

My Swiftech HD block started working much better after I switched thermal compounds to Gelid Extreme. I tried Arctic silver 5 and Arctic ceramic before. The Gelid Made a 5°C right from the first time. I have taken the water block off so many times thinking the compound was not applied properly. If you are not using it, Please try.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

My Swiftech HD block started working much better after I switched thermal compounds to Gelid Extreme. I tried Arctic silver 5 and Arctic ceramic before. The Gelid Made a 5°C right from the first time. I have taken the water block off so many times thinking the compound was not applied properly. If you are not using it, Please try.

I am actually using Gelid Extreme as well coming from MX-4 and feel my temps might have gone up a bit with more heat surface added to the mix.

Which method did you do to apply it? I actually used the tool that came with it to spread it around. I've read around it is harder to spread than the rest so you need to use the tool to spread it like jelly. Next time I take off the block I am just going to do the standard one dab in the middle.

 

[greg2601]

I used the grain of rice method and twisted the waterblock just a little when I was tightening everything up. Hope this helps. All that needs to happen is a little miscalculation and we are back at square one. It is not a science so a little trial and error are all that work.

 

[ZeSneakyNinja]

I'm currently using MX4, I divided the cpu into 4 sections, put a small dot in each, and let the little excess that came out form an X connecting the dots (very thin line). I tried this, checked the spread on the heatsink, and did it again while I was installing the heatsink.

 

[BugFreak]

I would try reseating the block. You may not even need to reapply the thermal compound just undo the block and reseat it. It might be sitting at an angle. If that doesn't work try a full remount.

Also, I don't know that kit personally but does it have a speed control on the pump that you could adjust?

 

[ZeSneakyNinja]

There is no pump speed adjustment on the block/pump, as far as I could tell it adjusts itself...

 

[Whiskey11]

My Swiftech HD block started working much better after I switched thermal compounds to Gelid Extreme. I tried Arctic silver 5 and Arctic ceramic before. The Gelid Made a 5°C right from the first time. I have taken the water block off so many times thinking the compound was not applied properly. If you are not using it, Please try.

I will definitely concur with that. I tried 3 different pastes... the first was whatever came with the kit and it was mounted to my old AMD 945, the second was the Gelid Extreme stuff that came with my ASRock Z77 Board and finally with the CoolLab's Liquid Ultra. My 3770K ran about those same temps, pre-delidding, at about 4.5GHz. I was able to bump it up to 4.6 and stay under the max temps. Post delidding the 3770K, I'm running much, much, much, much cooler temps at 4.8GHz then you are at 4.1!

I would re-seat the cooler with some good thermal compound and try again. Barring that, make sure the pump is working and that your fans are blowing air through the radiator.

In Push/Pull with Cougar Vortex 120mm fans, my CPU temps are 69/76/75/70 at 4.8GHz @ 1.450v for max temps after 24 hours of Prime95. Water temp peaked out around 5-7 over ambient so the 220 is more than capable of handling a 3770k and the power delivery on my ASrock Z77 Formula OC and maintaining good temp deltas.

 

[KurtBlanken]

The very first thing you should do is get your fans to 100% and see what happens.

 

[madcratebuilder]

A out of the box h220 needs full fan speed to cool the i7 you have running at 100%.

 

[MattMan657]

That's a pretty high Vcore for running 4.0ghz. To be honest those temps aren't terrible for an H220 running at 1.251 vcore. Have you tried lowering it? I run my i7 3770k at 4.5ghz at 1.230 vcore.

 

[sauria]

Small case too

 

[Lvcoyote]

If you have your pump plugged into the CPU fan header on the motherboard, it's probably not running at full speed. If you have it hooked up there, then enter BIOS and set the CPU fan header to run full speed all the time.