Could use some advice on my new water cooling rig

[Tomsawyer]

I just finished building my new water cooling rig after years of phase cooling.

Intel 2500K cpu
Arctic Silver 5
Asus P8P67 Pro motherboard
Windows 7 64 bit
Cooler Master Silent Pro 1k PS
OCZ Vertex SSD 60gb
2 4gb G.Skill Ripjaws DD3
EVGA GTX-260 video card
Lite DVD-Burner
Cooler Master Haf X case with 2 200mm fans pulling out on the top
Swifttech MCR-320 radiator on top under the 200mm fans
3 120mm Yate Loon D12SM-12 fans pushing into the radiator from below
DD-CPX -pro 12v pump
XSPC Single 5.25 Bay Resevoir
Enzotech SCW-REV. A CPU Waterblock (razor and light checked, nice and flat)
Fittings are 1/2 inch Danger Den Fat Boys
Tubing is Durelen 7/16

System is a standard single loop. Reservoir to Pump, to cpu, to radiator, back to reservoir.


I finally got the system complete last night. By now everyone should know about the Intel SATA 3gb/s fiasco so my vertex and dvd are using the 6gb/s SATA ports. At first it would not boot so I hit the web and discovered the memory issue. By using 1 stick I got to the BIOS and updated to 1204 Bios.

My CPU temp from within the BIOS is showing 41 C or 105.8 F. The ambient air temp in my home is around 25.5 C or 78 F. I have yet to put the window side panel on with its fan.

My main question at this point is are my temps normal for this type of water cooling setup? I applied the arctic silver in the line method.

Thanks in advance!

 

[m0r7if3r]

Nah, your temps are high, you should probably remount...assuming you got all the bubbles out that is.

 

[Tomsawyer]

Thanks m0r7if3r

I will pull the heatsink and see how the paste spread when I get home. After poking around on the web and here I see people with air cooling with lower temps so I realize something is off some where.

Clean it with my alcohol and redo the line method.

Then maybe I will be able to get back into bios and fix the memory issue so I can install windows 7 for the first time on this SSD and get to the cpu-z and some accurate temp monitors.

Ahh the "fun" of a new system.

 

[Conumdrum]

If the rad has barbs pointing down you could have big bubbles. Try the blob/pea method too.

 

[Tomsawyer]

Thanks guys!

When I set it up I gently tapped and shook the lines many times. I made sure to get all the air out via the bay fill hole. After reading alot more I got my hands on Real Temp 3.6 after installing windows 7 64 ultimate.

It is showing the 4 cores bouncing around between 27 C and 31 C every few seconds. Still new to this program (must remove mind from sub zero phase)

I ran a quick test and it reported the highs on the cores as 42 48 49 and 40

Would the experts say that the 48 and 49 cores are areas where there is too much or possibly not enough arctic silver?

 

[m0r7if3r]

Nah, some cores just run hotter than others...i think it's to do with the silicon process and the ihs contact.

 

[Conumdrum]

Possibly. Getting a bit high on core diff. Try a reseat I'd say, your a pro at it being phase before.

Try the bigger than a grain of rice, smaller than a pea amount in the middle.

 

[gregmacknass]

I wouldn't worry about the difference in the core temps that much. It is fairly common to have temps that vary core to core by as much as 5-7 degrees. If you are sure that you have good coverage of the AS5, and all of the bubbles out of the loop, then it is probably just a sensor that is off a little.
-Greg

 

[Tomsawyer]

Well here is a screen capture. Finally got the system to see 8gb of memory. This is at 4.4ghz Those temps do bug me. I am tempted to reset my block with some new arctic silver.

 

[Tomsawyer]

Here is an interior shot of the water cooling:

I had no choice but to run the 4 prong power supply cable up the front to the motherboard. The Haf-X is an excellent case. All the other cables are either hidden behind the back panel or under the nifty power supply slide box. I tried running that 4 prong cable up the back and across the top of the motherboard but it just would not reach. The cooler master 1k PS supply came with tons of cables but no extension. Oh well.

I put a bit much tubing from the bay reservoir as I had to move the pump to next to the 2.5 drive bays due to the big 140mm side fan. Live and learn.

All in all it may not win any awards but it is quiet, clean and alot faster than my old Opteron 165.