High temp on i7 2600K - is Coolermaster M4 bad or did I mess up?

[Mastiff]

I have put a new server into use, and I'm a bit confused. I had it running with the stock cooler and the motherboard loose on the box it cam in, and that gve me temps at around 30C on idle and high 60's on load. Then I put a Coolermaster GeminII M4 on it, put it in the server case and put that in the rack cabinet. Now I suddenly see higher temps. The temp jumped straigth up when I put it on load, and it hit 90 degrees after a few minutes! That really sounds suspicious. I spread thermal grease (Coolermaster's own High Performance Compound, not the one that came with the M4) on the CPU's heat shield and also on the bottom of the cooler, scraping off most of it so it only filled the small gaps between the heatpipes and the rest of the block.

The reason I use the M4 is that I want to keep the noise down. And the one I really wanted to use, the 212 EVO, is too tall to fit inside a server case for rack mount.

Is this cooler really that bad, or have I messed up somewhere? Since the temp increases so fast (a few seconds from idle low 40's to 80 on load) I'm thinking that there is something seriuosly wrong with the contact there. I did tighten the screws all the way, as the manual for the cooler seems to say. Of course the temp would go up when the motherboard goes from being open air to inside a server case, but it really shouldn't be that bad, I think!

Edit: I should note that the room isn't hot (around 18 degrees), and while the server case is closed, there is a 120 mm fan in the PSU that removes heat and the area around the ports is open (the server case has room for a much bigger back plate than the one used in regular cases, so that is not put up there).

 

[dejo]

first check and make sure that the heatsink is not loose. If its got a tight fit, then remove and check the thermal paste and see how your contact is from the sqeeze made to that.
I have a bad coolermaster hyper212+ that just wont cool for anything. I put 4 computers together with them lately and just the one is crazy on temps, traded it out for a different sink of same model and its fine. So it could just be a bad sink for you as well.
Im not familiar with the cooler you have so sadly cant really give any guidance there

 

[Mastiff]

OK, thanks. I guess I'll have to tear down again the system this weekend. But this is too high for comfort, it will fry when summer comes. I know I did put it very tightly, but maybe I went over board with the paste.

 

[muddocktor]

Doing a quick search yielded this quick n dirty review of it, and to tell the truth, it looks like the cooler isn't very effective. But, you still might have gotten a bad mount too, making for high temps also. Try remounting and see if that helps.

If it doesn't, I would recommend that you bring the M4 back and get a Thermalright AXP-140-RT or Prolimatech Samuel 17 as a better performing replacement. I have reviewed the Prolimatech Samuel 17 and while it's not a high performance heatsink, it does perform well enough to cool an i7 930 at 3.6 with no problem. It is as also low profile as that Coolermaster you presently have. If you have 100 mm of headroom between the processor and top of your server case, I would tell you to go with the AXP-140 though. It's a better performer than the Samuel 17, but is a little taller too. With fan installed, it stands about about 95 mm tall. I haven't tested it for a review, but I have seen a few members here post they have had very good results with it.

 

[Mastiff]

Thanks for the tips! I did read that review before I bought it, and I thought it would fit because it seemed to at least work as well as the stock cooler and at the same time be a lot quieter. I'll dismantle the stuff, vipe off some paste and see if it helps.

 

[Mastiff]

Today I finally got the time to take down the server and pull out the motherboard. A few tests revealed the reason: The instructions for the cooler were wrong! It showed the mounting with the pipes pointing up and down, but with a little experimenting I found out that they should be pointing sideways, towards the RAM! Wich of course was a real tight fit, and I had the cooler been a few millimeters lager it would have been impossible, but I made it. Kind of annoying to do everything by the book only to find out that the book is wrong... Now my load temperatures do not go above 75, and it's idling in the mid 30's, which is OK, for a closed case inside a rack cabinet. 20 degrees down on load and 10 on idle seems OK by me.

Oh, and this is with quietfan enabled in BIOS, so even on load I can barely hear it moving at all. Much better than the stock cooler.