Newbie’s water RIG 2 degrees warmer than heatsink and fan Help!

[JoeSal98]

Help Guys, I just installed my first water cooled RIG in the following system:

ASUS A7M277
AMD 1.33 Thunderbird
512MB 2100 DDR Ram
Geforce 3 Visiontek Video Card
Sound Blaster Live Value

I am using a MAZE2 water block, with 3/8 fitting and a converted auto heater radiator, which is about 8”L, 6”W and 2” deep. I have a single 80-MM fan connected to the radiator. I lapped the water block and it looks like a mirror. I used Artic Silver 3 compound. My 145 GPH pump is sealed in a 4X4X4 reservoir. Water flow appears to be optimal. The system has four fans for airflow. NOW here is the problem, when I was using a heats sink and 6000RMP fan the idle temperature was 116F. With the water-cooling unit the temperature is now 118F. The water block appears to be snug on the CPU core

Here is the only thing I can think that may be affecting the temp. When I first removed the old fan and heat sink there was a large amount of generic white thermal compound, I was using the more is better theory at the time I installed it, and I used some cotton tipped swabs with carburetor cleaner to remove it. I got this idea from a listing in this forum. While cleaning the CPU the carp cleaner detached the four small sponge pads surrounding the CPU core. I used some very thin, almost water like, conformal compound, just a pin head drop to re-attach the pads back onto the CPU.

Does anyone have a clue why my temp is so high. Could it be the way I attached the pads back on. If I remove them and clean the area can I leave them off the CPU. Any help or suggestions anyone has would be most appreciated.

 

[nihili]

I'm not a water cooler, but from your description I'd say you're not getting enough airflow through your radiator. That 80 mm fan is less than half the size of the radiator. I'd add aonther 80mm or step up to a pair of 120s.

nihili

 

[ocean]

Those temps are sure up there. Especially with no overclock.
Your radiator should be located after the pump. Is that the case?
Since you are experiencing high temps with both air and water cooling, I would definatly look at how the heatsink is mounted.
Sounds like your not getting good contact.
And yeah I agree, get at least a 120mm fan for the rad.
Hope this helps.


Oh yeah I forgot. What's the room temp? Since it's really only usefull to compare temps reletive to ambient.

 

[JoeSal98]

Room Temp is

The room temp is 67F. The motherboard temp is 71F
Thanks
Joe

 

[JoeSal98]

Fan Clarification

Just for information the radiator is outside the box. I also tried a personal desk fan blowing next to the radiator and it did not make a difference. I also submerged the radiator in water with some ice cubes which brought the temp down to 105F, still not that great.

By the way the radiator is the only component outside the case other than the fans.

 

[nihili]

I doubt it's the pads. Those things are a bit soft and will compress. Start by taking out one of your case fans and sticking it on the radiator so that you have two fans on the radiator. With water cooling you shouldn't need as many case fans. See what that does to your temps. I'm guessing that they will drop but not as much as you want. Assuming that's right, here are some other things to try.

Double check the mounting on your wb. I don't know what mounting system you have. If it's a clip, theres not much to do beyond making sure that you have it mounted correctly. If it's a bolt on affair, then you can try increasing the pressure a bit. This is generally best done by adding a nylon washer, maybe 1mm thick to compress the springs a bit more.

Make sure that you have all the air burped out of your system. A few bubbles can drastically reduce the cooling efficiency of your system. If you haven't explicitly burped the air out, then you've probably still got some in.

You say that water flow is optimal, how did you check that? Double check that there are no kinks in your hoses and also that none of your hoses are longer than they need to be.

If you didn't get your radiator new, there may be some interior or exterior blockage. Inspect the fins of the radiator to make sure they are all straight. Look verify that there isn't any foreign material caught in the fins that would impede airflow. Also try to check the inside for corrosion.

just some ideas

nihili

 

[JoeSal98]

Thanks for the info

I thought maybe the conformal material may have dried hard, and therefore was creating a minute gap between water block and CPU. The CPU is bolted on using the four holes outside the processor holder. I tested the water flow of the pump before I installed it and it seemed to have a steady strong stream. I put a T connector on the system and bled it of all air. I spent a lot of time making sure there were no air bubbles. I turned and shook each water-bearing component and bled any air out that I found. The hoses have no kinks but the runs may be excessive as they total about 9 feet of tubing. The radiator looks extremely clean and there are no damaged or bent fins. When I did a test hook up before I installed it water flow through the radiator appeared to be unrestricted.

 

[JFettig]

ok your problem is most likely in the mounting of the waterblock

take it off, look at your thermal paste and see if its really smooshed and very flat, if not its defenetly the wb, but when you were takin it off you mite sqush it anyway, but then put it back in, lay your system on its side wile you do this if possible, put it down on the bolts, look to see if its level then put in the springs(asuming you have some) then put on the nuts and tighten her down very slowly in a star pattern.... and tighten each nut down with like 2 turns each untill all the way down and make sure it doesnt move...

 

[robertm]

I also assume your using the onboard sensor to read your temps Asue boards from what I have read tend to read on the high side anyway.

What I found after I installed my WB is that because I didnt have the aire movement around the socket that i had with air cooling that my temps from the MB where reading about the same as with the air cooling. Point a small fan at the socket air seemed to confirm this. You might with to try the same.

Maybe someone with that Asus MB can confirm the higher than normal reading from the socket diode?

Anyway try pointing a fan at the socket and see if the temps dont drop.

 

[DodgeViper]

Your problem is the fan. You need more air moving across the H/C. The 80mm fan does not have enough size to cover the area you wanting to cool. Plus you need to be using a shroud to stand off the fan from the H/C. The order of tubing routing should be as follows, pump outlet to H/C, H/C to center of W/B, W/B to pump inlet. You want the coolest water gping to the W/B. Nine feet of hose? Why? If your bolting the block to the mobo without the use of springs you may be tipping the block to one side and not getting even pressure. You do not need conformal coating either. This setup will not lower your temps below ambient. Try using spring pressure. In my system I am using 2-120mm 86 CFM PanaFlo fans in a push/pull format. I have included a drawing.

 

[DodgeViper]

Drawing of how the water should be flowing through the system.

 

[JoeSal98]

Thanks Dodge Viper:

Your drawing looks identical to my setup. The tubing consist of 9 feet total for both inlet and outlet, so we are talking about 4.5 feet per run. I did this because the radiator is outside the case and I wanted to be able to a move it around and experiment with different positions. I totally agree that the fan is no where near what it should be. When I saw the high temp reading I tried submerging the radiator in chilled ice water. This resulted in a lowering of the CPU core temp from 118F to 105F. I would have thought it would have been considerably lower doing this. I only used the conformal pin drops to re-attach the foam pads that had come off the CPU when I cleaned it. I will try re-installing the block according to your suggestion. I was hoping to get the machine to run at 90F which is approximately 20F over room temprature.

Thanks
Joe

 

[DodgeViper]

If you put the rad in ice water and you only got the temp you mentioned, then your problem is at the mounting of the block as well. The rad in ice water should have brought your cpu temps below 50f. Something is wrong. My current CPU temp is 102F and that is just ambient air moving through the H/C.

If you use the spring tension method you will need to make sure that all four bolts are of the same length and the springs are of the same pressure. AMD recommends not to exceed 18lbs. of pressure.

 

[dream caster]

I think the two most important aspects are how you measure your temp and those 9 feet of 3/8'' tubing; you should not have more than 2 or 3 feet.
You should measure your system flow; by the way, the tubing, is it 3/8 ID or OD?
You should also check all what has been said about mounting.
Even if your fan is small the fact that a mains powered fan and iced water didn't help indicates the fan is not the problem.

 

[ocean]

I agree with DodgeViper, It must be in the mounting of the heatsink. He had the problem with air cooling and now with watercooling. Clearly it must be something in common with both.
Do you have another cpu to try?

 

[CSaddict]

You really cant rely on the asus probe program and sensors they are garbage. I have an asus(see my sig) the probe temp is no where near the real temp. You need to add an additional probe and get a temp meter. For instance my asus reads 120F when I fire it up! Its so off. With my same set up on my Epox I get 85F. I just just use the probe as a reference.

 

[ocean]

That's an excellent point. I have my digi-doc probe epoxied to the bottom of the cpu. Gotta make sure we are getting accurate measurements to begin with.
DOH!

 

[DodgeViper]

Ocean, the digi-doc comes with 8 sensors correct? In my case I could monitor water temp leaving and entering the water block, case temps, and temps on either side of the rad. Does it have the feature to shut down the computer when temps rise's above a set point?

 

[ocean]

Ocean, the digi-doc comes with 8 sensors correct? In my case I could monitor water temp leaving and entering the water block, case temps, and temps on either side of the rad. Does it have the feature to shut down the computer when temps rise's above a set point?

Yes,yes,yes,yes,NO!
Sorry, it won't turn anything off for you, but it does have the ability to set an alarm for each temp probe. I betcha someone smarter than me could figure out how to make the computer shut down if a certain temp is exeeded.
For now I just rely on MB5 and the on board sensor.
I did see somewhere where they made use of the "psu ok" line from the psu to the atx connector and some sort of thermal switch
to shut things down when it gets to warm.
Untill I get some more time I'm just going to live on the edge and hope for the best.

 

[Wonko The Sane]

The AS 3 should be applied in a very thin layer (actually a light haze, you should be able to see the core through the paste). I know AS2 needs a few days to reach it's best performance, so I would assume it would be the same for AS3 (i'd have to look it up to be absolutely sure).