[taintedmind]

Okay, this is a question that has most likely been asked > 9000 times, by > 9000 people with > 9000 different builds (sorry about all the > 9000s)(also I hope this is an acceptable thread for this topic).

Anyway, I have encountered some cooling difficulties which I just for my life cannot understand.

CPU idle: ~ 40c
CPU load: ~ 60c
CPU freq: 3,20 GHz (up from 2,66 GHz (i7 920))

GPU1 idle: ~ 32c
GPU1 load: ~ 80c
GPU2 idle: ~ 28c
GUP2 load: ~ 60c
GPU freq: 845 mhz | 1690 mhz| 2150 mhz

CPU cooling: H70 with push/pull (pump at 1400 rpm, both fans at 2000rpm)
GPU cooling: stock at 50% speed

When I look around, people with the same CPU and/or hotter CPU's with even higher overclocks than I have gets alot of lower temps than me. I have seen 4.8 GHz i7's idling at ~28c. What am I doing so horribly wrong that prevents my components from actually being "cold"?

I recently switched from my Antec 902 to a Fractal Design Define XL. I love all the new space and stuff, however I have noticed an increase in temperatures. The CPU increased roughly 3c in idle and maybe around 5c on load. GPU idle increased by 2c in idle and about 15c on load. What I can not for the life of me understand here is why; because my new case has better airflow in addition to bigger space AND more fans. Shouldn't that mean better cooling?

Also, why would my CPU get hotter? Considering that no changes were made. I didn't reseat the cooler as I didn't want to apply any other TIM than the one the H70 came with.

What should I do and/or what can I do? Any tips? Tricks? "do this"s? Pretty please? I am becoming desperate.

 

[wheth4400]

Seems normal for an I7 on an H70 TBH

 

[KrisBKreeme]

looks A ok to me

 

[DV9]

CPU seems a tiny bit hot, I'd reseat it. But don't expect much better from an H70.

 

[jonespwns]

Yeah those temps are good. But you can always just increase the air flow in there. Heres a little tip. Since hot air rises make sure most of your fans that blow out are near the top and keep the sucking fans near the bottom. But yeah My friend has the same cpu and gets that temp. But your vid card.. holy crap 80c lol. You must be running an xfx video card. I had a 9800gt and that thing ran in the 80s-90s.

 

[LuckySe7ens]

Quote:

Originally Posted by taintedmind *SNIP* When I look around, people with the same CPU and/or hotter CPU's with even higher overclocks than I have gets alot of lower temps than me. I have seen 4.8 GHz i7's idling at ~28c. What am I doing so horribly wrong that prevents my components from actually being "cold"? I recently switched from my Antec 902 to a Fractal Design Define XL. I love all the new space and stuff, however I have noticed an increase in temperatures. The CPU increased roughly 3c in idle and maybe around 5c on load. GPU idle increased by 2c in idle and about 15c on load. What I can not for the life of me understand here is why; because my new case has better airflow in addition to bigger space AND more fans. Shouldn't that mean better cooling? Also, why would my CPU get hotter? Considering that no changes were made. I didn't reseat the cooler as I didn't want to apply any other TIM than the one the H70 came with. What should I do and/or what can I do? Any tips? Tricks? "do this"s? Pretty please? I am becoming desperate.

Idle temp is irrelevent. And temperatures are all related to ambient temp. If its colder in the room your case is in then your temps will be colder.

Secondly if your seeing i7 temps @ 4.8ghz in the 28*c range on similar cooling then you are looking at the newer generation sandybridge chips(these run much cooler and overclock higher) not the old i7 920's.

Are your exhausting air through your H70 or intaking air through your H70? Install instructions suggest intaking, rather then exhausting air that has already been heated by other components in your case.

How many volts are you pushing for that little OC? Running on stock? what is your stock voltage? Aftermarket TIM's are another way to lower your temps, along with a good application.

 

[AllenR]

what's your ambient temps? it affects the cooling efficiency of your setup.

 

[taintedmind]

I noticed now that I missed alot of info, on such an already tricky and "wide" question.

My ambient temps are ~20c.
I use the H70 as push/pull intake, due to the sayings about that being better (even though I have heard alot of other theories on those forums).
If I recall my volts are ~1,3 at the moment, I'll confirm this later when I get the chance.
Default volt I have no idea.

I was told that the TIM that comes with the H70 is really good, that's why I have refrained from replacing it.

But, basically what most people are saying here is that it's "okay" however, I still can't find any sense behind the temp increasement when I switched cases...

Thanks in advance,

 

[LuckySe7ens]

Quote:

Originally Posted by taintedmind I noticed now that I missed alot of info, on such an already tricky and "wide" question. My ambient temps are ~20c. I use the H70 as push/pull intake, due to the sayings about that being better (even though I have heard alot of other theories on those forums). If I recall my volts are ~1,3 at the moment, I'll confirm this later when I get the chance. Default volt I have no idea. I was told that the TIM that comes with the H70 is really good, that's why I have refrained from replacing it. But, basically what most people are saying here is that it's "okay" however, I still can't find any sense behind the temp increasement when I switched cases... Thanks in advance,

Im not intimitely familiar with your case in particular, but maybe reversing the direction of your cpu fans so they exhaust instead of intake might work better in your new case. Worth a shot anyway. Maybe your CPU cooler has been loosened in the swap. Could be any number of things.

 

[taintedmind]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuckySe7ens Im not intimitely familiar with your case in particular, but maybe reversing the direction of your cpu fans so they exhaust instead of intake might work better in your new case. Worth a shot anyway. Maybe your CPU cooler has been loosened in the swap. Could be any number of things.

Thanks again for your suggestions, I am going to do some "custom"-ing to my case and try exhaust instead. I also just ordered some CPU cleaning stuff and Artic Silver 5, going to reapply that and see if I notice any differences.

Thanks again!

 

[Amann]

fail post nevermind should of kept reading..

 

[windfire]

My analysis:-
Asus has a few variants of the GTX460. Regardless which Asus GTX460s you have, the cooling is still a bi-directional type. This means, roughly half of the heat is exhausted to the rear (ie dumped out of the case= externally exhausted) and roughly half to the front (ie dumped inside the case).

(1) For those hot exhausted air dumped out of the case, if your case does not have enough space behind (eg say, less than 150mm or 6'' from a wall) and/or enough ventilation (eg sitting on floor under a desk), hot air will get accumulated (Zone A in pic) and affects adversely the temperature of the cards.

(2) Furthermore, those exhausted hot air would rise up. And because the H70 is setup as an intake, these air will likely be sucked by the fans of the H70 rad (Zone B in pic). Obviously this negatively affects CPU temp.

(3) Without a pic of the interior of the case, I expect the main exhaust to be the top case 200mm Big Boy fan. Half of the heat exhausted by the graphic cards goes to the front and is pulled up. This could form a warmer than necessary area (Zone C in pic) and this is not desirable.
(Now, remember you have 2 cards and so the heat is doubled)

I reckon, a combination of these 3 factors contribute (partly) to the high temp of your CPU and cards.

And, the reason why switching from Antec 902 to Fractal Design Define XL brings a higher temp is probably the internal airflow pattern (established by its fans) of the Define XL amplifies factors 2 and 3 above.

A larger case with more fans does not automatically brings lower temp to the CPU and GPUs. You need to:
a) plan both intake and exhaust paths of the H70 rad, both inside and outside of the case
b) establish the case's internal airflow paths clearly

If you wish to try a short fix, just reverse the direction of the fans of the H70 from intake to exhaust, as already suggested. And of course, provide sufficient space and/or ventilation to the back of the case will also be useful.

 

[taintedmind]

Thank you winfire for that very helpful post.

Currently, my case is looking like this:

And the current airflow would look something like this:

If I would turn the H70 around, to make it exhaust, it would be something like this:

I am completely torn apart here...

 

[windfire]

I think the best setup is to move the H70 rad/fan from the case rear (Position 1 in pic) to the current location of the additional 120mm fan sitting in the 5.25'' bays (Position 2 in pic).

With this setup:
-the H70 rad/fan receives fresh ambient air from the case front (nice!)
-the H70's hot air, together with the hot air exhausted by the 2 cards, will be removed out of the case by both the top 180mm fan and a new 140mm rear fan.

However, I am not sure if the tubing of the H70 is long enough. Judging from the pic, it does not look enough. So, you need to do a little modding: either prolong the tubings or use a bracket system to mount the rad/fan onto the drive bay cage.

Finally, the case front bottom fan does its work. Just do not install the metal plate between the PSU compartment and the HDD compartment so that the air can flow out through the case rear (see pic as well).

 

[taintedmind]

Hello windfire and thanks once again for your post.

I have done some further research into whether what you said is possible, and I came up with the sad resolution that it isn't.

While extending the length of the tubings are possible, there's still nowhere to actually mount the radiator. In addition, I searched over 6 sites (etc...) for tools how to make such a mounting possible but to no luck yet.

How I managed to mount that 120mm fan is because I used the fan-mount that came with the Antec 902, and thus it's "loose", meaning that mounting the H70 rad on it is a no-go.

Thanks alot anyhow and I'll keep thinking here, hopefully figuring something out eventually. My upper card reached 98c yesterday, now - I am getting bloody worried.

 

[windfire]

(I) As you most likely know already, there is a massive thread (1725 pages long) for the Owners of the H50/70:
http://www.overclock.net/water-cooli...club-1725.html
I think I have seen a few people doing front mounting but I am just too lazy to search through all these pages.

However, here is a thread which might be of interest to you.
http://www.overclock.net/water-cooli...drive-bay.html

And below are 2 more pics showing the front mounting of a H50/H70.

(II) As for the ultra hot top GTX460, 2 reasons why it is so hot:-
a. its front exhausting hot air might be pushed back due to too high airflow from front case fan
b. there is not enough space between it and the lower card for its fan to intake enough air.

I think (b) is more critical of the 2.

Analysis: even though your Define XL's side panel fan is blowing air to the general direction, its air will have a hard time to penetrate into the tiny gap between the cards, to benefit the top card. The majority amount of air will choose the least path of resistance (ie not getting into the gap).

To alleviate the situation, I suggest you to adapt something to 'force' more air into the gap (pic 3)
Example 1: installing an Antec Spot Cool to point right between the gap
Example 2: installing something like an Intel Air Duct (see pic 4)
Example 3: make a funnel to channel air effectively into the gap (see pic 5)

(III) In addition, the primary card (usually the top card with the monitor connected) gets a little hotter than the slave card as it does a little bit more work in a SLI configuration. So, connect the monitor to the lower card (to make it becomes the primary card). This trick might bring about 2-3C lower for the top card.

 

[windfire]

You can use products like UN-rad brackets to mount a rad inside drive bay area. See the 2 pics below for examples.

Link:http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/underadbr.html

 

[taintedmind]

Thank you once again (yes, it's been said so many times now.

)

I reversed the direction of the push/pull setup and also purchased 3 Gentle Typhoons'.

The idle temps went down to about ~38c and during Prime95 no core goes above 60c.
I also placed one of those Gentle Typhoons' at the side, dedicated for the GPU's. They are now sitting happily at Upper: 27c and Lower: 25c (idle, going to stress them soon).

TL;DR: It's really good now! Those GT's are AWESOME.