x58 i7 920: 40C idle. Is the cooling right?

[Berserker44]

Hi, I think I might have a similar problem to his Darker. I get 32-40 degrees while idle. My room is really cold at the moment, but when it actually dose get hot, the cpu temp will sky rocket to something crazy.

case - HAF 932
CPU fan- V10 (coolmaster)
CPU-i7 920
MB- asus p6t v.2
*no extra fans*
*I'm not overclocking (even though I want to soon)*

Sorry to use your thread to ask my own question Darker.

[Darker]

You'll need more information then that. Like what temperatures were you actually seeing? What were you using to stress test and monitor it with?

I just did the Real Temp Sensor test and got (CPU usage / temp)

99% / 87.5C
88% / 84.5C
75% / 79.5C
63% / 74.5C
51% / 70.0C
39% / 67.0C
26% / 63.5C
14% / 58.0C
00% / 53.0C

From what I've gathered the expectations at stock are:

At full load
90C and above is very bad.
80C is probably passable but not good
75C is meh
70C and below is where after market air coolers would be

At Idle
55C Not good
50C Meh
40C good

That's just my guess from reading around though, and not taking into account over clocking ect. I guess a lot of it also depends on your room temperature, the airflow in your case, how big your case is ect. For instance with the side off and downstairs, it was 5C cooler across the board.


With the DK heat sink, I'd expect it to at least be 75 at full load, and mid 40's idle. But what are you gonna do *shrug*


Hopefully someone can help you.

[Darker]

New Numbers!

So OCD still not satisfied at work today, I came home and took it apart again.

Previously, I had been putting a little paste on the cpu, then spreading it around so that it was a really thin layer spread evenly.

This time I put three rows of thermal paste on the Heat sink pipes. On the inside part of the two outer pipes, and the middle of the center pipe. There was a lot more on then in my previous attempts. Then I clamped it down right away and put it back together. So here are the numbers...

First bad seat (Thin layer on chip, walking away for 5 minutes)
Idle: 52C
Everest test: 78C
Prime Full: 93

Second seat (Thin layer on chip, seat right away)
Idle: 52C
Everest test: 74C
Prime Full: 86

Current Seat (Three rows on heat sink pipes)
Idle: 43
Everest test: 63
Prime Full: 64

Yeah.

So apparently the issue was, I was taking the whole "use as little paste as possible" a little to seriously. I'm also willing to give a thumbs down to the spread evenly on cpu before applying heat sink method. At least for heat sinks like the Dark Knight. There just wasn't enough paste in that method to fill the gaps that needed it.

So by putting some more paste on the heat sink, and allowing the seating to distribute the paste I got a major improvement in temps. 30C when its all said and done. I was even seeing idle temps as low as 38 with the side off and a room downstairs.

I didn't have exact scientific conditions and diligence per say, but hopefully this can be a lesson for anyone else trying to install the heat pipe heat sinks like the Dark Knight.



Another note: I noticed each time when I was reseating using the thin layer on the cpu method; when I picked the heat sink up, there appeard to be 6 spots that had noticeably more... activity then the others.

On the outside top and bottom of the chip on the left middle and right, there were identically sized rectangle shaped indents where the paste was slightly more liquid on the chip, and those were the same spots on the heat sink that the paste had rubbed off on.

./---------\
T|[]......[]| <--- contact spots.
O|[]......[]|
P|[]......[]|
.\---------/

I don't know why it was those 6 spots, but for some reason it seemed like those were the areas getting the most contact with that thin layer of paste.

[ShyguyXPC]

yeah the Dark knight cooler is tricky with the heatpipes that run under it, unlike many that have a full flat base, this one runs the heatpipes under the base, with part of the rounded pipe flat to be "flush" with the rest of the base.

using the IC Diamond Thermal paste they recommend a 5mm sized glob of paste in the middle of the CPU heat shield, and even recommend for some heatsinks that aren't lapped good to apply a little to the heatsink and rub it over the heatsink sort of a pre-application to fill in any grooves or pits in the base.

using that idea I applied some IC Diamond to the Dark knight before hand, to help fill in some of the spaces between the heatpipes and the base, before mounting it on the CPU with the 5-5.5mm glob of it. (used a 6mm Airsoft BB to compare size so I knew how much was enough LOL). then simply attach heatsink and screw it in place and the pressure from doing that should spread out the paste evenly or at least close to it, simply from the clamping pressure of the heatsink being screwed down.

haven't had to deal with spreading thermal paste for some time actually, only one system built in the last 3 years I've done that with, especially since AMD and Intel started to make use of the heatcaps on CPU's for almost all of their product lines... beats the old troweling method from the old Athlon XP era.