Cooling i5 2500k cooling woes. Please Halp :(

Helloo good sirs, or lasses.

Now, I have a conundrum- I recently bought an Asus P8z68-V motherboard (not the pro, but the layout's the same) with an i5 2500k, and had some problems with getting my Titan Fenrir Evo to mount. The top bracket part simply wouldn't fit in due to the amount of heatsinks around the socket, and even if it did, the RAM would be too close to fit the fan. Now, I was wondering, is there anything I can do, I've tried contacting Novatech, were I got the fan from, and trying to find a way to contact Titan ( Lulz, no. Website looks like it was designed in '95). I don't know if there's any other mounts, etc. that could be used. If nothing works, though: Where would be the best place to sell the Titan? And what would you recommend as an equal in price/performance, that has a good bracket arrangement and would clear the top of the heatsinks, and be far enough away from my RAM?

And the reason I'm in such a panic about this is that the bundled Intel cooler is utterly USELESS. Seriously, in TF2, I'm getting to 98c, same with Cinebench by about the 10th tile. Even Minecraft I get temps in the 90's. What's going wrong? I've applied as much Arctic Silver as has previously done perfectly well (I'd say i'm pretty confident in application and methods to do so). At this rate, I just cannot appreciate how fast my lovely new bit of kit is, as it overheats before one can notice.

So yes, any help? Or indeed, if anyone would like a perfectly fine Titan Fenrir, drop me a PM

P.S, I did remove Intel's thermal compound from the Heatsink first, of course.

 

Well if it was purchased less than 7 days ago you can return the Titan cooler, used or not to the retailer under the DSRs (Distance Selling Regulations). You have to contact them within 7 working days of the day the cooler arrived using a written method of contact if I recall correctly, so e-mail etc.

The Intel cooler should be able to cool the 2500K at stock speeds without too much trouble, as that is of course what it is designed for. Are you certain it is mounted correctly? I'd use a single small blob of AS in the centre of the CPU and let the pressure of the cooler create a nice even circle.

 

Unfortunately, the cooler was bought in March, in anticipation for the i5 upgrade. And I used the cling-film spread out method. Always worked well for me, before. The fan is in place the best I can. Of course the standard Intel mounting method is awful, but there's no wobble, and all the pins go through correctly.... Hmph :/

 

Well there is a trading section on these forums but you don't meet the requirements:

So eBay with a few clear photos of the item, a concise description and a BIN (Buy It Now) with Best Offers option would be my suggestion. Price it just above what others have gone for using the completed item search and using best offers you can control what it sells for more easily.

As for a replacement, there are many options, but it does depend on how much you have to spend and the room in the case. I tend to recommend the Thermalright Silver Arrow, it isn't cheap but comes with two excellent fans, a great mounting system and top notch performance.

The downsides being that it takes up a lot of room, can be hard to mount in tight confides of a case and it will likely block the first memory slot if you have tall ram.

 

Can you try turning the cooler around, I recently build a rig with the Gelid Tranquillo and the MSI P67A-GD53, I was planning to have the cooler with the fan facing towards the front of my case and also cooling the RAM, but it wouldn't fit because of the RAM so I had to turn it so the fan face is point to the floor of the case so it's cooling the GPU (if you understand what I mean).

 

Yea, the RAM is definitely a problem, but as I have a Haf 922, the size isn't. Ho hum. What would you say about one of the Corsair watercoolers? Mainly in terms of the small footprint around the socket

And thanks for the eBay advice

 

And no, the cooler doesn't fit in any orientation. Alas :/

 

They are good if you have a small case, but the performance of the lower end models (H50) isn't great vs something like a Silver Arrow. If you want to go that route, I'd suggest another make like the Antec Kúhler or CoolIT Eco A.L.C.

Plenty of reviews about if you google.

 

Do you mean to say that you scraped the intel compound off the intel heatsink and then installed it? So you effectively have the heatsink installed with no thermal compound? That would explain quite a lot...

But also it is worth noting that the i5-2500k throttles at 98 degrees (I think) which might mean that the cooling rather than being merely bad is actually totally ineffective. I suggest starting again, making sure that all plastic films etc are removed, and putting thermal paste on properly.

 

Alright, thanks man. Would be nice if anyone else with experience with this motherboard could comment on what they use for cooling.

 

I've taken it off a couple of times, and I did mentioned I have used some arctic silver on it. It idles at ~36, which is better than my Fenrir did on a Core 2 Duo. It's just a full load problem, not really a general thing.

 

This may sound weird but is your vcore voltage right? Have you changed it to overclock it for example?

Sent from my HTC Desire S

 

Nope, it's on default. I think.

What IS default, anyway? It fluctuates like a mad man. I might do a RTC clear, see if I changed an obscure bios feature that ruined everything. I'm just using the X.M.P profile.

 

Google image might help, shows you what other people are using with the same board. Some companies like Thermalright have compatibility lists, it does for example mention that your board (Asus P8Z68-V) is compatible with the Silver Arrow. http://www.thermalright.com/support/index.php?cat_id=39&act=data (bottom one and you may have to stick .pdf on the end).

Obviously not all companies are big enough to test and usually only the popular boards are tested.

What fan header do you have it plugged into? Maybe try one of the ones without PWM and see if that helps so it runs at 100% all the time.

 

It varies with each chip, as long as it is on auto that is fine. I tend to dial in the memory speed, voltage and memory timings to whats on the side of the module rather than using the X.M.P profile.

 

Alright, point taken with the SIlver Arrow, but it's out of my price range. HOWEVER;

http://www.thermalright.com/products/?act=data&id=172&cat_id=27

Have I every reason to believe that's it's smaller, cheaper counterpart?

Edit: And then he realises it's only £6 cheaper :/ I'm gonna have to really rethink this.

 

Sorry I wasn't pushing the Silver Arrow it was simply an example that some companies list compatability on their website.

You do however get what you pay for, maybe wait for it to be on offer at Scan or come up 2nd hand on eBay.

Another option would be a Thermalright TRUE with a 1155 bolt through kit, they come up on forums and eBay quite often for £15-25. With two fans the performance is very good.

 

Just looked up the Thermalright 212 Plus, I think? it's £16 on play, and seems to do EXACTLY what I want. As we all know, Sandy Bridge is very conservative on heat, as long as you have the right cooler.

 

You mean Coolermaster surely?

You do get what you pay for, the 212 Plus is an old design, but at stock speeds it should be ok.

I assume you got the 2500k with the intention to overclock it at some stage, I can see a cooler like that reaching its limits very quickly. While I understand you want to be able to use your system without high temp it seems a false economy to purchase something and have to replace again.

What is your max budget? It will help me and others recommend something suitable without breaking the bank!

 

Coolermaster 212 Plus is a great little cooler!