Hi guys, I've run into a bit of a problem after putting together my new i7 920 rig. I went out and bought all quality components, and it runs great, except for when stress tested. I was planning to overclock it from 2.66ghz to 3.6ghz or whatever I could safely squeeze out of it, but even running at the stock 2.66ghz temps are getting way, WAY too high in Prime95. Details: i7 920 2.66ghz CPU 12gb DDR3 1600 Corsair memory Thermaltake V1 (using their included thermal paste) Corsair 1000 watt power supply Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard Antec 1200 Case eVGA GTX 295 video card (2) Seagate Cheetah 15.6 SAS drives in a raid 0 Vista Ultimate 64 (I prefer XP, but need more than 3-4GB ram) (additional 750gb SATA drive to be added from old computer for backup storage, along with mozy.com online backup) I've been building my own rigs now for a good 25 years or so. And you'd think I'd be able to slap an i7 together without too much trouble. Everything went together perfectly, used just a touch of thermal paste, didn't slather it on (maybe 3 grains of rice worth). The Thermaltake V1 seated nice and tight, all 4 posts clicked down and locked with a 1/4 turn. System runs great at stock speeds with CPU temps of 39/34/38/35 (no load, using Real Temp 3.0). I hop into Prime95 for stress testing, and temps immediately spike to the low 60s, and over the next 15 minutes they climb and climb and climb. If I let them go, they'd likely hit 100. Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot this properly? The case has an insane amount of air cooling (3 120mm fans pushing air in from the front, 240mm fan pushing air out the top, 2 more 120mm fans pushing air out the rear of the case, etc, etc). The case is absolutely cool or cold to the touch, and sealed nicely for proper airflow. Did I somehow get a defective i7? Or did I do something wrong in mounting the heat sink? All of the bios settings on the Asus are back to defaults, 1.20v on the CPU, etc. I've tried both bench testing it with just motherboard out of the case, and with it in the case with all the fans blowing like crazy. After doing my homework, it seems Intel feels these CPUs are fine with 65C, and even 75C shouldn't kill the CPU. But getting on towards 100C while running at the stock 2.66ghz seems pretty crazy. Room temperature is about 70F. I've got the Intel stock cooler and could try swapping that on there, but so far I can't figure out why this setup isn't shedding heat properly. Please feel free to suggest even the obvious, maybe there's something I've overlooked. Thanks!
As a test. try taking off the HSF and going with the stock. My non oc'd 920 runs <40 with the stock, you should be able to get the same easily
Check our Core i7 heatsink roundup - they run hot by default, especially when you throw the extra voltage through them. The V1 only has four heatpipes - it's not that much of a hardcore cooler tbh, I wouldn't expect fantastic results.
The amount of three grains of rice of thermal paste? It's a bit too much, usually about the size of one rice grain should be used.
my vote goes for too much paste. pure pressure and metal to metal contact is the best scenario. the paste is just supposed to fill in micro imperfections between the two.
Is the CPU fan connected to the 4 pin CPU fan header? If so, the system could be throttling it back, but the OEM stuff I have seen is pretty loud at full speed. If you can't change it via BIOS or OS driver, you could disable the PWM line to make the fan run flat out.
The Verdict is in! Ok guys, thanks to your helpful suggestions, the problem has been completely resolved. I'll respond to the suggestions in the order they were received: A> Didn't try the stock fan again, after doing a bit of research I wanted a solution that didn't use plastic pegs to hold the CPU down, and wanted a solution that mounted a plate under the motherboard and then smashed the cooler down on it. (Would have been a good test though!) B> Checked out the i7 Heatsink roundup, and went with the best one of the bunch, the TRUE. You're right, 6 heatpipes should do better than the 4 on the V1. C> 3 grains of rice? Yep, this was probably the problem. I used too much thermal paste, it didn't seem like much when I was putting it on, but I'm sure that was a large part of the problem. Plus I don't think the V1 was getting enough pressure from the plastic retainers. D> Yep, heat sink not seating properly and too much paste, plus, the paste that comes with the V1 is likely junk. E> 4-pin header? The V1 was using a 3-pin header and had a rheostat for fan speed control, and it was maxed out. After reading all of the suggestions, and a couple of i7 cooler roundups, I decided to go with the Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120. Got it from CrazyPC and had it pre-lapped for the extra $20. Cost was $60 for the TRUE, $20 for the lapping, plus I went for the ArctiClean CPU cleaning kit and Arctic Silver Ceramique thermal grease, and another $25 in fans and fan brackets. The nice thing about the TRUE kit, as opposed to the V1, is that it uses a solid metal plate under the motherboard that mounts the cooler SECURELY. On the top side they have 4 spring-loaded screws that really tighten that puppy down properly. Before mounting I used the heck out of the ArctiClean kit, cleaned the CPU off three times, and cleaned the TRUE heatsink mount off twice. Then I went through the Arctic Silver Ceramique instructions, massaged in some ceramique into the bottom of the TRUE, and wiped off the excess. Next I got the CPU oriented properly, and applied a thin line of Ceramique almost all the way across the middle of the heatsink. Got her mounted, rotated it a bit to spread the Ceramique, and mounted the fans. I'm using (2) Kaze-jyun 120mm fans, 38dB, 110.31CFM, push pull configuration. Started at the stock 2.66ghz, temps were in the mid to low 50s, ran it for 15 minutes to be sure, but it was 100% solid. (I would hope so!) Cranked up the CPU voltage to 1.30, Uncore to 1.30, Memory to 1.66, spread to 800mhz, and PLL to 1.96. Then I started cranking up the bclk from 133. Used the ASUS program and brought it up to 150 inside windows, still solid, temps went to just under 60. My goal was 3.60ghz minimum, and it was able to hit that and run mid 60s. Kept cranking away at it, and by the end of about an hour and a half of playing, I was able to get it solid at 4060mhz, temps at 75c or below, and tested it there for an hour with Prime95 maxing out the CPU. It seemed solid enough, so I stopped the bench testing and installed it in the case itself. Throttled it back to 4ghz, and it was rock solid, temps stayed at around 70c for the first few minutes, and after testing overnight it crept up to a high of 75c. (Ambient room temperature of 75f). I feel pretty safe with those numbers, as I don't ever expect to run it flat out for over 8 hours straight. Did some playing with it, and even during hard gaming temps don't even hit the 60s. According to the Ceramique guide, temps will likely drop another degree or two as the thermal grease 'cures'. I'm pretty happy with the results. =] Here's a screenshot of the overnight Prime95 run, I'll start hitting it with OCCT and everything else I can to test it to make sure she's 100% stable. Thanks for all the help guys! I was hoping for at least 3.6ghz, and easily got 4ghz. There's probably another .1ghz left on the table, but I'm not going to push it, and I'm certainly not an expert.
As a n00b i have learnt something today, I'm surprised how much difference the paste makes also when building a PC how do tighten the heat sink to the mobo if its lose, Screws? this thread should prove useful for me in the future.
