Air flow, clips, and tubing?

[alex30303]

Well. Unfortunately, priced it out and watercooling is too much for me. But my x2 3800 still gets so hot i have freezes when priming both cores at 1.425volts at 2800; weird because i have a scythe ninja and many 120's. Yet at same voltage one core will prime to 2875, 10 celsius lower. My 'quiet psu' also gets warm as I realized when i put a makeshift piece of cardboard over hsf. So i have decided to get some 5 inch diameter tubing and to create a duct as shown in schematic. My Tcasemax according to coretemp is 67 celsius, and when i flirt with that temp i get autoshutdowns; Problem is that it only takes 1.425-1.45 volts do reach 67 c on coretemp(55 on mbm5); dropping .25 off vcore equates to a 4-5 c reduction in temps. 2770 is a good overclock but i'd be closer to 2900+ if i could just run at 1.5volts like i want; makes no sense with my airflow? Please HELP!

Thinking ill try some tubing like in schematic for better airflow?
With side off its 2-3 degrees cooler...would you guys also add a 120mm to the window?
Thanks so much for help.

[Serra]

Before I say anything else, I'm going to ask you whether you've tried increasing the amount of voltage you give your CPU... because from what I've seen a lot of people need more than 1.425v to get 2.8GHz dual prime stable. You shoule be able to go up to at least 1.50v and still be in the 'safe' range... not really sure how much higher than that would be safe, but some guys around here play with 1.675v 24/7 (though that seems really high to me).

As concerns the cooling:
- A 120mm side fan (exhaust) would help quite a bit with temperatures and is something I would probably recommend.
- What kind of video card are you using? If it's a higher-end (read: higher heat output) card, then you'll definitely want to get some ventilation going under it, because it's just trapping hot air under itself.
- If your case is on any sort of feet or rollers (even just a small amount of clearing should do), you might consider drilling small holes in the bottom of your case to act as a passive air intake and ensuring your case has negative overall pressure (more air going out than coming in through fannage). This will draw in the coolest air available from the bottom, help eliminate that dead spot under your video card, and will overall cool your system nicely.

I tried to re-do your picture using what I saw from your photo, so it's not to scale but the general airflows should be accurate.

Picture 1: Your current airflow
Picture 2: Suggested Airflow (assuming you put in the bottom holes + 120mm fan)

You'll see in the second picture you do have a total of negative pressure in the case, even though I reversed your top fan to an input mode. This helps you draw more cooler (as compared to inside the case) air from the top for the CPU only, and also ensure you do get a draw of cooler air from the holes in the bottom (which decrease GPU temps and can greatly help overall case temps).

[alex30303]

thanks for detailed response. About vcore: that's the confounding thing about my cpu, if i even go from 1.4 to 1.425 it gets so hot that after 30 minutes of dual prime or so my comp freezes or just shuts down..on this chip each .25 vcore seems to add 5 celsius...it's crazy: reapplied hsf 3 times to see if i was missin something. Also, pic looks like mine except the top fan. the problem with that fan as an intake is this: my psu is a quiet seasonic, so the 120mm fan inside it spins slow and it has vents in the front to exhaust hot air, when i flip that fan to an intake im pushing that air toward cpu and it doesn't help; im toying with the idea of ducting those vents.... as far as vid card airflow, i took hd's out of the bay to make room for the hose so that 120mm intake is going right across the comp in direction of an ati silencer...so i think i'm ok there?

So, I guess i still want to know if you guys would add a side 120mm, and if anyone has any idea why my cpu reacts so violently to extra vcore that would help (case temp 27 degreees and excellent airflow)...but it seems it must be attributable to the given stepping. And any other ideas, suggestion will REALLY help. Thanks guys.

[Dave_Sz]

but how do you know it's the heat causing shut downs and not the lack of voltage?

[alex30303]

because adding voltage only makes the temps even higher, and these shutdown's happen when core temp gets near or surpasses the tcasemax of 67 celsius. so, say im at 282, i can actually prime for longer at lower voltage because the chip won't overheat. Either my chip runs very hot, my cooling is failing, or there is some oddity i'm overlooking which i have never encountered after overclocking 7 computers. Any thoughts guys?

[[XC] Lead Head]

because adding voltage only makes the temps even higher, and these shutdown's happen when core temp gets near or surpasses the tcasemax of 67 celsius. so, say im at 282, i can actually prime for longer at lower voltage because the chip won't overheat. Either my chip runs very hot, my cooling is failing, or there is some oddity i'm overlooking which i have never encountered after overclocking 7 computers. Any thoughts guys?

id say some of the heat pipes on your sink are dead

[alex30303]

wow, dead heat pipes...nice thought :-). anybody else had experience with this...or agree that might be a possibility????? That would certainly fix my problems. might try a new hsf

[JamesBong420]

have u re applied thermal paste? reset heatsink? its happend to me.. paper thin for the paste is what i use..

[alex30303]

yes, reapplied thermal paste 3 times..always the same..have a deta 72cfm at full speed on there. Asked Scythe if i could rma it..they said.....


Thanks for purchasing our product.

Sorry to hear about the problem, however, Ninja cooler has 6 heatpipes
attached thereon and each pipe is clearly separated to spread heat.
Even
with just 1 of these pipe and Ninja fins, the performance should be
better than AMD box cooler, that is for sure.
Hence, it is not reasonable that Ninja's all 6 heat pipes gone failed
in
a sec while you changed the CPU.

:confused:

only think i can think is that the chip just runs hot..still im surprised it overheats at 1.425 vcore at 2800mhz even though its prime stable. Maybe Toledo core 3800's are hotter than Mannies? Maybe my heatsink doesn't like artic alumina? Or, possibly could be some weird mobo issue, have to talk to DFI..any more thoughts guys?