Water cool newb - did I mess this up?

[Wryknow]

So I am new to the water cooling scene and just finished my first build after a lot of lurking and reading on the forums for a couple of months. (Thanks to everyone who posts here regularly - it is appreciated more than you know.)

I have installed all of my drivers and have done a mild over clock on my I7 930 to 3.8 ghz at 1.3v. Everything is very stable on Prime 95 max stress with 8 threads but I am concerned about my temperatures - at max I am running a CPU temp of 57c according to my ASUS utility and that seems to be a lot higher than I was expecting it to be with the set up that I have put together. Board temperature was 29c. Did I mess something up or are my expectations wrong?

I did have a bit of a problem with the Indigo Xtreme installation. The XT required a bit of movement to get it to aligne with the back bracket and I am afraid that I may have moved the Indigo pad around a bit. When I did the burn in it never reached 90c like the instructions said - it went to 84C, dropped to about 78C and then levelled at 84C again. I ran it at 84C for about 5 minutes before turning on the pump and the temp dropped very quickly down to 57c and stayed there.



Basics
Corsair 800D case
ASUS P6X58D mobo
Intel I7 930
6G Corsair 1600 (8-8-8-24) 1.65v memory
EVGA GTX 275 (waiting for FERMI to decide what to upgrade to)
ASUS Sonar Essence sound card

Cooling
Swiftech Apogee XT CPU block
(Indigo Xtreme thermal compound)
Black Ice GTX 360 radiator
Laing D5 pump
Bitspower 250ml reservoir
1st PC Corp Hummer fan controller
3 x 120mm Scythe UltraKaze 3K fans (pull – blowing out through top of case)
2 x 140mm Yate-Loon high speed (blowing into the case)

Thanks in advance for your help!

[NaeKuh]

im assuming your radiator is mounted up top with barbs pointed down?

While your system is on... can you tilt up on the side your barbs are at and see if you see any bubbles escaping from your rad?
(so if your barbs are located twords the front of the case, then lift the front up, and have the rear sit down so its tilted. )

Horrizontally mounted rads with barbs pointed down is the biggest PITFA to fully bleed properly.

[Wryknow]

That's right. The radiator is mounted on top with the barbs pointed down. I'll try tilting it and seeing if I can get any bubbles out of it when I get home. What kind of temperatures would you expect me to be seeing on this set up?

[Boulard83]

I run my system for about 1 week with something under the front of the case ( like a dictionary ). I try to have it tilted for ~30° at least.

[shazza]

Can you give us your Core temp readings at idle and at 100% load ( using Real Temp, Everest, or similar?)? Also your ambient temp.

You've got plenty of rad and fan power, so that shouldn't be an issue. You might get a bit lower temps by bringing fresh air into the radiator from outside the case, but probably not a huge difference.

[NaeKuh]

What kind of temperatures would you expect me to be seeing on this set up?

If:

"have done a mild over clock on my I7 930 to 3.8 ghz at 1.3v."

I dont think u should be seeing numbers near 60C.

Probably low to mid 50's.. thats assuming u have standard ambients of about 20-23C.

[Conumdrum]

The ASUS utility is garbage.

Be nice to have the right load/measurement proggies before overclocking.

HW Monitor
RealTemp......best IMHO
CoreTemp

[Wryknow]

OK, see here's the Real Temp 3.0 data. At 175 bclk I was pulling between 54-58c. Cores 1 and 3 (from left to right) are 1-2 degrees cooler very consistently. I ran the CPU up to 1.350 and a 190 bclk and the temps went up another 2c and range between 56-60c. 30 minutes later it is in the same range. At a 192 bclk I start failing tests. I bumped the voltage up to 1.375 but it didn't help and at 1.4v = BSOD. I've got some work to do on this obviously, but that's a nother conversation I suppose.

I tried tilting the computer on it's side and even upside down to see if I got any bubbles but didn't see any. I think I'll try Boulard's suggestion and run it on a tilt for a while to see if it helps.

My thoughts right now is that the most likely issue is the Indigo Xtreme installation. Maybe I moved it and it is not centered properly or something? Seeing as how I know virtually nothing about this my opinion ain't worth much though :)

Thanks for all of the great input on this!

[Wryknow]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot - ambient temp is 27C (I live in Texas and it's already getting hot down here.)

[Zigosity]

I've got an Indigo pad in my rig right now, and it really isn't obvious if it's installed correctly :\. If I were to remount I'd use normal paste -- for the very minimal gains you get from this stuff, it's a pretty big hassle.

That, and my friend had the one on his 920 spontaneously leak all over the place. That was nice. Ruined the bottom of his Noctua cooler (he later lapped it).