Something wrong with my Zalman ZM-F3?

[Brick_top]

Hi everyone, after reading the fan roundup here in xtreme systems, I decided to buy a Zalman ZM-F3, but I'm a little dissapointed with the results I'm getting.

So I did a little test which probably isn't the most correct but I'll explain it to you.

First I attached the Zalman to my True, and put it at 1480rpm with my zalman fan controller, than I ran prime95 for 10 minutes and took a screen of the temperature reading as according to cpuid's hardware monitor.

I did the same for my Scythe S-Flex, but had it running at the maximum speed I can get with the controller which is 1406rpm.

Here are the results I got, I was expecting the Zalman to do a lot better.

Thank you and sorry if my english sounds strange.

the result i got with the zalman fan is in the left screen

[Vapor]

TMPIN1 and TMPIN2 are all 7-8C higher with the Zalman's run....while the CPU is 5-7C higher depending on the core. What are the TMPIN sensors associated with? Temp sensors on HDDs/motherboard/etc? Leads me to think the ambient went up ~7-8C while CPU temps went up 5-7C.

And out of curiosity why did you 'upgrade' from an S-Flex F? Just wanted more RPMs? Very, very little performance difference between an S-Flex F and a Zalman F3.

[Brick_top]

I don't know what are the sensors associated with, I have an Asus P5E motherboard but I'm running it with the rampage formula bios. I was guessing that I could get a little more performance for the extra rpm, because often I do some renderings and I just leave the computer, and at those times I don't care about noise. I don't know if ambient temps changed and I have no way to measure them, but I did the tests one right after the other. So do you also feel that these aren't the results I should be getting?

edit - Could it be that I could have the zalman facing the wrong direction?

[Vapor]

I don't think you should be getting those results with even a 1000RPM fan...:-/

Something's definitely awry.

...good thinking with the fan facing the wrong direction, flip it around and give it a try.

Or maybe you loosened the TRUE when you swapped fans? Cores 0 and 1 had larger increases in temps.

[Brick_top]

Well there is nothing wrong with my Zalman ZM-F3 I just had it blowing air in the opposite direction, sorry about that it's the first time I build a computer, I'm not used to things like this. So my temps with the zalman are now 1ºc less than with the scythe at the rpm I showed in the first post.

Thanks a lot for your help Vapor!

[KaOSoFt]

Well there is nothing wrong with my Zalman ZM-F3 I just had it blowing air in the opposite direction, sorry about that it's the first time I build a computer, I'm not used to things like this. So my temps with the zalman are now 1ºc less than with the scythe at the rpm I showed in the first post.

Thanks a lot for your help Vapor!

Hahaha, don't worry, I once had a PSU set the other way around because I thought the fan would be pushing air (not pulling it, like it does), and since I am so smart, I put it aiming at the top of my case, where there was a space of less than a centimeter between the case and the PSU itself. It'd help me to get cooler temperatures... Yeah, right!