Poor cooling with Silver Arrow?!?!

[Shiranui Gen-An]

Disappointed with my results using a Corsair H70, I grabbed a Silver Arrow from Micro Center yesterday to pair with my 980x/Rampage III Extreme open air bench system. I'm trying to go for 4.4~4.5GHz and be able to complete at least 5 passes in LinX. The problem doesn't seem to be voltage but rather temperature. With the H70 I'd hit TJMax 101°C almost immediately after starting. I was encouraged by Xbit Labs' results with the Silver Arrow. Unfortunately, I'm not getting anywhere near the temps they got. My ambient room temp is probably around 22°C but even so, I'm hitting very high temps even with the Silver Arrow. Either I have the hottest 980x in existence or something else is up. I'm using the included Chill Factor III TIM as I'm out of MX-2. Any tips???

[Captain_Harlock]

If you are getting high temps and you've tried multiple cooling solutions, then the problem lies in one of four things.
1. The case is not allowing proper airflow.
2. You have not mounted the TIM and/or cooler correctly.
3. You CPU has a badly installed IHS.
4. The CPU socket is misalligned and preventing your cooler from seating correctly.

The two simplest problems to check (and if need be fix) are options 1 and 2. Make sure your intake fans are working correctly and are not blocked as well as your exhaust fans. Tidy up cable mess if that is not already done. Make sure fresh air is getting to the cooler, passing through it and out the exhaust fan. Then there is the mounting. First off is to make sure that both the CPU and the cooler are as clean as you can make them. A good rub down with some elbow grease using 91% isopropyl alcohol tends to be enough. But if you can spare a few bucks then Arctic-Clean really does a better job. Just make sure you use a clean, lent free cloth when drying both the CPU and the cooler. Most paste/grease based TIM's tend to just need a small ammount, the size of a grain of rice on the center of the CPU. When you secure the cooler, it should spread the TIM over the surface as you tighten up the mount. Make sure you read the instructions for your TIM to be sure.

Now I assume that you already know all that, but thought I'd cover the basics just to make sure nothing got left out. If all that is taken care of then we are down to figuring out option 3 and/or 4. Both of these options are just plain bad luck and are rare now days. But every now and then, Intel or AMD will attach an IHS to the CPU poorly. They are nothing more than nickle plated copper lids that are soldered with a low temp melting solder and an epoxy on the outer edges to seal it off. Every now and then a lid goes on a bit off kilter or an air bubble gets trapped in the solder between the IHS and the core cover. If thats the case, then you need to have Intel exchange your CPU if its still under warranty. This one is hard to figure out, as sometimes its the socket thats really the problem. So I'll get back to this one in a bit.

Some times the socket assembly is bent or not secured to the board correctly. The guide rails that slide along the edges of the IHS, could be warped upwards or the whole top assembly could have a slight bend. Dont even think about trying to fix it unless you want to resk losing the board and frying or crushing the CPU. Send the board in for fixing or replacement if its under warranty. The best method to figure this out is to look at some web pages on TIM spread. Lean what a good spread looks like with the TIM of your choice is under an even pressure and done right. Then check yours. If you applied the TIM correctly and installed your cooler correctly, and you see that the spread is wonky, then its a safe bet that the socket is the cause.

Back to the CPU's IHS....If youve done everything listed above and you know for a fact that all is well then you simply may have a bad IHS. If you contact Intel about it and your warranty is no longer valid then you have two options. One is to just live with it. Yeah, it sucks and you got ripped if thats the case. But at least its working and you should be able to get a full life of use from the CPU but only at or close to stock speeds. The other option is hard work and holds significant risk to your system. You could remove the IHS. There are quite a few pages online that deal with doing this, so I wont go into details on it. I've done it twice with old socket 775 chips, just becuase I wanted too. Thats the easy part. The hard part is getting your cooler to mount saftly and correctly on the newly exposed core. You will have to mod your socket and add shimms to the top of the CPU package. A we bit to much pressure and you crack the core. Not enough and you risk poor contact and fry it. Give the price you paid for the 980x I would highly suggest that you not even consider something like this. While it can be fun and may solve your problem, its just not worth it. Just thought I'd point out some odd ball solutions.

Good luck with figuring it out and keep us posted on what you learn. If you do decide that you need a replacement part and something is out of warranty, then beg. It cant hurt and it may work for you.

[Hondacity]

thats so hot

[[XC] Oj101]

I have to ask, as a friend of mine did the same thing... There's a clear plastic sticker under the HSF which must be pulled off before mounting. Did you remove it?

[Shiranui Gen-An]

This is an open air bench so airflow shouldn't be an issue. I reapplied the TIM but it didn't make any difference sadly. Here's a pic of how the TIM looks after mounting:

[Shiranui Gen-An]

Another update: I mounted my Venomous X using the same mounting kit as the Silver Arrow, with 2x Scythe Slipstream 1200RPM. Look at my temps with it:



I'm totally confused. Isn't the Silver Arrow supposed to cool better than the Ven-X???

[Hyperhorn]

Under certain conditions the Silver Arrow performance seems to decrease dramatically. It reminds me of this test: http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/c...octua_nh-d14/2 (have a look at the difference between 4.2 and 4.4 GHz temperatures)

As you`re in the similar frequency range, I suggest you to repeat the comparison between the Venomous X and the Silver Arrow at lower voltages/clock frequencies and report back. I wanted to test this myself, but didn't made it so far.
If you can confirm this behaviour, it's likely a heatpipe limitation.

[Shiranui Gen-An]

I remounted the Silver Arrow with its stock fans and did another LinX run. This time the temps were about 7-8° lower than before, but still hotter than the Ven-X test.

[HKPolice]

Should've gotten the Archon. I have a similar setup and the outer cores max out around the mid 80s with 2x TY-140 fans. Silver arrow is just the same as the IFX14 which came out during the C2Q LGA775 era so it was never designed to handle the heat output of hexcore OCing IMO.

[[XC] Oj101]

I have to ask, as a friend of mine did the same thing... There's a clear plastic sticker under the HSF which must be pulled off before mounting. Did you remove it?

Bumpedy bump.

[Shiranui Gen-An]

Bumpedy bump.

Didn't think it was worth mentioning, but yeah I removed the plastic covering when I first unboxed it.

[Shiranui Gen-An]

Should've gotten the Archon. I have a similar setup and the outer cores max out around the mid 80s with 2x TY-140 fans. Silver arrow is just the same as the IFX14 which came out during the C2Q LGA775 era so it was never designed to handle the heat output of hexcore OCing IMO.

I still have time to return the SA to Micro Center so I'm good, I probably will try an Archon. On another note, I mounted the Slipstream fans on the Silver Arrow for a true apples-to-apples comparison with the Ven-X results:

[dasa]

what angle do you have the silver arrow mounted on? some heatpipe hsf seem to be rather sensitive to this
try it rotated to the two other possible angles if you can move your test rig onto its side for example

can you measure the temperature of the heatsinks base plate vs the top of each heatpipe? maybe some of them are not working

[Shiranui Gen-An]

I've boxed the Silver Arrow up and will return it to the store for a refund this weekend, no point keeping it with the temps I'm getting from my Venomous-X. I did 21 runs of LinX with the same CPU settings but memory bumped up to 1000MHz CAS7 and 4000MHz uncore and my temps barely got over 80°C (granted, ambient is a few degrees lower today).