HOLY CRAP MY UTT BH's get so hot...Any ideas for cooling?

[red_dragon]

I have some OCZ GX PC3500's running @ 255 3.5V right now for burn-in. They get really really hot even with cooling from XP-120 and another 120mm fan...How the hell are you supposed to cool these things?! Ideas would be much appreciated!

[MaxxxRacer]

if u dont want to void ur warranty u can add some ramsinks to the heat spreaders. or if u dont mind voiding it, rip off the heatspreaders and run the fan directly on them.


EDIT: oh btw, mind keeping the swearing to a minimum.

[red_dragon]

if u dont want to void ur warranty u can add some ramsinks to the heat spreaders. or if u dont mind voiding it, rip off the heatspreaders and run the fan directly on them.


EDIT: oh btw, mind keeping the swearing to a minimum.

Will do. And thx for the suggestion. I think I'll give it a try

[celemine1Gig]

Well, I agree that the stock heatspreaders do more harm then what they help most of the time. But, if you really want to cool those RAM-chips get some real RAMsinks (for example Thermaltake RAMsinks; little blue heatsinks) or build your own. In order to cool semiconductors correctly, heatsinks are a must.

So, the hierarchy of cooling from worst to best would look like this:

-stock heatspreaders no active cooling
-no heatspreaders without active cooling
-stock heatspreaders with active cooling
-only RAMsinks
-no heatspreaders with active cooling
-RAMsinks with active cooling (already way better than anyhing else)
-watercooling on the RAMs (although that'd be overkill)

[MutantToad]

Then comes chilled liquid cooling, and then phase change. But Maxxx told me that that would be insane...maybe my insanity would be more appreciated at Hardware Asylum .

[HARDCORECLOCKER]

Where's the problem........?

[red_dragon]

Where's the problem........?

Hah nice. That's pretty much what I have going on right now. (Minus the water you have going) but I have the heatspreaders still on my ram. In that case, I should take off the heatspreaders and then put on some ramsinks?

[HARDCORECLOCKER]

Hah nice. That's pretty much what I have going on right now. (Minus the water you have going) but I have the heatspreaders still on my ram. In that case, I should take off the heatspreaders and then put on some ramsinks?

Depends on Your RAM - my BH-5 move up to 283MHz 1.5-2-2-5 with 3.72 Vdimm so I kept the HS.

If You picked up bad RAM You can gain some MHz by removing them. If You set them under air as I did there is no need for heatsinks.

[red_dragon]

hmmm ic. but it's better to have them off than on right? cooling-wise that is.

[celemine1Gig]

It all depends on how well they were mounted in the factory. If they make good contact with the chips they could even help a bit, but as I said, most of the time, contact is bad and they do more heat blocking than heat transferring.

Edit:
BTW, something came to my mind yesterday that I wanted to add.

One real big problem with those heaspreaders that I didn't read about yet is the following.
For example OCZ uses mirror finished heapsreaders and in case of heat dissipation a mirror finished surface is as bad as it gets. The higher the suface roughness the better is the heat dissipation and vice versa. That shows that those spreaders areonly there for show, but noone thinks about their real purpose.
For good heat dissipation you need a certain surface area, but those spreaders just don't have that. So if you think about that and you have a look at the products available today, marketed for RAM "cooling", you realize that most heatspreaders have a shiny surface. That means almost any heatspreaders available are only there to make your RAM look better, but their function is highly doubtable.
It is clear that there's not much space around the RAM-sticks, but IMHO, if you decide to make a product for RAM cooling, and you clearly state that "cooling" is it's prupose, then you should think about what you are doing and then do it right. It would be as easy as to fabricate the spreaders with a certain surface roughness, or some lines cut into the material or something like that, just to increase the surface area by a great amount. That would already help making them much better than anything that can be bough today. They could still be produced, anodized in any color you like, but they would indeed work. Wouldn't that be great.

Perhaps some company reads this and does think about it and we could have really functional heatspreaders soon.

[red_dragon]

It all depends on how well they were mounted in the factory. If they make good contact with the chips they could even help a bit, but as I said, most of the time, contact is bad and they do more heat blocking than heat transferring.

Edit:
BTW, something came to my mind yesterday that I wanted to add.

One real big problem with those heaspreaders that I didn't read about yet is the following.
For example OCZ uses mirror finished heapsreaders and in case of heat dissipation a mirror finished surface is as bad as it gets. The higher the suface roughness the better is the heat dissipation and vice versa. That shows that those spreaders areonly there for show, but noone thinks about their real purpose.
For good heat dissipation you need a certain surface area, but those spreaders just don't have that. So if you think about that and you have a look at the products available today, marketed for RAM "cooling", you realize that most heatspreaders have a shiny surface. That means almost any heatspreaders available are only there to make your RAM look better, but their function is highly doubtable.
It is clear that there's not much space around the RAM-sticks, but IMHO, if you decide to make a product for RAM cooling, and you clearly state that "cooling" is it's prupose, then you should think about what you are doing and then do it right. It would be as easy as to fabricate the spreaders with a certain surface roughness, or some lines cut into the material or something like that, just to increase the surface area by a great amount. That would already help making them much better than anything that can be bough today. They could still be produced, anodized in any color you like, but they would indeed work. Wouldn't that be great.

Perhaps some company reads this and does think about it and we could have really functional heatspreaders soon.

Yea that makes sense. I took em off already and they're sittin in my system bare . Functional heatspreaders in future? probably not :P

[IYP]

get a little fan and strap it on with some rubberbands on the ram tabs

[5-Clicks]

is there a way to take off the spreaders without completely destroying them?

[ImportantAwareness89]

So if I had OCZ VX you wuold recommend taking off the heatspreaders and then putting ramsinks on???

[STEvil]

Its not so much the heatspreader that causes the problem as it is the method of attachment.

That said, new stuff comming... and 3.5v is out of warranty (3.1v) for GX anyways.

[red_dragon]

yep yep. You just keep putting constant pressure on the heatspreader and it detaches. Came off nice and neat.

[Major]

a bunch of ideas here:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=47413

[se7en.hu]

Get some nice RAM sinks they will do good I promise

I use them on my G.Skill TCCDs LE's and they are so awesome I am happy I did it

Mine (they are damn heavy though each RAM stick weighs in close to 1KG )

http://img35.echo.cx/my.php?image=picture0048ma.jpg

[red_dragon]

hahaha Which ram sinks did you get?

[celemine1Gig]

I think he's using these:

http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/memory/ramsink.htm

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[HiJon89]

Hah nice. That's pretty much what I have going on right now. (Minus the water you have going)

Water? Try phase change

[red_dragon]

Water? Try phase change

hah yea oops.

[cartmanea]

If I wasn't afraid of voiding my warranty, I would put some heatsinks or even copper heatsptreaders on with some Arctic Alumina Epoxy, they clamp them until they dry to ensure good contact on every chip.

I like Mushkin's warranty though...so the heatspreaders stay on

[k00lance]

add some 3 x delta 60mm or 80mm fans.
Its easy to ziptie them around the mem with nicely neat looking