Problems Oc'ing my i7

[tazmanfrom]

I am running an ASUS PT6 Deluxe V2, i920 and Corsair Dominator. The CPU fan is a Nexus FLC-3000. If I run the system at 3Ghz with Prim 95 the cores will get up to around 75-76C, if I run it at 3.2, they get up to 84C. Do I just have a crappy cooler or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,

Rob

[tazmanfrom]

Re: Problems Oc'ing my i7

Anyone?

[dbee]

Re: Problems Oc'ing my i7

with those temp jumps , it sounds like you need to reseat the heatsink.

Remove it and use 90% rubbing alcohol to clean both the heat sink and cpu surfaces if you dont have something to clean them with.

You dont need to remove the cpu to clean it, but you must be very careful.

Or, you may have used too much Thermal compound . Arctic silver 5 is very good , just dont use the stock stuff . Either way, you will need a reseat.

How did u apply your thermal compound? Pea size in the center and let it spread? straight line? I used the spread with a folded. business card method. Should be a thin layer, able to see the surface of the cpu very lightly.

Also, please tell us you bios settings , i.e. voltages, all the significant ones.

For reference, i have my i7 on a Gigabyte UD3R , all specs are in my sig.
Temps idle at 35c and peak at 65c on Prime 95. And this is even considered a bit high compared to others .

[tazmanfrom]

Re: Problems Oc'ing my i7

I got my temps down. What I did is reseat the fan and the temps came down to the mid 70's for the hottest core. I am also able to undervolt the CPU and get no errors in Prime95 nor OCCT.

The other thing I sis that lowered the temps another degree or 2 is I rotated the CPU cooler differently than what the instruction say. My case has 2 fans at the top, one blowing straight out the top and one blowing to the back at the top. Nexus wants you to have the fan blowing towards the PCI slots, which is the opposite direction of the regular case air flow. Now I have it blowing towards the top of the case. I thought of having blowing towards the back, but the mobo has a large heat pipe for the chipset there and all the USB, keyborad, LAN ports. So I figured the flow would be somewhat obstructed.

I ran Prime 95 for 4 hours and the temp on the hottest core settled to 72-73C. This is at 3.4Mhz oc. The CPU temp hovers around 60C (CPUTIN). So I think the numbers look good. Room temp was around 70-74F.

[dbee]

Re: Problems Oc'ing my i7

Thats a good start. U can shave off another 6-10 degrees turning off HT, hyperthreading, multithreading, whatever asus may call it. It is pretty much useless unless you do video encoding or similar.

You got a great board, great cpu, great ram, I really think you could have chose a better cooler though. The egg only has one review on it... You could really have done much better with what you paid for it, unless you got it for free. Even if you did get it for free, i would have chose a cooler with more history and backround such as the Noctua, TRUE, CM V8, there's a ton of out there.

Just something to consider.

[tazmanfrom]

Re: Problems Oc'ing my i7

Based on the performance I'm getting from the cooler, I'm not sure if any of the other ones would provide THAT much improvement. I could be wrong, but the numbers I am getting I think are acceptable?

[dbee]

Re: Problems Oc'ing my i7

Trust me, i really dont mean to dog on your cooler at all but compared to some others such as the noctua and TRUE, you will see a difference of maybe 5-10 degrees. seriously possible. There really is several other variables .

Looks like yours is made to be low profile and quiet. I consider acceptable temps to be under 70c. If you dont do video encoding or similar tasks that would actually use the multithreading, i would shut it off.

Did a test last night at 3.8ghz and my load temp got upto 78c with Multithreading on, With it off i get temps 68c. Yeah it makes that much difference. Mostly though i see average of 8c difference with it on and off.

When i use 165x21=3.465 / 1.2vcore and HT ON, My temps only get to 58c.

by the way, whats your Vcore at??

[tazmanfrom]

Re: Problems Oc'ing my i7

I do use it to encode video, so I have to keep HT on (it makes a huge difference). I'm happy with my core load temps in the 70's, from all I have read it's fine (even 80's are fine for i7's, but I like the 70's better).

My Vcore is at 1.15V and stable (yes, undervolted).