# Help!!! Are these temps high for my setup???



## pabloottawa (Feb 4, 2011)

Hi guys,

I just tried setting the bios to XMP and just the multipliers to 190 x 100. Everything else I left on AUTO. I then rebooted and ran Linx and it was stable but I found i was running a bit hot. I'm just wondering if these figures will damage the CPU. 

I do know that overclocking will wear down the CPU over time and I accept that. What i really want to know is if these numbers and temps are too dangerous to handle. I'm using Kingston Value Ram and it has held up SO FAR. I'll upgrade to better Ram when i have the cash but for now it's KVR.

Here is my setup, my temps and the results I got running Linx

Setup:

Win 7 x64 Raid 0
ASUS P6T motherboard
Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
Intel i7 930 @ 4Ghz
Kingston KVR 1333 12GB 6x2
Corsair H70 CPU liquid cooling
Crossfire Primary: Asus EAH 5850 Secondary: Powercolor 5850
Cooler Master HAF 922 Case 


Temps during test:

Core 0 High 91   low 41
Core 1 High 87   low 39
Core 2 High 85   low 41
Core 3 High 81   low 33


Linx test results:

Intel(R) LINPACK 64-bit data - LinX 0.6.4

Current date/time: Fri Feb 04 09:52:10 2011

CPU frequency:    4.009 GHz
Number of CPUs: 8
Number of threads: 8

Parameters are set to:

Number of tests                             : 1
Number of equations to solve (problem size) : 10000
Leading dimension of array                  : 10008
Number of trials to run                     : 20   
Data alignment value (in Kbytes)            : 4    

Maximum memory requested that can be used = 800844256, at the size = 10000

============= Timing linear equation system solver =================

Size   LDA    Align. Time(s)    GFlops   Residual     Residual(norm)
10000  10008  4      13.904     47.9610  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.650     48.8532  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.548     49.2212  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.613     48.9891  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.662     48.8116  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.814     48.2752  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.574     49.1279  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.607     49.0085  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.567     49.1547  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.652     48.8480  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.659     48.8209  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.625     48.9450  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.556     49.1921  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.630     48.9269  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.597     49.0435  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.540     49.2513  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.621     48.9598  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.542     49.2439  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.620     48.9607  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002
10000  10008  4      13.705     48.6589  9.915883e-011 3.496441e-002

Performance Summary (GFlops)

Size   LDA    Align.  Average  Maximal
10000  10008  4       48.9127  49.2513 

End of tests

Cheers and Thanks


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## MRCL (Feb 4, 2011)

over 80° O_O Well if its centigrade, load temps are high. Idle seems okay. But damn average 90°...


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## brandonwh64 (Feb 4, 2011)

HMMM check your Vcore with CPUz cause with a H70, you shouldnt get those temps. leaving everything on auto is a no no for me, The motherboard sometimes thinks 1.5V is good for the CPU lolz


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## DonInKansas (Feb 4, 2011)

AUto-voltage is no go.  That's probably your heat issue.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 4, 2011)

Hey guys thanks for the replies,

Here are some numbers from CPU-Z at idle:

Core Speed: 4007.6
Multiplier: X 21
Bus Speed: 190.8 MHz
QPI Link: 3435.3 MHz


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## MRCL (Feb 4, 2011)

DonInKansas said:


> AUto-voltage is no go.  That's probably your heat issue.



Listen to the man on the amazing horse. Its most likely voltage related. Automatic settings may do the trick for minor overclocks, but the higher you want to go, the more you should adjust manually. And the voltage, you should adjust that always manually.

For example, Frequency X, and automatic generates voltage Y, which is too high.
But with manual tuning, you can get to frequency X with voltage Z, which is considerably lower than the automatic setting, thus lowering your temps.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 4, 2011)

Another thing is, with the an i7 board and on the 930 there are so many places to enter voltage and core numbers. Example; in the bios it doesn't just have "vcore voltage", it has

CPU VOLTAGE
and
CPU PLL VOLTAGE

there's tons of other voltages listed so it's a bit confusing and I do apologize but when it comes to all this I am a total noob. Also I just tried setting the CPU VOLTAGE to 1.25 and the linx test caused a BSOD. so now What?


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## pabloottawa (Feb 4, 2011)

Hey guys thanks for all the help.... 

I just set my CPU voltage to 1.35 and ran Linx and it went through with no errors or crashes so would this be a good first step in setting the bios manually??? If so what would be next?

By the way, like I said, there are tons of different voltages to set so when you all say "set this voltage" or "change that" I am compelled to guess at which "thing" to set. Here is a pic to explain the different voltages and controls.


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## micropage7 (Feb 4, 2011)

my temp goes about 80 celcius on air cooling at stock clock, but when your rig is oced with water cooling i guess it could be lower or at least stay about 80
personally i prefer checking the cooler first before change other things, the water, fan, water block, the loop and so
what bout thermal paste? And the airflow, your room ambient is affect the whole temp too


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## Anusha (Feb 4, 2011)

just lower your vcore as much as you can. i suppose you are not gonna attempt any higher than 4GHz?


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## Laurijan (Feb 4, 2011)

I would reset the Bios to optimal defaults - this way you make sure the voltages are all on default. If the problem continues I guess the H70 is not install right. Maybe needs some more thermal paste or something like that


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## pabloottawa (Feb 4, 2011)

OK,

I set the CPU VOLTAGE to: 1.35 and the DRAM bus voltage to 1.6, ran some tests and they are stable.

So all in all here are the settings that I customized for overclocking.. So is this safe? Will my case explode in a month??? and in all honesty, will buying fancy shmancy RAM make things better? Cooler Temp wise? 

I'm really NOT looking to have a flashy PC and case, I just want something that performs really well for the money. I'm not a neon, led lights "look at my case" kind of guy.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 4, 2011)

micropage7 said:


> my temp goes about 80 celcius on air cooling at stock clock, but when your rig is oced with water cooling i guess it could be lower or at least stay about 80
> personally i prefer checking the cooler first before change other things, the water, fan, water block, the loop and so
> what bout thermal paste? And the airflow, your room ambient is affect the whole temp too




Thanks for the tip micropage. Since it was the first time installing the H70 I used the thermal compound already on the cooler. The installation of the cooler onto the CPU was not entirely smooth and lead to the compound getting a little smudged. Not much mind you, just a little. Also, I had to twist the radiator so that the hoses would be on the bottom as opposed to how it's meant to be installed. This was done so that the hoses would not interfere with the 200mm case fan on the side panel.  

Just because the cooler wasn't installed the EXACT way it's supposed to go I suppose it's a reason to believe it's not cooling to it's full potential but I don't see why this would affect anything. 

The room temps hit 26.5 Celsius in the middle of the day so this might be a factor. And lastly there is the way the cooler sits on the CPU. For the cooler head to fit snugly onto the CPU it's a simple matter of pressing the head into the retention ring and twisting it. Them you tighten the screws on the retention ring BUT, what if you didn't tightness all the screws down to the same tightness? This could mean that the cooler head isn't seated properly and therefore not cooling to spec. So in light of all this new info. Does anyone else have any other suggestions?

Thanks again for all your help


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## b82rez (Feb 4, 2011)

I say buy some nice after market thermal paste and reseat your H70 then go to the Overclocking thread here and *read * the overclocking guide. No offense but it sounds like you need some training in OCing buddy!


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## pabloottawa (Feb 4, 2011)

No offense taken... I'm a self proclaimed NOOB at all this and to be honest it's a bit confusing. All these numbers and terms and I don't mind learning it all but I'm really surprised that not that many people are using an overclocked P6T with an i7930 paired with Kingston Value RAM and an H70 cooler..... Lol Am I the only one here?  

I'm gonna see if I can find an old tube of arctic silver. I know there is some here in my office..... Somewhere haha


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## PaulieG (Feb 4, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> No offense taken... I'm a self proclaimed NOOB at all this and to be honest it's a bit confusing. All these numbers and terms and I don't mind learning it all but I'm really surprised that not that many people are using an overclocked P6T with an i7930 paired with Kingston Value RAM and an H70 cooler..... Lol Am I the only one here?
> 
> I'm gonna see if I can find an old tube of arctic silver. I know there is some here in my office..... Somewhere haha



Read this guide. It will help no matter which board you have. The guy who wrote this was one of us "early adopters" to the x58 platform. Read, then take your time making subtle changes in the bios. The biggest mistakes noobs make is rushing into major changes, not stability testing, and not keeping a close eye on temps. Once you've clocked the chip slowly to 3.8ghz or so, and you still have high temps then the answer may very well be remounting the cooler. Don't count on google for that specific board initially either, as it may steer you in the wrong direction, since each i7 will handle your settings differently. I know this based on more than a dozen that I've overclocked.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108526


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 4, 2011)

On the thermal paste side,the one that comes with the H70 is actually the one of the best ones on the market,so that wouldnt be an issue.on the smearing it during the installation process side,it could make some sense,since the 10 degrees differnce between core 0 and core 3 is just too much.there will be always a difference,but 10 degrees seems to be too much.also could indicate one of your concerns you've mentioned-that the screws are not tightened evenly.Im also on core i7 930 @ 4GHz and the hottest core during hight stress tests after lets say an hour would be 86-87  degree,so its like 82-87 across the 4 cores..on the core voltage side,try 1.325V..on the in which position you've installed the cooler side,It shouldnt make any difference..at what speed are you using the fans?did you check if you didnt install one of them accidentaly the wrong way?...Also,you could try to install them the way that they are pulling air into the case,not blowing it out.check the speed of the fans..

EDIT:sorry my mistake,Im not on core i7 930,but 950  sorry bout this missleading information.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 4, 2011)

Mechanically I'm not that bad.... I do my own maintenance on my car (A4 1.8T Quattro) and if you've ever own a turbo charged car you know that you're always tinkering with it. That said I know I installed the fans correctly in a push pull configuration moving air INTO the case. The screws however do raise a bit of doubt so I'll have another look at that tonight. 

Rado, what kind of memory are you using?


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## cdawall (Feb 4, 2011)

memory does not affect temps at all.

dumb question you did pull the plastic off of everything right?


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 4, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Mechanically I'm not that bad.... I do my own maintenance on my car (A4 1.8T Quattro) and if you've ever own a turbo charged car you know that you're always tinkering with it. That said I know I installed the fans correctly in a push pull configuration moving air INTO the case. The screws however do raise a bit of doubt so I'll have another look at that tonight.
> 
> Rado, what kind of memory are you using?



Im using 6GB 3-channel kit from g.skill at..hell its all in my specs 
What I was just thinking is,that since you've got double of the amout of the memory I have..now if Im right,this should let the stress programs to push your rig that much further in terms of utilizing all the resources to max stress.everybody knows that higher bandwich thanks to your 12GB of memory is simply making the processor working faster and harder = more heat..but I might be wrong.

EDIT:


cdawall said:


> memory does not affect temps at all.
> 
> dumb question you did pull the plastic off of everything right?



I believe it does,at least in stress tests.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 4, 2011)

Now, 

I went in and rechecked the tightness and retightened everything with 2 fingers on the screw driver to what I *think* is the same tightness. Rado, I took your advice and set the Vcore to 1.325 but have not run Linx yet. Update to follow....


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 5, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Now,
> 
> I went in and rechecked the tightness and retightened everything with 2 fingers on the screw driver to what I *think* is the same tightness. Rado, I took your advice and set the Vcore to 1.325 but have not run Linx yet. Update to follow....



Hey,you could try as low as it goes!thats the best thing to do.dont worry,with too low voltage you cant do any harm you your cpu..it will simply BSOD upon stressing but thats it..you can go in the bios and change it..honestly the best strategy is to find the lowest possible core voltage..you could be surprised how much difference it will make in the temperatures!


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## cdawall (Feb 5, 2011)

Rado D said:


> Im using 6GB 3-channel kit from g.skill at..hell its all in my specs
> What I was just thinking is,that since you've got double of the amout of the memory I have..now if Im right,this should let the stress programs to push your rig that much further in terms of utilizing all the resources to max stress.everybody knows that higher bandwich thanks to your 12GB of memory is simply making the processor working faster and harder = more heat..but I might be wrong.
> 
> EDIT:
> ...



well it doesn't i am telling you from experience

if your car was overheating would you blame it on your tires? same thing here


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 5, 2011)

cdawall said:


> if your car was overheating would you blame it on your tires? same thing here



sorry,but even if I would agree with you,this example was totally wrong 

What about:Lets say 21"  tires = less RAM (spinning slower) and 14" tires = more RAM (spinnig faster)
which tires will get hotter and wear out quicker??....


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## cdawall (Feb 5, 2011)

Rado D said:


> sorry,but even if I would agree with you,this example was totally wrong
> 
> What about:Lets say 21"  tires = less RAM (spinning slower) and 14" tires = more RAM (spinnig faster)
> which tires will get hotter and wear out quicker??....



yes but the car isn't running any hotter. it does not matter i have run all sorts of systems ram does not make the cpu hotter its just ram. 

since you didn't get the first analogy how about this does a blue car's engine run any hotter than a red one's?


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 5, 2011)

cdawall said:


> yes but the car isn't running any hotter. it does not matter i have run all sorts of systems ram does not make the cpu hotter its just ram.
> 
> since you didn't get the first analogy how about this does a blue car's engine run any hotter than a red one's?



This could just go on and on my friend,peace


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## pabloottawa (Feb 5, 2011)

OK so I tried the 1.325 and on running Linx it BSOD'd on me so I jacked it up 2 notches and ran it at 1.33sumthin and it BSOD'd again. I again ran it on 1.35 and it is running smooth once again but BFBC2 locked up on me and crashed so who knows what that's about. I also noticed that while I was playing, according to Core Temp, my temps on core 0 got to 71 which I found to be pretty high and maybe that happened when the game CTD'd. 

Either way, you will all be please to know that upon re tightening my  screws and being more careful about the equal tightness of all of them I got better temps. Highest I think was 79... I never went over 80 celcius. 

So, for anyone wondering how important it is to carefully and EQUALLY tighten the screws on the H70 retention ring, there you go. 

I did find a new tube of arctic silver kicking around but after all this mucking about with temps and bios settings I think I'll stick with the regular stuff for now.


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## OneMoar (Feb 5, 2011)

Intel specs the default voltage for the 930 at 1.375 
70c is ok for the a i7
and bc2 is hypersensitive to OC I would't pay it much mind it crashes to desktop even on stock machines
the H70 while good .. does have its limits


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## cdawall (Feb 5, 2011)

OneMoar said:


> Intel specs the default voltage for the 930 at 1.375
> 70c is ok for the a i7


that is true however 70C is a bit odd on an H70 for cooling.


@op are you sure the screws are all the way down? i have an H70 and H50 both of which need the screws on the mounting plate to be bottomed out if they are not that is probably 90% of the issue. they dont have to be he-manned on but the need to be tight


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## OneMoar (Feb 5, 2011)

cdawall said:


> that is true however 70C is a bit odd on an H70 for cooling.
> 
> 
> @op are you sure the screws are all the way down? i have an H70 and H50 both of which need the screws on the mounting plate to be bottomed out if they are not that is probably 90% of the issue. they dont have to be he-manned on but the need to be tight



to tight and he will crush the pins in the  socket rendering his motherboard dead


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## cdawall (Feb 5, 2011)

OneMoar said:


> to tight and he will crush the pins in the  socket rendering his motherboard dead



they are spaced to not allow that LGA1366 and 1156 have the same basic socket design and mine didn't crush anything...


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## OneMoar (Feb 5, 2011)

cdawall said:


> they are spaced to not allow that LGA1366 and 1156 have the same basic socket design and mine didn't crush anything...



they can still be pushed out the back of the motherboard


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## cdawall (Feb 5, 2011)

OneMoar said:


> they can still be pushed out the back of the motherboard



yes thats how the pins are designed the screws go all the way through the motherboard into the back plate. due to how the screw is designed you cannot screw the block down to tight it is not physically possible the threading on the screw stops before you could reach that point. I am telling you cause i own the exact same cooler as him.


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## PaulieG (Feb 5, 2011)

seriously, if you are running 70c+ on bfbc2, then you definately have a problem with the mounting of the cooler or thermal paste, or you have a chip that runs unusually hot.


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## Laurijan (Feb 5, 2011)

I would recommend to remove the cooler and to clean the old thermal paste way and then put a new evenly on both the cooler and the CPU.
I usually use a finger to evenly spread the thermal paste - endresult is a thin even layer of paste.
Then I would press the cooler with moderate force onto the CPU without the screws to see if the thermal paste makes perfect contact when removing the cooler and looking at its surface and the surface of the CPU


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## pabloottawa (Feb 5, 2011)

@ CDAWALL

I'm sure the screws are evenly tightened. I loosened all of them off to the same looseness and then systematically tightened then in a diagonal pattern. Like you said, they are tight but not he-manned on. I'm pretty sure it's flush. 

@PAULIEG

I'm running BC2 on a crossfire setup and let me tell you I've done everything under the sun to get that game to work flawlessly but no go!!. It still flickers and screws up however, the instant I disable crossfire it's perfect. I'm really disappointed with AMD for f*cking up the ATI line of cards. They used to be soooooo sweet.

@LAURIJAN

Yes I'm gonna do that for sure but I am now a little cautious of arctic silver and a little tired of troubleshooting the issue. I once re-did my entire video card with it and ended up frying it because some got onto the contacts on the sides of the ram chips and shorted it out sooooo, this time around I'll be extra careful to be sure that there is a really thin layer of the stuff covering the CPU. Also, getting the cooler head onto the chip is a bit tricky with such stiff hoses so I want hold off removing it so that the hoses can "mold" to their orientation. This way, when I do remove it, it will be much easier to reinstall. 

For now I'm stuck on stress tests topping out at 81 degrees Celsius and this goes back to my original question;

Will these temps affect the lifespan of the CPU? and ifso, by how much?

Lastly, I have checked my CPU in game and it's really not all that busy so I suppose it's not so bad. BC2 now runs much better at full settings (that's the goal that got me on all this overclocking stuff) with an overclocked chip so I'm getting the feeling that it's a bit more CPU dependent than other games.

I'm still open to suggestions and tips as I really want to get this baby down to below 60 degrees if I can. 

Cheers and thanks all


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## Anusha (Feb 5, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Will these temps affect the lifespan of the CPU? and ifso, by how much?


they say, every 10c added, halves the lifespan. 

so if your chip would have 30 years of life at 40c, it would be 15 years at 50c, 7.5 years at 60c etc.

btw, running stress test for a while wouldn't have much effect. this halving happens when running extensively. say if your idle temp is around 60c, you might have a problem because that is the lowest temp you would get. highest would be over 100c, which might not happen unless you stress test, but if games make it run at 80c, then yikes! 

just don't worry if stress tests are getting it to 80c. you run it for a few hours just to see if the clocks are stable. it won't have any effect on the lifespan. (but don't let it go above 80c even when stress testing will ya? XD)


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## PaulieG (Feb 5, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> @ CDAWALL
> 
> I'm sure the screws are evenly tightened. I loosened all of them off to the same looseness and then systematically tightened then in a diagonal pattern. Like you said, they are tight but not he-manned on. I'm pretty sure it's flush.
> 
> ...



Consistent high temps will reduce the lifespan of your cpu. By how much, no one can really say, as there are too many variables, including how often/long is the chip running on high temps etc. I really think your temps are user error with applying thermal paste or mounting of the cooler. If it were me, I'd start over with the whole process. Wipe the cpu clean, reapply, then remount the cooler, making sure it is even and making good contact. I'd be willing to bet that you'd drop 10c at load if you do this correctly.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 5, 2011)

@PAULIEG

Yup. Gonna do that in 2 weeks and then we'll see how that goes. I'm running silent hunter 5 in the background as we speak and idle temps are between 40 and 32, bring the game up and I'm running between 50 and 39 degrees Celcius so I guess it's not so bad. 

After I had signed off last night I ran Linx 3 times at the original overclocked settings that I THOUGHT were stable and I got  BSOD's every single time. So I set my clock speeds and most of the other settings to auto and it's running stable@ 4.01 GHx now.... Topping out temps of 81 Celsius but stable. I'll take some pics of my settings in case anyone wants to try it.

EDIT, here are the pics

I posted the wrong pics so here they are updated. Have a look and let me know what you think


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

Paulieg said:


> I'd be willing to bet that you'd drop 10c at load if you do this correctly.


I'll take that bet. I run 4ghz @ 1.35v, my load temps are 98c. Do I care about those temps?



NOPE.


Here's a pic before IBT has finished a fulll round...already @ 93c.






In my case, it's a bad IHS. the temps there kinda indicate that, with one core 10c lower than the others. Doesn't have to be thermal paste that casuses high temps...


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## brandonwh64 (Feb 5, 2011)

why dont you just drop your OC back to stock and leave it until you get temps down?


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## PaulieG (Feb 5, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> I'll take that bet. I run 4ghz @ 1.35v, my load temps are 98c. Do I care about those temps?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, but he is running into the 80's while gaming. I've never seen temps like that while gaming, not in any game, ever. IBT is a completely different story. I agree that in your case it is a IHS, but the usual suspect is usually paste or mounting, and it would make sense to rule them out.


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

Oh, don't get me wrong, normal load temps in BFBC2 ARE 80's for me. 83-86, to be exact. Except for that one core...it's about 6c lower then. Prime95 is 91c-93c.

It's stable at those high temps, and that's all I care about. Things like IMC volts and such can raise cpu temps are fair amount. I mean, I KNOW my own temps are high, but if it dies..well..it dies!

I look at it this way...high cpu speed? CHECK. Dual VGAS? Check. High temps? Check. Normal based on my own expectations? Check.


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## PaulieG (Feb 5, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Oh, don't get me wrong, normal load temps in BFBC2 ARE 80's for me. 83-86, to be exact. Except for that one core...it's about 6c lower then. Prime95 is 91c-93c.
> 
> It's stable at those high temps, and that's all I care about.



Well, how much you care about a chip is partially determined by how long you plan to keep your current setup, and if you have the cash to replace it if the heat causes any damage. Despite what a chip's TJ max may be, I've seen chips die with consistent use just below TJ max. Your "typical" user will only upgrade every 2-3 years, which is a little different than people like you and I who change gear frequently.


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

Sure, but you are just stating the obvious.

Personally, I don't care about temps. Are the OP's temps consistent with his cooling, given the clocks and volts?


I think so, 100%.

With that in mind, are his temps high? NO.

Are they close to tjMax? Yep. Should he expect better out of the same cooling? NOPE. Maybe with some new fans his temps might drop a bit, and sure, it's possible that his mount is not the best, but those temps seem about normal to me.


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## Laurijan (Feb 5, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Sure, but you are just stating the obvious.
> 
> Personally, I don't care about temps. Are the OP's temps consistent with his cooling, given the clocks and volts?
> 
> ...



Dont make his problem worse in telling him all is alright  When nothing changes RMA could be soon at hand - and this time, if we are bitchy, the warranty doesnt apply since he uses a third party cooler which sure is better but voids the warranty.

So I highly suggest to fix this before having to say: Dear CPU R.I.P.


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## PaulieG (Feb 5, 2011)

I don't think it's obvious to everyone, especially if someone has limited experience. Dozen's of blown systems from customers who thought they knew what they were doing has taught me that.  

I will concede after reading some reviews that these temps are somewhat normal for the H7 with a single fan. To me, that is quite sad, as my Megahalems and Venomous-X barely made it into the 80's on OCCT or LinX, let alone while gaming.


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

Laurijan said:


> Dont make his problem worse in telling him all is alright  When nothing changes RMA could be soon at hand - and this time, if we are precise, the warranty doesnt apply since he uses a third party cooler which sure is better but voids the warranty.
> 
> So I highly suggest to fix this before having to say: Dear CPU R.I.P.



I never said it was OK, but merely that his temps are right where they should be given, his cooling. Better cooling will "fix" the problem, as will lowering clocks/volts. It's up to him to chose which way to go...I chose to take the risk.

And yeah, paulie, the H70 isn't really that good of a cooler. I mean, it's good, but it's not "the best". I chose to use the Noctua cooler over the h70...I have both the H70 and the H50, and am not using either one of them.


----------



## Laurijan (Feb 5, 2011)

Pabloottawa, if you decide to give a cooler reinstall a go then if Arctic Silver get on some place it does harm, a good way to clean it is with ear-buds and some high alcohol. 

I got a spray that contains mostly high alcohol and evaporates fast. This I spray on one end of a ear-bud and start cleaning. 

To get a good result one has to use many ear-buds, just throw it way when its too full with thermal paste to clean anymore. 

Sometimes the TIM gets also in places where you cant reach with the ear-buds. Then I recommend spraying a little from the high alcohol spray to the spot the TIM is clustered which should flush it out so you can clean it again with ear-buds soaked in high alcohol.


----------



## pabloottawa (Feb 5, 2011)

Oh for sure I'll always do the alcohol thing to make sure it's perfectly clean.   awww screw it I'll try it now. You convinced me.    be back in an hour lol


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## PaulieG (Feb 5, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Oh for sure I'll always do the alcohol thing to make sure it's perfectly clean.   awww screw it I'll try it now. You convinced me.    be back in an hour lol



Well, let us know how it goes.


----------



## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 5, 2011)

Rado D said:


> Hey,you could try as low as it goes!thats the best thing to do.dont worry,with too low voltage you cant do any harm you your cpu..it will simply BSOD upon stressing but thats it..you can go in the bios and change it..honestly the best strategy is to find the lowest possible core voltage..you could be surprised how much difference it will make in the temperatures!



yeah i was going ot say that. depending on what his VID is he shouldnt need higher then 1.3v for 4.0GHZ stable


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## pabloottawa (Feb 5, 2011)

Ok I'm back and here is how it went. It was all easier than I thought, probably because I've been removing the damm radiator so many times. I was careful to make sure all the screws were tightened to the same tension. 

Now the bad news..... I ran Linx and it the temps are higher than ever! Core 0 topped out at 92!! Is this normal for using arctic Silver???? did I do something wrong here? 

Laurijan I followed your advice to the letter, and now I'm running hotter than ever. Did you ever get the same results?

Check the pics


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

That's because it's just as I said, your temps were normal, for those clocks and volts. Ignore the comments about what voltage you need for 4ghz...

I'd say that you put too much paste on this application. AS5 needs just enough...too much will affect temps negatively.

I don't mean to toot my own horn here, but I'm gonna anyway. I speak from personal experience, and I go through alot of parts. Sometimes I try to be the voice of reason in the crowd, but that doesn't always work.

So I'll give a bit more advice...pull off the heatsink again, put a small rice-grain-sized dab on the heatsink after wiping the old stuff off. spread it evenly on the cpu, and clamp the cooler back down. run through IBT or linpack, whatever, 5 iterations, then the same amount of time @ idle. repeat this several times, and temps will drop a bit as the paste "settles".


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## PaulieG (Feb 5, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Ok I'm back and here is how it went. It was all easier than I thought, probably because I've been removing the damm radiator so many times. I was careful to make sure all the screws were tightened to the same tension.
> 
> Now the bad news..... I ran Linx and it the temps are higher than ever! Core 0 topped out at 92!! Is this normal for using arctic Silver???? did I do something wrong here?
> 
> ...



To start with, that is way too much thermal paste. You wanna use about half of that amount. That will affect contact, and it turn increase temps.

Edit: Cadaveca beat me to it.


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## cdawall (Feb 5, 2011)

do one line of AS5 down the middle of the cpu about 1cm long


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

Paulieg said:


> To start with, that is way too much thermal paste. You wanna use about half of that amount. That will affect contact, and it turn increase temps.
> 
> Edit: Cadaveca beat me to it.




yeah.  But you cannot blame him, given how much paste Corsair put on there themselves.




cdawall said:


> do one line of AS5 down the middle of the cpu about 1cm long



No. This is not correct. Sry dude, but that's just how it is. You can do that with other pastes, such as MX2, but not as5. AS5 needs to be spread out in a thin layer, and then compressed.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 5, 2011)

I gotta do this all over again?


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

Yes. Just take your time, and use a smaller amount. it is OK to pull the heatsink up, and make sure contact is good. try a couple of test mounts to see how much you need for contact..you want the bare minimum with AS5...in the days before IHS's...we'd jsut barely put a haze of AS5 on the die(as that is how you still do it with VGAs).

i'd take what you got there already, wipe the paste from the heatsink, and spread out the leftovers on the cpu evenly, even, if you want to save some paste.


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## cdawall (Feb 5, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> No. This is not correct. Sry dude, but that's just how it is. You can do that with other pastes, such as MX2, but not as5. AS5 needs to be spread out in a thin layer, and then compressed.



thing is he will get better temps than doing to much as5 will spread after being compressed and doing it center in a straight line will cover the die on an intel i7 chip. if you want to do it "correct" way with as5 then about 1cm line in the center then take an old credit card and spread it out over the entire chips surface. a 1cm line is about the proper amount for a cpu's IHS.


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

yeah, that's perfect. you's gotta spread it out.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 5, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Yes. Just take your time, and use a smaller amount. it is OK to pull the heatsink up, and make sure contact is good. try a couple of test mounts to see how much you need for contact..you want the bare minimum with AS5...in the days before IHS's...we'd jsut barely put a haze of AS5 on the die(as that is how you still do it with VGAs).
> 
> i'd take what you got there already, wipe the paste from the heatsink, and spread out the leftovers on the cpu evenly, even, if you want to save some paste.



actually with any type of TIM spreading it out yourself then letting the cooler do it as well causes air bubbles which is not good. Also taking the heatsink off to see if it spread good and putting it back on also causes air bubbles. 

OP: Just apply about a pea sized dot in the muddle of the CPU and then put the cooler on and then wait for the TIM to cure since AS5 has about a 5 to 6 hour curing time which is why a lot of people don't use that TIM because theres others out there that are a lot better and dont conduct electricity. For example arctic cooling MX-4 is easily 100% better then AS5.


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> AS5 has about a 5 to 6 hour curing time




Try 200 hours.:shadedshu



			
				Artic Silver said:
			
		

> Arctic Silver 5:
> Break-in period: 200 hours (Break-in period will occur during normal use.)
> Temps will drop several degrees over the break-in period measured with a thermal
> diode in the hottest part of the CPU core.
> ...



http://www.arcticsilver.com/instructions.htm

I take the rest of your ideas as accurate as the one I've pointed out already, man.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 5, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Try 200 hours.:shadedshu
> 
> 
> 
> ...



either way AS5 is trash now


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> either way AS5 is trash now



Works fine for me. Yes, there are options out there that do as good of a job, or better, but that doesn't mean AS5 is trash. With proper application, it can be just as effective(2c-3c) as any other paste.


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## cdawall (Feb 5, 2011)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> either way AS5 is trash now



not trash at all still works great like cad said within a couple C of the best pastes out there


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## pabloottawa (Feb 5, 2011)

I give up!!! Now I'm idling at 42-49 and I won't dare run a stress test. Check pics


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

cdawall said:


> not trash at all still works great like cad said within a couple C of the best pastes out there



Yeah, Artic Silver says very simply, to do what you say, thin line down the middle...


BUT...


They also say to "tint" the heatsink and cpu first. So have taken that a step further, and "tint" with a slightly heavier amount then they suggest, rather than tinting and putting the line down, and then mount.



pabloottawa said:


> I give up!!! Now I'm idling at 42-49 and I won't dare run a stress test. Check pics




How did you clean the heatsink and cpu? Corsair uses a compund that has a "waxy" base, and if it is not removed completly, it will affect temps in a large way. You should be @ about 35-40c idle, given the 1.35v and 4ghz.

if you used your finger to spread that out...don't do that again.. If you wrapped your finger in a bag, good.

I'd mount, pull the heatsink right after, and check contact area.


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## PaulieG (Feb 5, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> yeah.  But you cannot blame him, given how much paste Corsair put on there themselves.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



All companies that install paste put too much on. Damn it, just put a little tube in there like Thermalright does. 




pabloottawa said:


> I give up!!! Now I'm idling at 42-49 and I won't dare run a stress test. Check pics



That's about the right amount. Has to be about the contact the cooler is making with the IHS. Actually, maybe you should run a stress test like OCCT normal priority to help the paste spread a bit better. OCCT won't heat the chip quite as much as IBT.



nvidiaintelftw said:


> either way AS5 is trash now



Not trash at all, but it is more conductive than most newer generation pastes. You just don't want to get it on your board.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 5, 2011)

Well i did it all according to the instructions and it is still idling rather high.. i think I'm gonna call it a day for now. I'll revisit the situation in a few days. I am sooo tired of troubleshoting this issue and i don't think the CPU will blow up anytime soon. 

Thanks for all the help guys. More to come in a few days. 

P.S. Now where is that beer?????


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## OneMoar (Feb 5, 2011)

stupid question but are the fans on you're rad pointed the right way ?
also make sure you are twisting and locking the H70 down my h50 when about 1/4-1/2 turn before it was locked


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## cadaveca (Feb 5, 2011)

OneMoar said:


> stupid question but are the fans on you're rad pointed the right way ?
> also make sure you are twisting and locking the H70 down my h50 when about 1/4-1/2 turn before it was locked



Not a stupid question, at all. According to Corsair's instructions, yes, he has the fans in the proper orientation.

However, that is also a contributing factor to his high load temps as well, as the two vgas will be dumping a fair amount of heat out the back, that will then be sucked into the rad, at least partially.

It really depends on alot of factors whether the fans should blow in, rather than out,, and I ahve personally come to the conclusion that it's really best to NOT install teh Corsair watercoolers in the rear 120mm hole...it's often better in a case-bottom hole, or in the top of the case, or the door, if space permits. Doing an alternative install usually leads to the best optimized temperatures.

To pablo, as a word of advice, you may want to simply lower your clocks to 3.8ghz or so, in order to just completely avoid the problem. Yes, it appears your cpu is more than capable of higher clocks, but for long-term usage, I'd have to agree with everyone that is saying your temps are too hot...I just differ in the thought that I think your cooling is what is inadequate, and not it's anything wrong with the cooling and how it operates. You can rest assured that your lower overclock, and lower temps, with headroom in frequency, together means that your cpu is likely to live a long life, as it's not pushed to the utmost limits. Like an engine, it's going to last longer if it's not always hitting the redline.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 5, 2011)

I've got one 200mm fan mounted on the side blowing in and a 200mm fan on top blowing out along with the fans on the radiator and a 120 mm fan blowing into the case at the front.

Case is a Cooler Master HAF 922


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## pabloottawa (Feb 5, 2011)

You're right I'll bring it down for now.


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 6, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Ok I'm back and here is how it went. It was all easier than I thought, probably because I've been removing the damm radiator so many times. I was careful to make sure all the screws were tightened to the same tension.
> 
> Now the bad news..... I ran Linx and it the temps are higher than ever! Core 0 topped out at 92!! Is this normal for using arctic Silver???? did I do something wrong here?
> 
> ...



Hi guys,no one is seeing something strange on picture #1??with the remains of the stock paste on the copper cold plate?check out my atached picture to understand what I mean.I've circled the part of the picture in red circle.now check the pattern of the paste in the circle.it remains as when its unused.one thing comes across my mind straight away - isnt our fellas issue that the copper coldplate is quite not straight and even?we have to agree that if you tighten the screws nice and tight,the area where the CPUs surface makes contact with the coldpaltes surface would have enough pressure to squash the paste.someone says that these coldplaes may not always be perfectly straight,but in this case it seems to be just not right..


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## OneMoar (Feb 6, 2011)

yea it does look a bit off but that could just be the way he pulled the cooler off 
I do see some pretty deep gashes he could try lapping


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## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 6, 2011)

yeah. the base on it probably needs lapping. definitely doesnt look right. and OP Arctic silver has a curing time. your not going to get the best temperatures right away you guy to wait quite a bit of time. Also again why are you running 1.35v at 4.0GHZ. thats so much voltage for such a standard overclock for the Chip. all you probably need is like 1.25 depending on your default voltage at stock clock


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 6, 2011)

OneMoar said:


> yea it does look a bit off but that could just be the way he pulled the cooler off



believe me,with even surfaces comes an even pressure and that paste would be properly squashed and smeared.


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## Laurijan (Feb 6, 2011)

Why lap - if the H70 is "new" it under warranty and I would RMA it


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## OneMoar (Feb 6, 2011)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> yeah. the base on it probably needs lapping. definitely doesnt look right. and OP Arctic silver has a curing time. your not going to get the best temperatures right away you guy to wait quite a bit of time. Also again why are you running 1.35v at 4.0GHZ. thats so much voltage for such a standard overclock for the Chip. all you probably need is like 1.25 depending on your default voltage at stock clock



http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=41447
voltage is fine 1.25 is low


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 6, 2011)

Laurijan said:


> Why lap - if the H70 is "new" it under warranty and I would RMA it



exactly!! he should write an email to corsair support with a similar picture as I posted attached to the email and he should be good to get a replacement!


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## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 6, 2011)

OneMoar said:


> http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=41447
> voltage is fine 1.25 is low



low?? really?? i know that 1.35 is fine voltage to run the chip at but you dont need it for 4.0GHZ unless you have a terrible VID. 

My Vid on mine is 1.256 and i run it at that for my 4.0GHZ with 8 hours prime stable. He really shouldnt need more then 1.28v. my buddies chip does 1.16v at 4.0GHZ


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 6, 2011)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> low?? really?? i know that 1.35 is fine voltage to run the chip at but you dont need it for 4.0GHZ unless you have a terrible VID.
> 
> My Vid on mine is 1.256 and i run it at that for my 4.0GHZ with 8 hours prime stable. He really shouldnt need more then 1.28v. my buddies chip does 1.16v at 4.0GHZ




I cant get with my i7 950 @ 4GHz anywhere under 1.3125V...and thats with qulity MOBO..its all individual for every single chip.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Feb 6, 2011)

Rado D said:


> I cant get with my i7 950 @ 4GHz anywhere under 1.3125V...and thats with qulity MOBO..its all individual for every single chip.



i know and chips higher then the 930 and 920 need more voltage for overclocking.

OP what was your default voltage because you increased it??


----------



## Radi_SVK (Feb 6, 2011)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> i know and chips higher then the 930 and 920 need more voltage for overclocking.



Thats also true,but I also know guys that they run their i7 950 @ 4GHz way under 1.3V,usualy around 1.25V - 1,28V


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## Laurijan (Feb 6, 2011)

Whats the fuss about OCing with an propably not correctly working H70 - main concern is to get it to cool sufficient at STOCK first. Then when one is sure its working ok start OCing.


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## PaulieG (Feb 6, 2011)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> low?? really?? i know that 1.35 is fine voltage to run the chip at but you dont need it for 4.0GHZ unless you have a terrible VID.
> 
> My Vid on mine is 1.256 and i run it at that for my 4.0GHZ with 8 hours prime stable. He really shouldnt need more then 1.28v. my buddies chip does 1.16v at 4.0GHZ



Ugh. Early 920's needed generally needed less than 1.30v for 4ghz. However, newer 920's and later 930's generally need a bit more for 4.0. This is just true, after owning and testing almost 20 920's from the earliest batches to the newest. You cannot base what he needs on your single experience.


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## cadaveca (Feb 6, 2011)

Rado D said:


> Hi guys,no one is seeing something strange on picture #1?



Of course. Hence my mention of IHS issues long before that..given the imprint on the cpu, and the 4 corners impressed into the paste, I'd say a bad IHS is part of the problem, for sure, but there's nothing to be done about that without warranty being voided.


----------



## cdawall (Feb 6, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Of course. Hence my mention of IHS issues long before that..given the imprint on the cpu, and the 4 corners impressed into the paste, I'd say a bad IHS is part of the problem, for sure, but there's nothing to be done about that without warranty being voided.



well he could check how concave the IHS is with a razor blade if there is any issues with it


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## cadaveca (Feb 6, 2011)

cdawall said:


> well he could check how concave the IHS is with a razor blade if there is any issues with it



Sure, but to what end? Just to find out he was better off before you guys convinced him to pull the cooler? :shadedshu

I mean, Corsair uses the paste they do, and the amount, just to deal with situations like this. Right now he's better off with ceramique, which is still kinda ok when a bit thick, as it will be in certain areas.


----------



## PaulieG (Feb 6, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Sure, but to what end? Just to find out he was better off before you guys convinced him to pull the cooler? :shadedshu
> 
> I mean, Corsair uses the paste they do, and the amount, just to deal with situations like this. Right now he's better off with ceramique, which is still kinda ok when a bit thick, as it will be in certain areas.



I suggested a cooler pull because that is one of the first steps in troubleshooting situations like this. In dozens of scenarios, the mounting or the paste would be the culprit. Once that was ruled out, then I'd suggest he check if his IHS was concave. He was asking for help, and what we suggested are the usual suspects and likely solutions. He didn't ask for help with a caveat that we shouldn't offer help if he wouldn't like what he found when troubleshooting.

So, at this point you have three choices. One, you can RMA with Intel because of the high temps. Two, you can lap the IHS. Three, you can just put up with the higher temps.


----------



## cdawall (Feb 6, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Sure, but to what end? Just to find out he was better off before you guys convinced him to pull the cooler? :shadedshu
> 
> I mean, Corsair uses the paste they do, and the amount, just to deal with situations like this. Right now he's better off with ceramique, which is still kinda ok when a bit thick, as it will be in certain areas.



i never said to take the bugger off now that it is off you can check for concave if it is RMA it as a defective product as thats what it is


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## cadaveca (Feb 6, 2011)

cdawall said:


> i never said to take the bugger off now that it is off you can check for concave if it is RMA it as a defective product as thats what it is



Actually, it may or may not be cause for rma. Remember that Intel bases that on cooling with the stock cooler, which not only features a base smaller than the IHS for instances like this, but also an extr ahelping of paste.


I mean, sure, I'm a bit harsh about this, but my opinion is just as valid as yours. I wasn't the one saying anything was wrong...because there wasn't, really.



Paulieg said:


> I suggested a cooler pull because that is one of the first steps in troubleshooting situations like this. In dozens of scenarios, the mounting or the paste would be the culprit. Once that was ruled out, then I'd suggest he check if his IHS was concave. He was asking for help, and what we suggested are the usual suspects and likely solutions. He didn't ask for help with a caveat that we shouldn't offer help if he wouldn't like what he found when troubleshooting.


Sure. but his temps weren't that off in the first place, given that the rad would be drawing in hot air not from jsut one card, but two....and the temp spread between cores either suggested a wonky IHS, or a bad mount. However, it might have been prudent to try to verify if the IHS was wonky but stress-testing, and watching temps. if the difference between cores grows as temps go up, chances are, it's a bad IHS. If in doubt, you can always loosen the cooler and give it a twist or two to try to spread teh paste, without removing the cooler, and then re-tighten.


----------



## cdawall (Feb 6, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Actually, it may or may not be cause for rma. Remember that Intel bases that on cooling with the stock cooler, which not only features a base smaller than the IHS for instances like this, but also an extr ahelping of paste.
> 
> 
> I mean, sure, I'm a bit harsh about this, but my opinion is just as valid as yours.



If its badly concave the stock heatsink won't cool it either.


----------



## cadaveca (Feb 6, 2011)

cdawall said:


> If its badly concave the stock heatsink won't cool it either.



But he wasn't really overheating, now was he?


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## pabloottawa (Feb 6, 2011)

Rado D said:


> exactly!! he should write an email to corsair support with a similar picture as I posted attached to the email and he should be good to get a replacement!



Every company will have a way out on the RMA thing. Corsair does not advertise these extremely low temps on overclocked chips. Therefore they won't RMA a cooler performing badly on any overclocked system and if you read the box it came in, the graph that they show is based on a test run on an i7 920 running the stock speed of 2.66 GHz.... I have an i7 930 which runs stock at 2.8 GHz. Their argument is that naturally the cooler won't give me the same temps as what's on the box because it's a different chip. So in my case an RMA is out of the question.



Edit.... OK Rado, I think I see what you mean. I suppose I could send an email to Corsair saying that the cooler head might not be totally flat as per the picture.


----------



## cdawall (Feb 6, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> But he wasn't really overheating, now was he?



Nope he wasn't and with stock clocks this chip wouldn't have an issue at all


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## pabloottawa (Feb 6, 2011)

Guys what is "IHS"??????? What does that mean?


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## cadaveca (Feb 6, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Guys what is "IHS"??????? What does that mean?



Integrated Heat Spreader..the metal cover on top the cpu.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 6, 2011)

OK thanks. I've been seeing that Abbreviation so much and had no clue.


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 6, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Edit.... OK Rado, I think I see what you mean. I suppose I could send an email to Corsair saying that the cooler head might not be totally flat as per the picture.



exactly my friend.you dont need to mention anything about using an OCed cpu and higher temps as consequences.build your RMA reasons on the uneven cold plate of the cooler.after all,you are not making it up are you?its a fact.



cadaveca said:


> Of course. Hence my mention of IHS issues long before that



I personally dont know how rare this issue is,but dont you think that down at Silicon Valley they do the job a little bit more precisely than at Corsair?


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## cadaveca (Feb 6, 2011)

Rado D said:


> I personally dont know how rare this issue is,but dont you think that down at Silicon Valley they do the job a little bit more precisely than at Corsair?




No, they do not. IHS's are almost never flat. It's more rare to find a flat one than to find one that isn't flat.


FYI cpus are assembled in Malaysia, not the US.


----------



## Radi_SVK (Feb 6, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> FYI cpus are assembled in Malaysia, not the US.



THe  Silicon Valley was just a phrase


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## cadaveca (Feb 6, 2011)

The IHS is almsot never perfectly flat. That is why so many people lap thier cpus...i have this same problem, but value my warranty more than a higher overclock.









Meanwhile, I am pushing 4.0ghz, and 2400mhz ram, with 4x 2GB sticks.


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## PaulieG (Feb 6, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Every company will have a way out on the RMA thing. Corsair does not advertise these extremely low temps on overclocked chips. Therefore they won't RMA a cooler performing badly on any overclocked system and if you read the box it came in, the graph that they show is based on a test run on an i7 920 running the stock speed of 2.66 GHz.... I have an i7 930 which runs stock at 2.8 GHz. Their argument is that naturally the cooler won't give me the same temps as what's on the box because it's a different chip. So in my case an RMA is out of the question.
> 
> 
> 
> Edit.... OK Rado, I think I see what you mean. I suppose I could send an email to Corsair saying that the cooler head might not be totally flat as per the picture.



Corsair is an easy company to deal with. They would most likely accept the RMA with anything close to a valid reason. If you want to try for some lower temps with slightly less effort with mounting etc., I would try to RMA the cooler. It may or may not help since your IHS is concave, but in my mind, trying everything is worth a shot because I'm a little obsessive about low temps. If you want to try the best coolers available, here is a short list of the best coolers on the market. There are some others that are good, but I own 2 of the three, and temps for both are remarkable. From every review I've read, the Venomous-X and Noctua D14 are simply the best coolers on the market, short of a custom water loop. The Venomous-X is my personal favorite. All should give you better load temps than what you are seeing on that H70.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1..._Bracket_System_Socket_LGA_775_1156_1366.html

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/8...U_Heatsink_LGA_775_1156_1366_AM2_AM2_AM3.html

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/9..._Fans_-_Socket_775_1156_1366_AM2_AM2_AM3.html


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## pabloottawa (Feb 6, 2011)

Hey guys,

Glad to see we're back at it and i have relatively good news. 

I redid the entire thing and instead of following AC5 instructions I used my brain and limited knowledge of physics and how things spread and bond when they are pressed and spread a very thin layer on the  CPU AND cooler head. My guess (and I think it's a better guess that place a 1mm line down the middle and hope it spreads evenly) is that both sides will make a far better bond and once cured will yield far better results. BTW, I also checked both CPU and cooler head and they are flat as a pancake!!! They really could not be any flatter. Furthermore I switched the connections around to a setup that makes more sense.  

To rule out the possibility of the pump not running at full tilt, I connected it directly to the PSU and connected both fans to the CPU FAN header and set QV FAN CONTROL to "ENABLED". Now if the temps go up the fans will spin faster which to me makes more sense. 

Now the test. Ran Linx and the highest temps are:

Core 0  88c
Core 1  85c
Core 2  82c
Core 3  79c

All around good news and definitely not an apples to apples comparison given that I switched the connections AND I removed the resistors that Corsair says to put on if the fans are too loud. 

The downside is that my system is a little loud but I'll see if I can tweak that out. 

Check pics


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## PaulieG (Feb 6, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> Glad to see we're back at it and i have relatively good news.
> 
> ...



That is good news. If you decide you'd like to try for even lower temps, there is my advice above.  In any event, enjoy that rig of yours!!!


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## pabloottawa (Feb 6, 2011)

Paulieg said:


> Corsair is an easy company to deal with. They would most likely accept the RMA with anything close to a valid reason. If you want to try for some lower temps with slightly less effort with mounting etc., I would try to RMA the cooler. It may or may not help since your IHS is concave, but in my mind, trying everything is worth a shot because I'm a little obsessive about low temps. If you want to try the best coolers available, here is a short list of the best coolers on the market. There are some others that are good, but I own 2 of the three, and temps for both are remarkable. From every review I've read, the Venomous-X and Noctua D14 are simply the best coolers on the market, short of a custom water loop. The Venomous-X is my personal favorite. All should give you better load temps than what you are seeing on that H70.
> 
> http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1..._Bracket_System_Socket_LGA_775_1156_1366.html
> 
> ...





In this case Paulieg I gotta disagree with you. You're not comparing apples to apples here. Your setup starts with an i5 whereas mine is an i7 930. I'm sure that I would not be able to overclock to 4 GHz on those massive air coolers you suggested and stay under 100. Especially on an i7 930. It seems that the 920's can remain cooler clocked higher than 4GHz under load but I'm not the guru on this stuff. Ask me about your Audi and I'll definitely be able to help lol.

I'm wondering if there's anyone out there having the same issues using an i7 930 and an H70 with the Asus P6T Cadaveca your setup is close but you're still running an 870. Seems the 930's are rare. Perhaps I chose the wrong model lol. 

I just put the resistors back on to keep the noise level down and I'm topping at 91 according to Linx but I'll take it for now. In all honesty I really don't push my CPU to anything nearly as high as what these test programs do so I'm safe. AC5 hasn't fully cured yet and I'm convinced at this point that the method I used to apply the paste was the best. i guess we'll find out if a few days. 

Cheers lads!!! If anyone of you are ever in Ottawa, the beers are on me!!!  

Update in a few days


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 6, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> Glad to see we're back at it and i have relatively good news.
> 
> ...



well done buddy,thats some real results in the temps decrease.


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## OneMoar (Feb 6, 2011)

most 75-100 dollar air coolers are better then the h70 anyway =/
also make sure you have the fans in a push-pull setup it will help a bit


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## JATownes (Feb 6, 2011)

I am afraid I have to agree with Paulieg here.  There are DEFINATELY some air coolers that compete/beat the H70 regardless of what processor is being used. 

Overclockers Review

Guru 3D Review

Overclock3D using *i7 930*

Legit Reviews


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## PaulieG (Feb 6, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> In this case Paulieg I gotta disagree with you. You're not comparing apples to apples here. Your setup starts with an i5 whereas mine is an i7 930. I'm sure that I would not be able to overclock to 4 GHz on those massive air coolers you suggested and stay under 100. Especially on an i7 930. It seems that the 920's can remain cooler clocked higher than 4GHz under load but I'm not the guru on this stuff. Ask me about your Audi and I'll definitely be able to help lol.
> 
> I'm wondering if there's anyone out there having the same issues using an i7 930 and an H70 with the Asus P6T Cadaveca your setup is close but you're still running an 870. Seems the 930's are rare. Perhaps I chose the wrong model lol.
> 
> ...



My suggestions and opinions are based on 20 different i7 920's and 860's,  most of which were cooled by the coolers that I mentioned above. The i5 is a new addition. Very much apples to apples.


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## cadaveca (Feb 6, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> I'm wondering if there's anyone out there having the same issues using an i7 930 and an H70 with the Asus P6T Cadaveca your setup is close but you're still running an 870. Seems the 930's are rare. Perhaps I chose the wrong model lol.


The setup that is in my "specs" list isn't even accurate.

With my attempts at being a reviewer, I've handled alot of parts that my own rig is not comprised of. I tend to not spend alot of time with nVidia cards, so very rarely do I ever comment on them...when I comment on nVidia, it's purely the business side of things.

I did start on i7 with a P6T, and a few other boards, as well as many cpus. Not with the H70, as it wasn't out back then...

I moved over to P55 MATX for my personal rigs just in November, 3 months ago. I'm now amassing parts for Sandy Bridge for future reviews.


As a reviewer, I need to know this stuff.

that said, I've got a H70 here, as well as this Noctua NH-C14, and the Noctua wins.

So I'm gonna hop on the bandwagon here. The H70 is good, but there are many other coolers that are fan-fin-based that compete with it, both in cost and performance, and truly, in the end, everyone's results are going to fluctuate due to problems that can arise, such as what you've just gone through.

Glad to see the the "thick tint" method worked well for you...


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## cdawall (Feb 6, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> In this case Paulieg I gotta disagree with you. You're not comparing apples to apples here. Your setup starts with an i5 whereas mine is an i7 930. I'm sure that I would not be able to overclock to 4 GHz on those massive air coolers you suggested and stay under 100. Especially on an i7 930. It seems that the 920's can remain cooler clocked higher than 4GHz under load but I'm not the guru on this stuff. Ask me about your Audi and I'll definitely be able to help lol.
> 
> I'm wondering if there's anyone out there having the same issues using an i7 930 and an H70 with the Asus P6T Cadaveca your setup is close but you're still running an 870. Seems the 930's are rare. Perhaps I chose the wrong model lol.
> 
> ...



the old TRUE still beats the H70 its not great only reason i have it is i wanted a little more kick in my HTPC and H70 is the best cooler that fits


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## pabloottawa (Feb 6, 2011)

Hey guys thanks for the support and feedback. I hope no one is taking offense as truly none is intended. After all you've all been there to help along the way and it is appreciated. 

At this point I've already spent a ton of cash on cooling and fans and whatnot so I really want to focus on giving this some time to see if things improve. I'll go back to the clock settings and see if some voltages can be reduced and streamlined but I really want to try and make 4 gigs work. If ther are other people who can get their i7 930s up to 4ghz safely then I should be able to do it too right?


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## PaulieG (Feb 6, 2011)

This is a screenie when I was testing memory recently. This was on a rather poor 920, with a 1.29v. WCG creates a significant amount of heat at 100%, just slightly below stress tests. Certainly more stressful than gaming. This was on a Megahalems, which is a step below the Venomous-X and Noctua I linked above.



pabloottawa said:


> Hey guys thanks for the support and feedback. I hope no one is taking offense as truly none is intended. After all you've all been there to help along the way and it is appreciated.
> 
> At this point I've already spent a ton of cash on cooling and fans and whatnot so I really want to focus on giving this some time to see if things improve. I'll go back to the clock settings and see if some voltages can be reduced and streamlined but I really want to try and make 4 gigs work. If ther are other people who can get their i7 930s up to 4ghz safely then I should be able to do it too right?



The one thing I learned about i7 is that chips are all over the place with potential. Some will do 4.0 easy, some won't do it at all within reasonable vcore. Generally the newer the batch, the worse the potential, though there are exceptions. Despite what you decide to do, good luck and we are here to help.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 14, 2011)

*I'm baaaaaack*

Hey guys,

Update,

When we last found the fearless temp whore Pabloottawa he was whining like a child in a toy store but our noob has come a long way. Read on...

After my last post I had left the AS5 on using the "coat both CPU and cooler with thin layer using CC" method and got relatively good temps. 

Since then I did some more reading and then tested some lower voltages. I had previously left everything on auto when it came to voltage but decided to see if I could run stable with it lowered just a bit more. With my 920 running at 4GHz the bios defaulted to an auto voltage of 1.425 (or something like that) and after some trials I determined that it ran stable at 1.4v. This brought my temps down a bit so I did some more research and moved to the TIM application

I tried the "pea dot" method which is just placing a pea sized amount of TIM on the CPU and carefully securing the cooler. I gotta say, this is the WORST method I've encountered. I ran a Linx test using just 1024 of my 12 GB memory and easily went into the 99 Celsius range at which point I stopped the test. I left it like this for 2 days and never reached normal load temps exceeding 82 degrees Celsius but I dared not run another load test!

This morning I bought some Arctic MX-2 Thermal paste and re-did the whole thing. I carefully cleaned out all the nooks and crannies of the cooler and CPU and primed the CPU with MX-2. Then using some tape I made a template for the new thermal paste (a rectangle oriented to the shape of how the paste should be spread over the CPU). I carefully secured the H70 cooler head to the CPU and put it all back together. After running some tests my results were FAR better than the pea-dot method and more comparable to the "coat both CPU and cooler with thin layer using CC" method. MX-2 really made a difference in this case and I will stay far away from AS5. After reading A LOT of reviews on it, it's garbage compared to other brands and it isn't even much cheaper if at all.  

This said, I call upon the cooling and overclocking Gods to lend me their wisdom yet again and I ask you, with my settings, does this all look good enough to declare stable and safe? And by safe I mean, my CPU will last a good 2 years at these settings and not suffer any damage. See pic

Cheers and Thanks lads!!  

EDIT!!! I FORGOT TO MENTION... These settings are all with the fan resistors in place. I just can't take the noise of it all and with them off, it only makes a difference of 2 or 3 degrees C.


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## cadaveca (Feb 14, 2011)

Still a bit too hot for my personal liking, but that's due to the volts, methinks. 

I like to use IBT for temp testing, myself.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 14, 2011)

Hey Cadaveca,

I understand why you'd say something like that but the problem is when I begin to customize too much the system crashes, freezes up or BSOD's on me. 

I know that BSOD's are usually due to hardware failure or problems but what I find so funny is that there isn't one overclocking guide that explains exactly how to overclock based on the frequency you want and the processor you have. It's very frustrating to try to learn this when the material isn't based on your setup.  So i try to make sense of it but I always come up short unless I set most everything to "auto". If you have a chance, can you check out my previous BIOS screenies and see if I'm making a mistake somewhere and if-so, exactly where is it and what should it be set to keeping in mind that 4GHz is my goal.


Cheers


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## cadaveca (Feb 14, 2011)

There is no formula for reaching a specific speed. There is merely a formula for testing stability.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 14, 2011)

OK so what is it?


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## cadaveca (Feb 14, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> OK so what is it?



Depends on your definition of stability.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 14, 2011)

Settings that won't crash under common load tests. Speaking of, I took your advice and changed some voltage settings around. What do you think of this?


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## cadaveca (Feb 14, 2011)

I run prime until each iteration size has run, in the least. Put IBT on maximum, run for 20 runs.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 14, 2011)

I just Googled it but I can't find a place to download if from.. Any ideas where I can get it?


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## cadaveca (Feb 14, 2011)

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/IntelBurnTest.shtml


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## pabloottawa (Feb 14, 2011)

OK got it....


Here is my Screen shot.... What do you guys think??? Running 4GHz with an H70 and the fan resistors on, do you guys think the temps can be lowered even more without making it unstable?


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## cadaveca (Feb 14, 2011)

possibly. those temps are much more acceptable. Within 70's sounds good to me. But still that was standard run, and only 5 passes..maximum and 20 passes will generate more heat, as well as load the memory controller better.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 15, 2011)

Well I started it at max and it did one pass which took 10 mins. I don't have the time to spare the PC for 200 mins so I stopped it but all seemed fine. I'm gonna run the test later but so far so good. Thanks Cadaveca and all who have helped. 

I'm always looking for better ways to lower the temps so please, if anyone has other tips or experiences and suggestions they want to add by all means post it. I think this thread is a great source for total noobs with no clue where to start overclocking. 

By the way, this is for those who are curious.... Aside from using Arctic MX-2 as a thermal paste and making a template for the cooler, I switched my settings to the settings decribed in this video. He has an i7 920 but mine is a 930 and I mimicked every setting getting full stability, so if you want to try it here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYp_tnC5Ho8


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## pabloottawa (Feb 15, 2011)

Finally finished the IBT test after 20 passes and it's all good


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## cadaveca (Feb 15, 2011)

Then play some games or something. IBT isn't a 100% guarantee your system is stable, but it's a good indicator! I like to run Prime95 for about as long and a good OCCT run too, just to be sure.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 15, 2011)

Haha thanks... Now I think you're just stringing me along lol. Waiting for these tests to finish is like watching paint dry so your gaming suggestion sounds much more fun. I'll wager that all is well and to be honest my system is running better than ever. Thanks for all the help everyone and thank you Cadaveca for helping me every step of the way.


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## Radi_SVK (Feb 16, 2011)

pabloottawa said:


> Finally finished the IBT test after 20 passes and it's all good



Im affraid I will dissapoint you,but you have to know that if you leave the thread options on auto,its more likely that IBT will only stress 4 out of your total of 8 cpu threads.So to use the full potential of IBT you have set it manually to 8.also set the stress level to maximum.and as cadaveca suggested,run more passes,though I think 10 is enough.

EDIT:about the IBT not stressing all threads when set to auto,I have to correct that,so precisely it seems that it will use 50% cpu after few seconds from start when set to auto,while when you set it manually to 8,it will use 100% cpu from start to finish.and that makes quite a difference in temps.I've checked it now,it is a valid information.


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## pabloottawa (Feb 21, 2011)

Rado D said:


> exactly!! he should write an email to corsair support with a similar picture as I posted attached to the email and he should be good to get a replacement!



Hey guys,

Quick update. Rado D, I took your advice and managed to get an RMA, I'm not sure when I'll see the H70 again but hopefully it will be soon. In any-case, I hope the next one is from a better batch with the coolant topped off instead of gurgling like mad. I'm gonna try it with the original paste the second time around but if I'm still getting high temps I'll use some iC Diamond 7 as I've read that it is the SHIT when it comes to TIMs


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## OneMoar (Feb 21, 2011)

deleted


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## OneMoar (Feb 21, 2011)

you need to accept the fact that you're chip will probably not do 4GHZ at reasonable volts 
you are not gonna see any performance gains beyond 3.6 .. not with you're gpus 
bck it down to 3.6 and 1.20v-1.32'ish and LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE before you burn it up


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## pabloottawa (Mar 15, 2011)

Update:

I took Rado and Laurijan's and RMA'd it about 4 weeks ago. Corsair was EXTREMELY easy to deal with and the only hard part really, was the waiting. Yesterday I received a new one and installed it and today I'm taking OneMoar's advice and LEAVING IT THE FUCK ALONE!

I'm not going to run any tests for the now. I just want to see how the temps are at load and for me "load" means playing Bad Company 2. I'm not a graphics designer and I don't multitask the shit out of this PC. It's a gaming rig so it's geared for single app performance. 

Thanks again for all your help guys!!! Much appreciated

In case anyone here plays BC2, look me up   AKULA20342


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