The Pepsi and little Easter Island head are the key components of this project.
Dammit I knew I was missing something.
Great news! Got the Indigo Extreme installed and made a few modifications to the GPUs. Temps are excellent now! Woohoo, I can actually use my computer for its intended purpose.
Following the very specific directions for the indigo extreme, I applied the TIM to the surface of my chip. The TIM itself comes in a hard plastic case and has protective plastic on both sides of it. Solvent (HFCs from the smell of them) wipes are provided in order to get the base of the heatsink and the CPU as clean as possible.
This elaborate setup is needed because dumb#$%&#$ Windows 7 apparently installed some important files on my RAID array instead of the SSD. Le sigh. Rather than move the hdds to the motherboard (which I would have rather set up on the floor than on top of my case...), I moved the mobo to the hdds.
Indigo extreme requires high temps to melt it in order to spread it evenly over the CPU. Prime95 /w 8 threads on a passively cooled heatsink. Toasty.
The moment of truth! These temps are after 100% CPU load and 100% load on both 5850's for ~45 minutes. Oil temp is 37C. Most excellent. The whole machine is pulling 445W from the wall.
To help push the oil through the CPU heatsink, I moved the fan that was pushing oil onto the GPUs onto the back of the CPU heatsink. I don't think it was doing any good in its old location.
To help reduce the GPU temps, I removed the silicone seals, reapplied AS Ceramique and reattached the fans and shrouds. I remove the grill on the side of the shroud in order to remove oil-flow impedance.
Here you can see the GPUs. I removed the GTS250, It was too close to the edge of the tank to get adequate circulation. Additionally, It was blocking the oil intake on the second 5850. So out it went!
Oil in/out temp after about 1.5 hours of full load on the CPU and GPUs. Not bad.
Now... who's going to clean up this mess for me?
Before:
CPU: 60-70C idle, 98C under load and throttling to prevent overheating
5850s: 80C idle, 99C under load and throttling to prevent overheating
GTS250: hit 127C idle before throttling itself down to 157mhz and hovering around 90C
After:
CPU: 35C idle, 65C load
5850s: 35C idle, 55-60C load
All that's left to do is see how this beast overclocks...