Watercooling experts: Do my temps seem high?

[Syborg1211]

I have a D-tek pro radiator with one of those silver 84 cfm 120 mm on it with a Bay-Rez reservoir and a Eheim 1250 320 gph pump all on a spir@l waterblock. My thermal compound is AS3 and I used the Super Cool coolant. All this is on 1/2 inch tubing.

I get around 39 degrees on my XP2400+. The temp stays pretty solid at this temp and does not change much between load and no load. I know the temp monitor is correct because I was getting different temps with my regular heatsink. On my heatsink I was getting around 38 degrees I believe, but the ambient temp wasn't as high. With my watercooling my ambient temperture of the room is about 30 degrees.

39 is a lot higher than I expected. Was I expecting too much or should I be checking my system for faults?

 

[Syborg1211]

bump

 

[Tuff]

You failed to mention whether you had a copper or aluminum waterblock...39 seems about right though. It depends where you are getting your temp reading from.


I usually run around 23 for idle and 27 for full load....but I have built my own waterblock and learned some tricks along the way.

Tuff

 

[Syborg1211]

The spiral waterblock has a copper base and aluminum top. My temps are getting around 42 C but the ambient is a few degrees higher now. Damn I hate Houston weather...

 

[cheap]

Originally posted by: Tuff
I usually run around 23 for idle and 27 for full load....but I have built my own waterblock and learned some tricks along the way.

Tuff

Hey man, I'm thinking of building my own waterblock too, are you by any chance that guy that has a website about his own watercooling project? I'm looking for tips so if you got any I'll be real grateful.

 

[Hazer]

2 Things:

+9 degrees over ambient is not bad. The higher the ambient, the more of a difference you'll get. Plus, the temp sensors may be accurate for range, but not always accurate to each other. ie- mobo sensor could be off from the cpu sensor by 2 degrees.

1 hint that helps alot is lapping. This is sanding down your heatsink/waterblock to a glass finish. This can get you a degree or two cooler. Also, make sure your components are placed in good order. The best way is to have the pump pull the water from the CPU block after it comes from the radiator. Example: water goes from pump, pushed to the radiator, then goes to CPU block, and then back to pump. This reduces any chance that the pump might heat-up the water when it passes through. It helps to have the radiator higher than the CPU block as to let gravity help pull the water through the CPU block.

 

[WarCon]

That temp as a load temp seems normal, but you should be seeing a different idle temp (unless something is running in the background that is causing a 100% load condition). I would have to question whether your monitoring software is working right or if your monitoring the right sensor. Should be some variation.

I use to idle at 2-3C over case temp, with a full load temp 10-12C over that (took about 10-15 minutes to get max temps with CPUBurn). I was pushing a bad overclocking 1ghz Athlon to over 1.4ghz with 2.0vcore though and a CPU power estimating program put that at over 100watts of power so I figured I was doing good.

 

[JokerF15]

Originally posted by: Hazer

1 hint that helps alot is lapping. This is sanding down your heatsink/waterblock to a glass finish. This can get you a degree or two cooler.

Actually, that is a general misconception. Lapping a heatsink/WB is GOOD, but not a 'mirror' finish. You want to get it as FLAT as possible and not necessarily shiny or like a mirror. Generally Swiftech blocks and the DTEK TC-4 Blocks are considered a 'level 8 finish'. Level 9 I believe is 'true flatness'.

Either way lap it down if you feel it's not 'flat' but they temps seem about right. 9 degree's over ambient is usually considered good. Take a look inside your tubing and see if there are any bubbles. If you used the Bay-Res to fill your system it should be free of most bubbles.

BTW: on a side note what was your opinion on the Bay-Res .

-JokerF15

 

[Syborg1211]

I didn't like the Bay-Rez much at all. If you mount it with a cdrom drive below it the elbows will get in the way of the ide and power cables of the cdrom. If you mount it in the bottom the elbows could possible get in the way of the hard drives depending on the case. Also, the thing only has a single set of holes for screws, and my problem is that I have an Antec Sonata which utilitizes the lower row of holes which the bay rez does NOT have. So I have the thing just sitting on top of a cdrom drive right now with no clue how I'm going to mount the thing. Another problem I ran into was that if you have a high output pump it will pump and suck through the bay-rez so fast that it can suck any air that remains at the top of the bay-rez. This may not be a problem if you could get all the air out of the bay-rez, but nope that's not possible. The filling hole is recessed into the rez so that there is a small amount of area where no matter how you try you can't get the air out because it's ABOVE the hole... All in all I am very disappointed with the Bay-Rez. I might just run the system without a reservoir or try to find a better one. I do have to say though that it did do what it is advertised to do - make filling easier, but not better.

Edit: Just saw it also comes with the option of having straight barbs so the elbow thing is my own problem.

 

[Tuff]

Sorry to be replying so late...I am thinking if you are using a copper/aluminum block with out antifreeze you might be looking for trouble as you will have corrosion...keep and eye on your temps...if they start to rise...that will be why.

You do not need to lap to extreme smoothness...let the thermal paste do the work for you. Just make sure its FLAT.

Also check to see that you have a proper fit...ie...enter the bios and go to the hardware section of your bios...where the temps are...while there...lightly press on your block..on either side...to see if you have it seated properly...if you have a lower temp on either side you will have to make adjustments on the placement of the block.

I am not sure of the properties of the super coolant you use.

Tuff

 

[JokerF15]

Originally posted by: Syborg1211
I didn't like the Bay-Rez much at all. If you mount it with a cdrom drive below it the elbows will get in the way of the ide and power cables of the cdrom. If you mount it in the bottom the elbows could possible get in the way of the hard drives depending on the case. Also, the thing only has a single set of holes for screws, and my problem is that I have an Antec Sonata which utilitizes the lower row of holes which the bay rez does NOT have. So I have the thing just sitting on top of a cdrom drive right now with no clue how I'm going to mount the thing. Another problem I ran into was that if you have a high output pump it will pump and suck through the bay-rez so fast that it can suck any air that remains at the top of the bay-rez. This may not be a problem if you could get all the air out of the bay-rez, but nope that's not possible. The filling hole is recessed into the rez so that there is a small amount of area where no matter how you try you can't get the air out because it's ABOVE the hole... All in all I am very disappointed with the Bay-Rez. I might just run the system without a reservoir or try to find a better one. I do have to say though that it did do what it is advertised to do - make filling easier, but not better.

Edit: Just saw it also comes with the option of having straight barbs so the elbow thing is my own problem.

Thanks for the opinions, they are VERY helpful. Stay tuned for 'Rev 2' of the Bay-Res, the problems that you have said, are common amoung a lot of users and the revision 2 has been built to take care of almost all problems associated =D.

Feedback = Good.

There's a lotta crazy Watercooling stuff that's going to be released, but I can't say much or some ppl will go crazy on me =D.

-JokerF15