Why can't I cool my NW P4?

[jonny13]

In my search for cooler temps, I went out and bought a ThermalTake Dragon 478 and gave it a whirl. It performed worse than the retail HSF, so I sent it back. After about a month, I figured I would give it another shot, so I went out and bought an Alpha PAL8942 with a 39cfm Sunon fan. I got that going and it gives me about the same temps or even higher. I have plenty of cooling with 2 Antec fans in the front, one more in the back and a 49 cfm Ys-tech fan back there too. I tried to switch the Sunon fan to blow on the heatsink instead of away from it, but that was worse.

I don't know what could be wrong with my setup. The only things I can think of is that my heatspreader is not flat, but then my retail HSF wouldn't work as good either. So, then I thought that maybe my board is kind of bent from that damn clamp on the retail HSF. That is the only thing I can think of right now. Any ideas?

Jonny

 

[DisposableHero]

you must not be putting the hsf on right... only thing i can think off..... so ur doing it wrong on both hsf's so u get same temps

 

[jonny13]

The only thing I could really screw up on the Alpha is tightning it too tight or not tight enough. Other than that, there isn't a whole lot I can f*ck up. Maybe I will take it apart and clean off the ASIII and put a nice thin layer on both and then try it again. I will see if that helps, if not, I don't know what else to do. Any more ideas?

Jonny

 

[THUGSROOK]

there have been many many reports that AS3 sux azz! something is wrong with it.
try AS2 or plain old white paste and report back please.

 

[anime]

any concrete evidence with proffesionally done test to confirm as3 does suck?

 

[jonny13]

I will do that when I get home tonight. I have the white paste that came with the Alpha, so I will give that a try. Do you have any links to posts about the problems with ASIII, I haven't heard of any. Thanks for your help.

Jonny

 

[THUGSROOK]

actually, i just read alot of forums and see alot of posts just like yours.
a few ppl went back to white paste since they already had it, and it fixed their troubles.
(i personally use AS2)

its worth a try at the least.
hopefully jonny will try it - and we will know for sure

 

[jonny13]

Well, I took the HSF off and noticed a few things. First off, the damned offsets came off, so I had to take apart the whole thing and unscrew the MB and redo everything that I just did the other day. Then, I saw that when I applied a thin layer to the CPU, it wasn't enough. I followed the alpha directions and just put the stuff on the CPU and not both, but the HSF barely had anything on it. So, I put everything back together and put a nice thin layer on both CPU and HSF and gave it a try. At a full load, the temps were around 49-50 when before they got up to 56-58. So, now I think I will try to get up to 2.5 or more and see what the temps look like then. Thanks for all of your help and sorry I didn't do the test with the white paste, but I didn't want the offsets to unscrew again and have to disassemble everything again.

Jonny

 

[THUGSROOK]

np jonny - as long as shes running good

 

[cobrasvt]

I to will add that for AS3 sucks! My temps ran anywhere from 46-52 just sitting here with a Thermaltake Volcano 7+ on medium speed. Put the white paste on and now they are at 39, 43 under full load! I just ordered some AS2. I had great luck with that! Maybe I just got a bum tube of AS3 or something, but I am sticking with AS2 for now!

 

[THUGSROOK]

<< I to will add that for AS3 sucks! >>


ah, a quote from someone whos tried it and had that problem

jonny's temps still sound a little on the high side - but that could just be typical moboard / case cooling differences.

there must be ALOT of "bum tubes"

 

[jonny13]

The biggest reason my temps are high is because to get it stable at 2.4, I needed to give it 1.775 or 1.8 volts. I am running at 2.3 right now with only 1.725 volts and my idle is 39 and the max under load is 52. I might give the ASIII a few days and then try the white paste that I have, maybe that will work better. Has anybody else done any comparisons between ASIII and something else?

Jonny

 

[THUGSROOK]

yea, the voltage might explain the high temps.

thats alot of voltage to get to 2.4ghz :Q

 

[anime]

thugsrook--which forum did u read all these probs with AS3?

 

[THUGSROOK]

i bounce from place to place - i have no idea where i saw the other posts.
there are 4 or 5 ive seen in here tho.
i dont use as3 so i didnt pay that much attention.