2nd build - after 5 years

Just finished assembling my 2nd build. Consists of an ASUS Z97-PRO MB,
an i7-4790K, the lower half of a Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935, 32Gig
Ram, GTX770 video card and a double fan Thermaltak 3.0 water cooler for
the CPU. Power for the cooler comes from a motherboard USB header and
the cooler fans are run from motherboard fan connectors.

To my relief, system came up initially, passed POST, properly identified
the RAM and SSD and went into the bios. Looked good except the CPU temp
displayed in the bios kept rising. All fans are running (especially the
2 for the water cooler). CPU temp climbs and finally tops out at 88
degrees C. Turned it off and tried again with the same result.

Possibilities: I think the Water cooler pump is running but my hearing
isn't the best and is it adequately connected to the CPU by the thermal
coating provided on the Water Cooler pump head? Didn't want to crank
the screws down too tightly for fear of damage.... Stock cooler still
in the box. Is the stock coated thermal paste on the cooler pump head
reliable? I have built one other system years ago and later updated
the stock cooler to a big tower air cooler with good results. Try stock
cooler?

Suggestions??

TIA

Tom

On 8/8/2014 11:07 PM, Tom Thompson wrote:


Just finished assembling my 2nd build. Consists of an ASUS Z97-PRO MB,
an i7-4790K, the lower half of a Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935, 32Gig
Ram, GTX770 video card and a double fan Thermaltak 3.0 water cooler for
the CPU. Power for the cooler comes from a motherboard USB header and
the cooler fans are run from motherboard fan connectors.

To my relief, system came up initially, passed POST, properly identified
the RAM and SSD and went into the bios. Looked good except the CPU temp
displayed in the bios kept rising. All fans are running (especially the
2 for the water cooler). CPU temp climbs and finally tops out at 88
degrees C. Turned it off and tried again with the same result.

Possibilities: I think the Water cooler pump is running but my hearing
isn't the best and is it adequately connected to the CPU by the thermal
coating provided on the Water Cooler pump head? Didn't want to crank
the screws down too tightly for fear of damage.... Stock cooler still
in the box. Is the stock coated thermal paste on the cooler pump head
reliable? I have built one other system years ago and later updated
the stock cooler to a big tower air cooler with good results. Try stock
cooler?

Suggestions??

TIA

Tom

I assembled the same system and had no such issues using the stock cooler.

I have mine on this case.

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/produc...n_4aAuVj8P8HAQ

I like the open case so much I am going to use this:

AeroCool StrikeX-Air Black SECC Open Case Computer Case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0809034 711:s

Drake.

Tom Thompson wrote:

Just finished assembling my 2nd build. Consists of an ASUS Z97-PRO MB,
an i7-4790K, the lower half of a Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935, 32Gig
Ram, GTX770 video card and a double fan Thermaltak 3.0 water cooler for
the CPU. Power for the cooler comes from a motherboard USB header and
the cooler fans are run from motherboard fan connectors.

To my relief, system came up initially, passed POST, properly identified
the RAM and SSD and went into the bios. Looked good except the CPU temp
displayed in the bios kept rising. All fans are running (especially the
2 for the water cooler). CPU temp climbs and finally tops out at 88
degrees C. Turned it off and tried again with the same result.

Possibilities: I think the Water cooler pump is running but my hearing
isn't the best and is it adequately connected to the CPU by the thermal
coating provided on the Water Cooler pump head? Didn't want to crank
the screws down too tightly for fear of damage.... Stock cooler still
in the box. Is the stock coated thermal paste on the cooler pump head
reliable? I have built one other system years ago and later updated
the stock cooler to a big tower air cooler with good results. Try stock
cooler?

Suggestions??

TIA

Tom

The CPU has throttle and THERMTRIP. If the temperature went
too high, the motherboard will switch off the ATX power supply.
You could be getting a little bit of cooler effort from your
cooler, as without some heat removal, it would switch off.

You need thermal paste between a cooler and the top surface of the
CPU. That helps fill air gaps. The thermal interface material or TIM,
is only there to displace the air in any imperfections. You don't
keep adding TIM materials to "build an Oreo cookie". The TIM is
only there to flush a fraction of a millimeter of air from the
gap, and fill it with tiny boron nitride particles in grease.

Some cooling devices have pre-applied paste. If you remove the cooler
and reinstall it, sometimes that stuff doesn't sit flat. On one of
my coolers years ago, there was phase change material (kinda hard),
which was distorted enough I replaced it with Arctic Silver.

On one of my first builds, the idiotic heatsink had an aluminum
"lip" on the bottom, which conflicted with the lever arm area
and prevented the heatsink from seating. It was tilted. A half hour
of work with a metal file in the basement, removed the "feature", so
the rest of the heatsink could sit flat. Worked fine after
that.

Always check, by viewing from the side, that the heatsink
is flush to the CPU. You can do that with an inspection
mirror. Or if you have a case with a removable tray,
you can assemble the cooler while the motherboard is
outside the computer case. Making it easier to view from
the side, and check for flatness of assembly. If the assembly
won't sit flat, or the fasteners are "too hard to fasten",
figure out why. One of my P4 era coolers, the Intel provided
cooler seemed to have a dimensional problem, and way too much
normal force was being applied to the CPU socket area. I replaced
the retail cooler, with a third party one, and the fasteners
on that worked "normally". No thumb buster on the third-party
cooler.

You can hold your finger against various components in the
system. If the metal of the CPU cooler is quite cold to the
touch, it might not be making contact. I use both digital
temperature readings, as well as common sense finger probing,
to decide whether I forgot to put paste on or something :-)

Paul

On Fri, 8 Aug 2014 20:07:33 -0700, Tom Thompson
wrote:

Just finished assembling my 2nd build. Consists of an ASUS Z97-PRO MB,
an i7-4790K, the lower half of a Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935, 32Gig
Ram, GTX770 video card and a double fan Thermaltak 3.0 water cooler for
the CPU. Power for the cooler comes from a motherboard USB header and
the cooler fans are run from motherboard fan connectors.

To my relief, system came up initially, passed POST, properly identified
the RAM and SSD and went into the bios. Looked good except the CPU temp
displayed in the bios kept rising. All fans are running (especially the
2 for the water cooler). CPU temp climbs and finally tops out at 88
degrees C. Turned it off and tried again with the same result.

Possibilities: I think the Water cooler pump is running but my hearing
isn't the best and is it adequately connected to the CPU by the thermal
coating provided on the Water Cooler pump head? Didn't want to crank
the screws down too tightly for fear of damage.... Stock cooler still
in the box. Is the stock coated thermal paste on the cooler pump head
reliable? I have built one other system years ago and later updated
the stock cooler to a big tower air cooler with good results. Try stock
cooler?

Suggestions??

88C? That's crazy, hitting on 200F. I mean I've read mixed reviews
on (some) self-contained water coolers, that there's a marginal
improvement over air cooling, and not near in the same league as
convoluted or more, hm, efficient/dedicated water coolers (I'd presume
in a $200US range to start).

If you can't hear it through the air alone, take a screwdriver and put
the tip to the water pump, listening from the protruding bone directly
behind your ear with the handle of screw driver in contact with the
bone. I've also a mechanic's stethoscope if that's not enough.

Nope, no cranking on screws. Snug enough is enough to do their job.

Ah, hah. You've bought a cooler with a film conduction layer already
applied. Personally I don't use them, scrape them off with the edge
of a razor, and apply my own various varieties pastes/heatsink
compounds with the "flat" of the same razor. One of those pencil
width razors with break-off edge tabs for opening boxes or whatever.

Yea, of course the stock is reliable. Why else would a fine
manufacturer of high-quality CPU heatsinks put it on their product, if
they didn't trust you'd praise them, on high, with say yours or
somebody's $800US CPU?

Of course, everybody knows (notably in overclocking forums), they
wouldn't touch an applied manufacturer film with your 10-foot barge
pole. As, everybody knows, a heatsink manufacturer isn't going
anywhere near to covering your CPU burn-out with their product.

Not a bad idea to research heatsinks first from and end-user
perspective is all I'm saying.

Excuse me for saying that earlier, not crazy temps, nor probably near
Intel spec'd for maximum (whatever that may be). As for your CPU, I'd
shoot for optimums I'd established from charts and reviews - such as
this. . .

*
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8227/d...and-i5-4690k/2

....generally to delve into the world of heatsinks for a decent skew of
people with a positive reception.

My experience is usually outside of better results reported, though I
may not, IOW, have a system as cool as dedicated/extreme
overclockers/users -- I can live within results at some level of
concession, off their skew, for less extreme utilization. For an
instance and motif, air cooling, which I happen to like, at around
130-140F, tops, for that particular CPU well may preclude me, in the
first place to a forgone conclusion that a lower-powered CPU -- one
incapable of drawing 230watts at an additional 10C, more than you, for
*98C when pushed hard -- is better suited my particular needs.

In article , says...

On 8/8/2014 11:07 PM, Tom Thompson wrote:


Just finished assembling my 2nd build. Consists of an ASUS Z97-PRO MB,
an i7-4790K, the lower half of a Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935, 32Gig
Ram, GTX770 video card and a double fan Thermaltak 3.0 water cooler for
the CPU. Power for the cooler comes from a motherboard USB header and
the cooler fans are run from motherboard fan connectors.

To my relief, system came up initially, passed POST, properly identified
the RAM and SSD and went into the bios. Looked good except the CPU temp
displayed in the bios kept rising. All fans are running (especially the
2 for the water cooler). CPU temp climbs and finally tops out at 88
degrees C. Turned it off and tried again with the same result.

Possibilities: I think the Water cooler pump is running but my hearing
isn't the best and is it adequately connected to the CPU by the thermal
coating provided on the Water Cooler pump head? Didn't want to crank
the screws down too tightly for fear of damage.... Stock cooler still
in the box. Is the stock coated thermal paste on the cooler pump head
reliable? I have built one other system years ago and later updated
the stock cooler to a big tower air cooler with good results. Try stock
cooler?

Suggestions??

TIA

Tom

I assembled the same system and had no such issues using the stock cooler.

I have mine on this case.

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/produc...n_4aAuVj8P8HAQ

I like the open case so much I am going to use this:

AeroCool StrikeX-Air Black SECC Open Case Computer Case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0809034 711:s

Drake.

Thanks Al. That's not a case, its a launch pad... ;) What kind of
temps are you getting on your stock cooler? Trying to get a comparison
with my first on temps of 88C.

Tom

In article , says...

Tom Thompson wrote:

Just finished assembling my 2nd build. Consists of an ASUS Z97-PRO MB,
an i7-4790K, the lower half of a Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935, 32Gig
Ram, GTX770 video card and a double fan Thermaltak 3.0 water cooler for
the CPU. Power for the cooler comes from a motherboard USB header and
the cooler fans are run from motherboard fan connectors.

To my relief, system came up initially, passed POST, properly identified
the RAM and SSD and went into the bios. Looked good except the CPU temp
displayed in the bios kept rising. All fans are running (especially the
2 for the water cooler). CPU temp climbs and finally tops out at 88
degrees C. Turned it off and tried again with the same result.

Possibilities: I think the Water cooler pump is running but my hearing
isn't the best and is it adequately connected to the CPU by the thermal
coating provided on the Water Cooler pump head? Didn't want to crank
the screws down too tightly for fear of damage.... Stock cooler still
in the box. Is the stock coated thermal paste on the cooler pump head
reliable? I have built one other system years ago and later updated
the stock cooler to a big tower air cooler with good results. Try stock
cooler?

Suggestions??

TIA

Tom

The CPU has throttle and THERMTRIP. If the temperature went
too high, the motherboard will switch off the ATX power supply.
You could be getting a little bit of cooler effort from your
cooler, as without some heat removal, it would switch off.

You need thermal paste between a cooler and the top surface of the
CPU. That helps fill air gaps. The thermal interface material or TIM,
is only there to displace the air in any imperfections. You don't
keep adding TIM materials to "build an Oreo cookie". The TIM is
only there to flush a fraction of a millimeter of air from the
gap, and fill it with tiny boron nitride particles in grease.

Some cooling devices have pre-applied paste. If you remove the cooler
and reinstall it, sometimes that stuff doesn't sit flat. On one of
my coolers years ago, there was phase change material (kinda hard),
which was distorted enough I replaced it with Arctic Silver.

On one of my first builds, the idiotic heatsink had an aluminum
"lip" on the bottom, which conflicted with the lever arm area
and prevented the heatsink from seating. It was tilted. A half hour

Thanks, Paul. Appreciate the advice and background. The pump/cooler
head has/had preapplied "stuff" on it but with the mechanical attachment
arrangement I am a little unsure if the head is down flat on the CPU. Oh
well, off to Frys this afternoon for some Arctic stuff and try again.
Any preferences for particular paste and technique in the dark art of
paste application and spreading?

Tom

Tom Thompson wrote:
In article , says...
Tom Thompson wrote:
Just finished assembling my 2nd build. Consists of an ASUS Z97-PRO MB,
an i7-4790K, the lower half of a Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935, 32Gig
Ram, GTX770 video card and a double fan Thermaltak 3.0 water cooler for
the CPU. Power for the cooler comes from a motherboard USB header and
the cooler fans are run from motherboard fan connectors.

To my relief, system came up initially, passed POST, properly identified
the RAM and SSD and went into the bios. Looked good except the CPU temp
displayed in the bios kept rising. All fans are running (especially the
2 for the water cooler). CPU temp climbs and finally tops out at 88
degrees C. Turned it off and tried again with the same result.

Possibilities: I think the Water cooler pump is running but my hearing
isn't the best and is it adequately connected to the CPU by the thermal
coating provided on the Water Cooler pump head? Didn't want to crank
the screws down too tightly for fear of damage.... Stock cooler still
in the box. Is the stock coated thermal paste on the cooler pump head
reliable? I have built one other system years ago and later updated
the stock cooler to a big tower air cooler with good results. Try stock
cooler?

Suggestions??

TIA

Tom
The CPU has throttle and THERMTRIP. If the temperature went
too high, the motherboard will switch off the ATX power supply.
You could be getting a little bit of cooler effort from your
cooler, as without some heat removal, it would switch off.

You need thermal paste between a cooler and the top surface of the
CPU. That helps fill air gaps. The thermal interface material or TIM,
is only there to displace the air in any imperfections. You don't
keep adding TIM materials to "build an Oreo cookie". The TIM is
only there to flush a fraction of a millimeter of air from the
gap, and fill it with tiny boron nitride particles in grease.

Some cooling devices have pre-applied paste. If you remove the cooler
and reinstall it, sometimes that stuff doesn't sit flat. On one of
my coolers years ago, there was phase change material (kinda hard),
which was distorted enough I replaced it with Arctic Silver.

On one of my first builds, the idiotic heatsink had an aluminum
"lip" on the bottom, which conflicted with the lever arm area
and prevented the heatsink from seating. It was tilted. A half hour

Thanks, Paul. Appreciate the advice and background. The pump/cooler
head has/had preapplied "stuff" on it but with the mechanical attachment
arrangement I am a little unsure if the head is down flat on the CPU. Oh
well, off to Frys this afternoon for some Arctic stuff and try again.
Any preferences for particular paste and technique in the dark art of
paste application and spreading?

Tom

In my case, I think I have a tube of AS3, which is quite
old. One tube lasts a long time, if applied in thin coats.

Virtually anything will work, but reading the customer reviews
on the sales page will warn about losers.

1) On processors with exposed components, the requirement was for
"non-conductive" or things that "wouldn't upset capacitance".
Your processor is properly covered, so this is not a concern.
That was an AMD issue, like on my AthlonXP Mobile with the
exposed silicon die.

2) The material must be viscous enough, to not leave the area it is
applied. In the case of LGA sockets, cleanliness is important.
The socket springs "bite" into the lands on the land grid array
processor, so are likely to "bite" through leaking thermal paste.
My least favorite material is zinc oxide in silicon oil, which
leaves the surface in a matter of days. But nobody would propose
that as a proper solution anyway for a CPU cooler. Radio Shack
used to stock that stuff, and I actually did try it on a P4 once.
Not nice.

3) The main component in a lot of products, is boron nitride
particles. They're thermally conductive and electrical insulators,
and are ground into a fine powder and mixed with the thick paste.
Other particles are less important. You don't absolutely need
Silver in a paste. Industrial diamonds also work, and have good
properties (don't know how good they are for the environment).

4) At least one brand of paste, is too thick. Users have trouble
spreading it. That stuff, it behaves like cookie dough, breaks
into pieces and generally won't spread. So that's the other end
of the spectrum compared to zinc oxide (which is typically used
on home stereo products, when fastening the cooler to the power
transistors).

5) On the same web page as the pastes, will be a two-component
thermal epoxy. That is a material used for permanently fastening
things together. When building LED lighting, it's used for
fastening a LED to a heatsink... forever. So you don't want
to be putting that on your project. If your kit comes with
two syringes, you bought the wrong product.

Some examples here. I looked at the Frys listing too, to see which
ones they might have in common. Frys doesn't overlap Newegg very well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...g&Order=RATING

This one for example, the compound appears to be good, but
you don't get a lot of applications from it.

"ZALMAN ZM - STG1"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118010

This one is too viscous and is like peanut butter. Which would
encourage too thick a coating. One reviewer reports you can't
use the "rice grain in the center of the CPU" method. It must
be spread first, to achieve uniform application. The less viscous
ones, you "squash" them and they spread themselves.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835426020

The reviews on the Antec diamond stuff, note problems
deciding how to apply it. Antec tech support suggested not
using the enclosed spatula, but use the "rice grain" method.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835209053

So right now, a small sampling of comments suggests picking
a compound, where the installation method makes sense :-)
Since I've been using the same tube of paste for so long,
I don't have a lot of experience with the different types.
Just the PITA of scraping some of the Intel original stuff off.
I could probably get AS5 locally, if I needed to pick up
something after 6PM. The small computer stores would likely
have that one.

Some pastes, they "cure" with time. What that means, is the
organic paste base reacts to being applied, and the
consistency changes with time (gets a bit thicker). The conductive
particles settle into place, a few days after it's applied. You get
a degree or two improvment, after a few days have passed. But if
you're still seeing 88C core temperatures, chances are there is
something quite out of whack with the setup. The heat's not
going anywhere.

The pump should probably have an RPM signal on it, and at least
a three wire electrical connection (+12V, GND, RPM). And that should
allow you to monitor in the BIOS, whether the pump is running.
The fans should also be running on the radiator, but then it
depends on where the radiator is located, as to whether you
can monitor it or not.

Paul

On 8/9/2014 11:53 AM, Tom Thompson wrote:
In article , says...

On 8/8/2014 11:07 PM, Tom Thompson wrote:


Just finished assembling my 2nd build. Consists of an ASUS Z97-PRO MB,
an i7-4790K, the lower half of a Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935, 32Gig
Ram, GTX770 video card and a double fan Thermaltak 3.0 water cooler for
the CPU. Power for the cooler comes from a motherboard USB header and
the cooler fans are run from motherboard fan connectors.

To my relief, system came up initially, passed POST, properly identified
the RAM and SSD and went into the bios. Looked good except the CPU temp
displayed in the bios kept rising. All fans are running (especially the
2 for the water cooler). CPU temp climbs and finally tops out at 88
degrees C. Turned it off and tried again with the same result.

Possibilities: I think the Water cooler pump is running but my hearing
isn't the best and is it adequately connected to the CPU by the thermal
coating provided on the Water Cooler pump head? Didn't want to crank
the screws down too tightly for fear of damage.... Stock cooler still
in the box. Is the stock coated thermal paste on the cooler pump head
reliable? I have built one other system years ago and later updated
the stock cooler to a big tower air cooler with good results. Try stock
cooler?

Suggestions??

TIA

Tom

I assembled the same system and had no such issues using the stock cooler.

I have mine on this case.

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/produc...n_4aAuVj8P8HAQ

I like the open case so much I am going to use this:

AeroCool StrikeX-Air Black SECC Open Case Computer Case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0809034 711:s

Drake.

Thanks Al. That's not a case, its a launch pad... ;) What kind of
temps are you getting on your stock cooler? Trying to get a comparison
with my first on temps of 88C.

Tom

I just fired it up to be sure and I'm about 40c.

In article ,
says...

On Fri, 8 Aug 2014 20:07:33 -0700, Tom Thompson
wrote:

Just finished assembling my 2nd build. Consists of an ASUS Z97-PRO MB,
an i7-4790K, the lower half of a Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935, 32Gig
Ram, GTX770 video card and a double fan Thermaltak 3.0 water cooler for
the CPU. Power for the cooler comes from a motherboard USB header and
the cooler fans are run from motherboard fan connectors.

To my relief, system came up initially, passed POST, properly identified
the RAM and SSD and went into the bios. Looked good except the CPU temp
displayed in the bios kept rising. All fans are running (especially the
2 for the water cooler). CPU temp climbs and finally tops out at 88
degrees C. Turned it off and tried again with the same result.

Possibilities: I think the Water cooler pump is running but my hearing
isn't the best and is it adequately connected to the CPU by the thermal
coating provided on the Water Cooler pump head? Didn't want to crank
the screws down too tightly for fear of damage.... Stock cooler still
in the box. Is the stock coated thermal paste on the cooler pump head
reliable? I have built one other system years ago and later updated
the stock cooler to a big tower air cooler with good results. Try stock
cooler?

Suggestions??

88C? That's crazy, hitting on 200F. I mean I've read mixed reviews
on (some) self-contained water coolers, that there's a marginal
improvement over air cooling, and not near in the same league as
convoluted or more, hm, efficient/dedicated water coolers (I'd presume
in a $200US range to start).

Cooler was ~$70 US


If you can't hear it through the air alone, take a screwdriver and put
the tip to the water pump, listening from the protruding bone directly
behind your ear with the handle of screw driver in contact with the
bone. I've also a mechanic's stethoscope if that's not enough.

Gotta try that.



Nope, no cranking on screws. Snug enough is enough to do their job.

Ah, hah. You've bought a cooler with a film conduction layer already
applied. Personally I don't use them, scrape them off with the edge
of a razor, and apply my own various varieties pastes/heatsink
compounds with the "flat" of the same razor. One of those pencil
width razors with break-off edge tabs for opening boxes or whatever.

Off to get some Thermal paste this afternoon. If no better I'll try the
stock cooler.


Yea, of course the stock is reliable. Why else would a fine
manufacturer of high-quality CPU heatsinks put it on their product, if
they didn't trust you'd praise them, on high, with say yours or
somebody's $800US CPU?

On Sat, 09 Aug 2014 14:45:07 -0400, Al Drake
wrote:

I just fired it up to be sure and I'm about 40c.

That's one sweet ambiently running i7-4790K with core temps you've
got. Nothing at all like my earliest of dual core P4's (2x 2.6GHz),
running at ambience to the room temperature of 90F with a CoolerMaster
Hyper 212+ attached.

Good enough to a grapefruit-sized air cooler, though I've seen them
grown head-sized in a climate around these parts.

Both computers I have are without one of their side panels.
Compliments as well on your choice of cases. Hadn't seen one before
the NewEgg link - noteworthy and I do kinda like it. (I still use
just one of the larger 200mm fans, throttled reasonably down, in front
of each of my plattered disk arrays;- although I'll do as much even
while running dual-slotted 3.5 HDD SATA docking stations with a cute
little 115V fan from WallyMart.)