3XS Water Cooling Temp and Maintenance

[Gorlak]

Hi all,

I have a nearly 2 year old 3XS build from Scan and love it to bits but having carried out a bit of a system clean I've discovered something a bit odd. Having moved house, when I set up the PC the harddrive started having a few errors so, having put it off for a long time, I reinstalled windows. All fine and it cured the problems. At the same time however, I decided to drain and refill the water cooling system as I had never done this and having checked the system temps before the XP reinstall, the CPU was reported as running at ~94°!

I spent Sunday completely and carefully cleaning out the system inards; dusting and double checking connections and tackling the water cooling. Drained the (Scan) installed coolant, which seemed to have a quite a few particles in it, and replaced with a mix of 10% high quality anti-freeze and 90% de-ionised water. All looking good, only one air bubble left in the loop, testing pump running quite a bit and all seemed fine. With everything sealed back up and tidied away though, when I run SpeedFan, it reports my CPU as ~62° at idle! In all the time I've had this PC, and I've put under some serious loading with 3D rendering, I've not once had an issue with instability or hangs or other heat related issues. I never thought to run a temperature reading program before, so sadly have no point of reference to when the machine was originally built.

So, after much preamble(!), my question is what could be wrong? Is the temperature sensor on the Mobo not recording the correct temperature - perhaps more suited to air cooling solutions? Have I put in the wrong mix of coolant? Is the system not flowing correctly perhaps, although it seems to be? I'll take some pics tonight of the set up so people can see more clearly - one thing that worries me is that the water block on the CPU has some discolouring on the external surface that looks like mild rust! But as I say, the system boots and runs fine, just seems to report high temps that I'd rather not see.

Thanks for any and all advice,
G

Specs:
3XS-PCW C2D-OC SYSTEM
Akasa Mirage-62 case
Corsair HX 620W Modular PSU
Asus P5B Deluxe i965 s775 WiFi
Intel E6600 C2Duo 2.40GHz - OC@3.00GHz
Alphacool Water Cooling Complete Starter Kit CPU
Corsair DDR2 TWINX 2GB PC6400
640Mb XFX 8800GTS
500Gb Seagate SATA2 HD
500Gb Samsung Spinpoint HD
Clabs XFi Xterme Music
Icydock Harddrive bay

[Webby]

Okay first of all have you reseated the CPU water block? If so did you apply a new layer of thermal paste? If you didn't clean and reapply thermal paste then this would be my first suggestion, the old paste will probably have dried out and moving the PC around may have broken the seal making heat transfer poor.

Also check the temperatures of the CPU cores using Core Temp http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/. If they are not as high as the motherboard CPU sensor then you know you are all right and its not an issue, at idle your CPU temps should be low 30s°C

Your anti-freeze water mix should be fine.

[Gorlak]

Hi Webby, thanks for the speedy reply!

I didn't reseat the CPU water block- I left it untouched as I found it but I'm tmepted to investigate now that I'm still getting these temps.

I'll try the tool you suggest when I get home - I was using SpeedFan which also displays CPU core temp, and these where similarly high when idle (i.e. ~62°C). Actually, it was speed fans identification that made me question the whole thing in the first place!

Good to hear the antifreeze/distilled water mix is good, I was a bit nervous! Have read else where that 50/50 mix is better but I'm still not certain. Played it safe with 10/90 mix.

[Webby]

In theory pure water is the best you can use and if you have a system with only one metal in then that is recommended (maybe with a couple of drops of biocide), if however you are using a system with multiple metals (normally aluminium and copper) you need to prevent galvanic corrosion this is where antifreeze (or rather ethylene glycol) comes in, however it is not as efficient at removing heat as water so you don't want to have too much.

Anyway back to your CPU temps yeah I would imagine that you need to clean the CPU and water block of any residual old thermal paste (iso-propyl alcohol (IPA) and some tissue works a treat), reapply some new and watch your temperatures come back to normal.

[Gorlak]

I was hoping you wouldn't say that...!

I'll look into doing that, it cant hurt really. What's strange is that its been ok up until now as far as operation is concerned - as I said, haven't run temperature monitors until now. Why would thermal paste etc simply stop working? I'll take a photo later and post it to show the odd colouring on its surface.

The other thing that's a bit odd is the order of the loop. I've left it exactly as Scan installed it but the order: Reservoir (with submerged pump) -> CPU -> Radiator -> back to Reservoir. I'd have thought it makes more sense to pump into the radiator and then onto the cpu (so Reservoir with submerged pump -> Radiator -> CPU -> back to Reservoir). I did read somewhere though that the order of the loop makes little difference over all? That and I don't really want to mess about reconnecting tubing...!

Thanks again for the help, and any and all other suggestions are appreciated!

[Webby]

Yeah while the optimum loop would be Res -> Pump -> Rad -> CPU -> Res the real world difference is tiny and having cleaner tubing runs may actually make an alternative set up better.

Every time you take the CPU block off you need to clean and reapply new thermal paste, as I said before it may hae been that during the move the case was knocked and the paste (which will have dried out by now) cracked meaning that the is now an air interface between the CPU and the water block this is killing your heat transfer efficiency.

Clean, reapply new thermal paste, reseat the block, done back to normal temperatures

[shaithis]

2 years? Lots of sediment in the coolant?

My guess is that the inside of the block needs a good clean. It's the one thing I hate doing as seals are not the most robust items I've ever come across......

The job normally involves taking the block to pieces with an alan-key (hex bolts), toothbrush to clean all the crap off of the fins inside, then re-assemble (and test thoroughly for leaks!)

[Gorlak]

shaithis - that does sound pretty plausible. That, however, does not sound like a fun job...!
Is it worth me picking up a new water block rather than mucking about with cleaning this one? Actually, just seen price of them and maybe not at ~£30 at the moment, my time cleaning it is a better spend! That and I don't know any shops in the Shoreditch area that stock such things...

I will go and get the Thermal Paste and cleaner tonight and possibly the water block if the consensus is to get one and I cna find some locally in stock.

Thanks again for speedy replies!

[Webby]

New water block as you say is going to cost you at least £30 more likely £35-45, if you decide to get one the XSPC Delta 3 is at the cheaper end of the performance scale, the Swiftech GTZ and D-Tek Fuzion V2 are at the slightly pricier end all would do you well.

I would personally clean the block first, well at least open it up and see if its covered in sludge. If it is then clean away toothbrush will work well here, if it looks clean then wash it a few times and rinse with some IPA (assuming you can get some) Oh and if you have any acrylic on anything do not get IPA on it! Very bad things will happen if you do! Once clean reseat it all and check your CPU temps if they are still too high for you a new block may help but even a poorly performing block should be able to match air cooling at get your idle temps down to the 30s.

[Gorlak]

OK, quick update and request for info...

Temps as reported by SpeedFan before reseating CPU. (Slightly misleading as this is immediately after a switch on during a cold morning... -


Temps as recorded after CPU reseat. This is after I'd been using the PC lightly for a bit, browsing and running speedfan, for example -


CoreTemp, as suggested by Webby, is as follows -


So then, my question - what do we reckon is the AUX reading and why is it so high? And what is the CORE temp, as opposed to the CORE 0 and CORE 1 temps? These values match CoreTemp readings, leading me to think they are true. Any advice?

I have photos, but I'll probably have to post these tomorrow now - early start in the morning!

Cheers,
H

[Gorlak]

Another update - just some pics to show off my system and the components in question.

Whole system -






The CPU and Watercooling Components as I cleaned them -


Water block -




Clamp. The corrosion I mention earlier in the thread seems to only be limited to this part- the waterblock itself is clean by the looks of things. Why would only this part rust?


The photos of the complete, re-assembled system are after I have reseated the water block on the CPU. I used Akasa 450 thermal compound and cleaned the old off with cotton buds, fibre free cotton pads (from boots) and Surgical Spirit (a rubbing alcohol of Ethanol and Methanol).

[Gorlak]

...what do we reckon is the AUX reading and why is it so high? And what is the CORE temp, as opposed to the CORE 0 and CORE 1 temps? These values match CoreTemp readings, leading me to think they are true. Any advice?

Having done a bit of digging, there is a suggestion that an AUX reading of 127°C appears to happen most of the time - I was searching only for Asus P5B Deluxe MoBos and it came up alot.
The CORE temp (as opposed to the CORE 0 and CORE 1) could well refer to the GPU, but I'm not certain about that. I'll run Rivatuner (or what ever nvidea use now) tonight to find out.

Any suggestion or further info that any one has? I feel I should be getting far lower temps with a water cooled solution, something like hi 20's at idel and mid 40's max under load...

[Webby]

Well if you want to check your GPU temps then GPU-Z is a good place to start will tell you all sorts of things http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/ but that was my first guess at what the Core temperature may have been as well.

As to the temps being a bit high they do seem a bit high my CPU (E6550 @3.5GHz idles in the high 20's low 30's depending on room temperature, this is in the same loop as my GPU (3870) and northbridge, I do however have a more powerful pump than you (this is a double edged sword which I won't get into now) and 2x larger radiators (but stacked so they are not as efficient). Idle temps are however less important than load, so get it loaded up and see what happens.

Also you have reseated the cooler have you dismantled and cleaned the block and the radiator?

As to why the bracket has gone rusty its made of steel and it happens happens faster in warm moist conditions and computer cases are most definitely warm though not usually to moist!

[Gorlak]

... happens faster in warm moist conditions and computer cases are most definitely warm though not usually to moist!

lol, yeah, that was my thought - things tend to go rusty in damp areas and I doubt/hope(!) this is the case at the heart of my system!

I have to say I didn't clean the block out as suggested as, having just changed the coolant, I didn't really want to faff about doing that if I could avoid it! Thought I'd try a simple clean and reapply of the thermal paste first, see what that did. I may have put too much paste on though think I'll do it again tonight.

On another note, I found these guys doing new alphacool (the brand I'm using here) water blocks very cheap - (Scroll down to bottom) www.specialtech.co.uk - Water Cooling Clearance

I was searching for a new, non-rusty mounting bracket that I don't have to order from Germany, but it seems no one sells them on they're own. I've sent a mail to Specialtech though.

Sounds like you've got a very nice set up there Webby! I'm gonna try my hardest to get close to those temps you mention!

[Webby]

Hmm I would be very tempted to give the block and radiator a good cleaning if the insides are covered in gloop (thats a technical term ) then the heat transfer is going to be decreased resulting in higher temperatures.

If you fancy a new CPU block then I really do recommend the XSPC Delta v3 (£35) if the budget doesn't stretch to that then the £25 then the Swiftech Apogee GT (Rev 2) finally the £9 Alphacool NexXxos Highflow Universal I recommend this the least as it will probably not be much different to your current block performance wise, will have a shiny new retention bracket though!

[Gorlak]

... not much different to your current block performance wise, but will have a shiny new retention bracket though!

and I think we all know that's what really matters!