Question Few questions about thermal paste, air bubbles and getting rid of them

[Mark_jason]

Hey guys,

Having few issues with my pc and need help to answer the following questions:

1- Can hear what sounds like water moving in the pump, got told that's air bubbles and to get rid of them.

I need to remove the pump and reapply thermal paste, searched on ebay and got so many choices, any advise on which one to use? (not planning to OC the 6700k or anything, if I do OC maybe just very little bit, won't play with the voltage or anything of that advanced level).

2- I also managed to remove the radiator and could hear there is water inside, is this normal or I also need to get rid of it?

3- Sometimes I get no display, and need to restart to get the display, got told I need to reseat the GPU, once I clean it and reseat it, do I also need to apply thermal paste to it or just remove it and install it again?

4- The PSU makes clicking noise sometimes, it's still under warranty of 5 years, should return it or this is normal since it's not always?

Thanks

 

[jimmysmitty]

First off, what kind of water cooling do you have? Custom or CLC?

1. If you are not overclocking get Arctic Silver 5. Cheap but a decent TIM
2. If it is a CLC, no.
3. Is this a water cooled GPU or does it have a fan and heatsink?
4. Depends as it could be the fan depending on where its coming from.

To help us better could you post your full system specs?

 

[Mark_jason]

First off, what kind of water cooling do you have? Custom or CLC?

1. If you are not overclocking get Arctic Silver 5. Cheap but a decent TIM
2. If it is a CLC, no.
3. Is this a water cooled GPU or does it have a fan and heatsink?
4. Depends as it could be the fan depending on where its coming from.

To help us better could you post your full system specs?

1- No it's not custom, it's AIO, Coolermaster Nepton 240M.

2- not sure what you mean by CLC.

3- The GPU has fans (it's GTX 970, forgot to mention).

4- How to make sure more about the issue?

Specs:

i7 6700k.
MSI GTX 970.
PSU: Antec TPC-750w gold rated.
Mobo: ASRock Fata1ty z170
Coolermaster Nepton 240M.

 

[jimmysmitty]

CLC is a Closed Loop Cooler. It means the entire system is self contained system.

So now I can answer the questions better:

1. Still buy AS5, since you wont be overclocking no need for some crazy special paste and AS5 is still decent.
2. No, you can't empty the radiator and shouldn't try. Most CLCs will have some pump sound. So long as your CPU is not running hotter than it should with that cooler it should be working as it should.
3. I would not re-apply TIM to the GPU. You would have to take off the shroud, fans and heatsink and unless its running insanely hot I would leave it be.
4. This one is hard. You could pull the PSU and use the paperclip method to get it to power then watch and listen to the fan. The only other thing I could think of is it could be a part going bad but it is honestly hard to say. It is an older unit (2014 design) but I have not seen many PSUs that have a clicking sound.

 

[Mark_jason]

Thank you Jimmy.

Re: the temps, I get these temps:

https://imgur.com/PQJoSHL

View: https://imgur.com/PQJoSHL
(with firefox open with 17 tabs).

https://imgur.com/tdH4Rrt

View: https://imgur.com/tdH4Rrt
(With GTA V minimised to take the screenshot and firefox still open).

I hope these temps are normal as a very normal user.

 

[Karadjgne]

You'll need to use a program like MSI Afterburner and set the overlay up onscreen. With gta V minimized like that, you can see the loads are only 5% or so on each core, so not much better than idle. Afterburner will get you temps in game, under those loads, so will be far more accurate. Then just pop a screen shot.

I much prefer Noctua NT-H1 or thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for pastes. They are more greasy than pasty, and do not dry out. Much easier to apply, and once done will last longer than the usable lifetime of the pc. AS5 should be replaced every 2-3 years or so.

You can usually cure the water sounds by orienting the radiator differently, hoses on bottom. Sometimes slowly tilting the pc when it's running so that the radiator is above the cpu will also work as air rises to the top and out of the pump and lines.

Only noise you should ever hear from a psu is the sound of the fan running. And that's a decent psu, so rma is a good thought while it's still covered. Take a good look as best you can, see if the fan is abnormally dusty and make sure the screen is cleaned regularly.

 

[Mark_jason]

Interesting Karadjgne

Here is a pic

https://imgur.com/QnnIJWh

View: https://imgur.com/QnnIJWh


Re: the TIM, is one enough? in case I find out I applied very little or for the second use later on, since its my first time reapplying TIM.

Re: the radiator and orienting, I tried shaking it once removed the raiator, didn't do much more since I don't have the paste yet and can't remove everything yet.

Re: the PSU, Good opinion, I only hear the clicking sometimes.

Here is a video of the noise: https://ufile.io/ujqbd

 

[jimmysmitty]

Agree on the PSU RMA.

The temps look fine to me. Well within normal.

And one should be more than enough. Most TIMs are enough for multiple applications. I had a tube of IC Diamond 24 that was used 5 or so times.

 

[Karadjgne]

Paste isn't like peanut-butter, spread like a normal person on bread, sorta good and thick. Paste is more like peanut-butter spread by Ebenezer Scrooge, just one tiny dab not much bigger than a grain of fluffy rice.

Have you seen the tube of nail glue included with stick on nails? That's about the size of a tube of paste good enough for 5 applications.

The most important part of any repaste is cleaning. Isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol, preferably in the 90+% range although 75% will work in a pinch) and coffee filters. Don't soak the filter, just dampen it and wipe, changing filters often. Over the years of doing this, I've found the better, greasy pastes to be far easier to clean than the thicker gummy pastes. You'll want to clean the cpu lid until the filter doesn't really turn gray any more. Once clean, do not touch the surface of the cpu or cooler with a finger, finger prints contain oils and you want to avoid oils as it prevents the paste from making a bond to the surface.

Apply your grain of rice paste, seat the cooler straight down with a little wiggle to help spread the paste evenly, lock it in place (screw down in an X pattern or back and forth evenly depending on mount, only a turn of the screw at a time, not all the way) until the screws stop and you are done.

 

[Mark_jason]

Thank you very much guys