Question High temps with new watercooing setup (i7 7700K)

[AntaresSQ01]

Hi,
I've just recently got a small upgrade,
I was hitting 90°C on stock clocks on the i7 7700k with a Cryorig H7 (when i initially bought it, it wouldn't go above 80°C on stock clocks.) in the XTU stress test and IntelBurnTestV2, sometimes high 80s in games like EFT. Whilst this might be normal with a mid-end air cooler, I suspected it might be due to poor thermal compound application too or the cooler sagging over time causing bad contact (tho i was suspicious of the former because core 4 would generally be 5-10°C hotter than the rest).

Anyway just as a small upgrade I got a new PSU and a Corsair H100i Platinum, a 240mm AIO that definitely should have vastly better thermal performance than the Cryorig H7, I also got Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut as the thermal compound this time around over some old paste i had when i installed the H7, I was expecting mind blowing, down to 60°C temps but in reality i would still hit 82-87°C in those tests. I'll be delidding this CPU aswell in a week's time so I'm not going to bother too much with it for now but surely you'd expect much more of an improvement? Also I've been pretty thorough whilst installing it, a generous pea sized blob of paste, then carefully putting the block on, and then went in a criss cross pattern with the thumb screws until they were finger tight, then I took a small screwdriver and just tightened them a bit more (just as much as i could with the ends of my fingers). If I've messed up something listed here let me know please.

Thanks for any help!

Specs:
CPU: i7 7700K @ 4.20 GHZ
Motherboard: MSI Z270-A Pro
Ram: 2x8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 @2666MHZ
SSD/HDD: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SATA
Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SATA
Samsung HD204UI 2TB
GPU: EVGA GTX 980 SC ACX 2.0
PSU: Seasonic Prime Ultra Gold 1000W
Chassis: Corsair Graphite Series 230T
OS: Windows 10 Pro x64 Build 1903

 

[Eximo]

I delidded mine pretty quick after I got it. One core was really warm.

Could be that when you clamped down the H7 and then relaxed it, the compound under the heatspeader came off a bit.

I put my lid back on with Kyronaut and got a like a 7C improvement on the bad core and a 3-4C improvement on the other three.

Another common problem with Corsair water coolers is a lack of mounting pressure. If you push on the CPU block and you can see a gap forming on the backplate, it needs some washers between the backplate and motherboard. I had to do that with my H80i some years back, was apparently a common enough problem that there were tutorials and everything. I think Corsair even sent out washer for free.

 

[AntaresSQ01]

I delidded mine pretty quick after I got it. One core was really warm.

Could be that when you clamped down the H7 and then relaxed it, the compound under the heatspeader came off a bit.

I put my lid back on with Kyronaut and got a like a 7C improvement on the bad core and a 3-4C improvement on the other three.

Another common problem with Corsair water coolers is a lack of mounting pressure. If you push on the CPU block and you can see a gap forming on the backplate, it needs some washers between the backplate and motherboard. I had to do that with my H80i some years back, was apparently a common enough problem that there were tutorials and everything. I think Corsair even sent out washer for free.

I tried pushing on the block but it made not perceivable difference, that said i might try that since there are extra washers, but when i tightened it down i didn't go any further because it was already tight enough, didn't seem like it wasn't mounted properly.

 

[Eximo]

Generally depends on the thickness of the motherboard. Some of the 8 and 9 series boards were very thin from the likes of ASUS and ASRock.

 

[AntaresSQ01]

Generally depends on the thickness of the motherboard. Some of the 8 and 9 series boards were very thin from the likes of ASUS and ASRock.

There are no obvious signs of lack of mounting pressure though, and i refuse to believe a 4 core 7700k running at 90°C under load with a water cooler... Stock TIM can't be THAT bad...

 

[Eximo]

Then you might want to check the stock voltages, could be over doing it. I torture my poor chip to run at 5Ghz.

 

[AntaresSQ01]

Then you might want to check the stock voltages, could be over doing it. I torture my poor chip to run at 5Ghz.

I could reach 4.9 stable on the air cooler without major issues and still within reasonable heat, the bios is literally all stock settings at the moment, Vcore at 1.280+-0.030

 

[Moggy2]

......... I suspected it might be due to poor thermal compound application too or the cooler sagging over time .....
I'll be delidding this CPU aswell in a week's time................ I've been pretty thorough whilst installing it, a generous pea sized blob of paste,............

-- if you delid that should give you some solutions.

-- the paste is actually mostly there to fill micro gaps in between CPU and cooler and in general less is better, it is actually mainly the metal that conducts heat, not the paste, if used too much it will actually become more of an insulator
-- try this; unscrew the cooler, lift it of and look at the paste pattern, press it on again tightly by hand and then carefully remove it again in one go, without turning and check the pattern again
-->there should be almost no paste in the middle of the cooler or CPU (it should be squeezed out most of the surface area)
-->if you see a lot of paste in the middle it means the CPU heat spreader (unlikely) or the cooler is hollow
this seldom happens to be the case, usually the CPU heat spreader is more a bit round/like a bump
...talking about thickness of a hair or 2 here...

 

[Crosslhs82x2]

Ya nylon washers on 1 of my amd back plates helped me with a h100i v2.

Did you kick up the pump and fan speeds for the testing ?

 

[AntaresSQ01]

Ya nylon washers on 1 of my amd back plates helped me with a h100i v2.

Did you kick up the pump and fan speeds for the testing ?

I heard mounting pressure was a problem with the h100i v2, i have the h100i platinum though, and i've seen no such complaints, I'll definitely do it, there is nothing to lose, as far as fans and pump, yep on iCUE's extreme setting, strangely there was only a couple °C difference between quiet and extreme modes.

-- if you delid that should give you some solutions.

-- the paste is actually mostly there to fill micro gaps in between CPU and cooler and in general less is better, it is actually mainly the metal that conducts heat, not the paste, if used too much it will actually become more of an insulator
-- try this; unscrew the cooler, lift it of and look at the paste pattern, press it on again tightly by hand and then carefully remove it again in one go, without turning and check the pattern again
-->there should be almost no paste in the middle of the cooler or CPU (it should be squeezed out most of the surface area)
-->if you see a lot of paste in the middle it means the CPU heat spreader (unlikely) or the cooler is hollow
this seldom happens to be the case, usually the CPU heat spreader is more a bit round/like a bump
...talking about thickness of a hair or 2 here...

Thanks for the tip, good point on the to much paste and i didn't check that. However I didn't go crazy overboard, just a bit on the generous side, will check it out!

 

[Crosslhs82x2]

You can still manually set Icue and run a fixed % or a fixed rpm or a custom curve and maybe get alittle bit more rpm on those fans.

The only rgb I have on my system is my ram, and mobo accent so I use corsair link 4,
And have changed my fans to the Noctua 140mm Ippc 3000 rpm fans on my 2 h110i's 1on my son's 2600x and my 3600x.

Don't know if it will help on your intel or not but I have had good luck with thermaltake TG7 paste on my corsair coolers.
I apply a little bit to the pump head coldplate working it with an old credit card in all directions until the copper is just tainted or discolored.
Then my pea size dot on cpu since I'm Amd and then attach.
I have tried Ic Diamond, Artic Mx4 and a paste micro center sells but have had the best luck with the TG7.
If you are ever in a pinch and live near a Best Buy they carry it for $8.00

 

[Mr.Spock]

I'd check the setup to make sure any air bubbles are out of the pump and in the radiator

 

[AntaresSQ01]

I'd check the setup to make sure any air bubbles are out of the pump and in the radiator

It's a brand new AIO, I don't think you can and i wouldn't suspect that to be an issue, heat is transferred to the water (albeit slowly) and the pump sounds fine

 

[Mr.Spock]

Absolutely can, start with the pump beneath the radiator prior to install. Shake gently and then install keeping the pump relatively low with respect to the tubes.
Also are the radiator fans connected to the CPU fan header?

It's a brand new AIO, I don't think you can and i wouldn't suspect that to be an issue, heat is transferred to the water (albeit slowly) and the pump sounds fine

 

[Crosslhs82x2]

On the cooler he is running the fans are to be connected to the fan lead coming out of the Pump.
The only wire that goes the a mobo header is a Tach or sense wire as on fans.
That is the way most of the Corsair I series coolers are installed.

 

[AntaresSQ01]

I've broken my XTU because for some reason it can't recognise my 7700K since i reinstalled it. But it seems like my temps are much better after all, i just used different program. I used to peak at 90°C on the XTU Benchmark but since that didn't work I did the IntelBurnTestV2 which absolutely pegs it at 100% utilisation running Linpack. And I'm hitting high 80s with the AIO. Apparently this is normal since it runs much hotter than XTU's own stress test. That said I need comparative results with XTU. I did a test with IBTv2 before swapping to the AIO and this is the difference graphed:

Still seems like a bit low gains... Oh well I really hope my CPU is just so sh*t that delidding will knock off like 20°C... Also high temps might be because my CPU is All core boosting to 4.5Ghz, not just single core 4.5, rest 4.4. I don't know why, it's disabled in the BIOS by default. Also I'm not sure what stock voltages are supposed to be but now that i think about it 1.28V average on stock seems high to me.

 

[Eximo]

Only a little high, but 4.5Ghz all cores is about right for 1.28. LLC might be too high, Vin might be too high. Core voltage isn't everything.

I have a fairly poor chip, runs 1.416 to reach 5Ghz all cores. Average is much lower, closer to where you are at. If nothing else, you could try throwing 4.8Ghz or something at it and see if if is fine.

 

[AntaresSQ01]

Only a little high, but 4.5Ghz all cores is about right for 1.28. LLC might be too high, Vin might be too high. Core voltage isn't everything.

I have a fairly poor chip, runs 1.416 to reach 5Ghz all cores. Average is much lower, closer to where you are at. If nothing else, you could try throwing 4.8Ghz or something at it and see if if is fine.

Yea I ended up doing that, I set all my Voltages manually, override at 1.28V and I got a stable 4.8Ghz going atm at pretty much the same temps as before. I'm looking to push 5.2Ghz once I delid because I know my chip is good but for now 4.8 is fine. Under normal loads like gaming and Cinebench it won't touch 80°C

 

[AntaresSQ01]

Wow I'm speechless... I've done my delid... Look at this:

That ladies and Gentlemen. Is a 30°C Peak temp improvement from stock TIM... This probably has to be a world record for delids...