[SOLVED] How to do proper/thorough cooling testing for my system

[King_V]

Alright, so I put together Triple-V with the idea of being simple but quiet, rather than showy, and, for a case that looks like it shouldn't cool well, it seems to actually do a decent job.

I tweaked my fan curves in the BIOS for the case fans, as well as more efficiently work with the cooling characteristics of my chosen CPU cooler.

HOWEVER, I have only tested it by running the Stress Test from CPU-Z. I mean, so far, so good, it stays nearly silent, and, according to Ryzen Master, the CPU never gets above 65° C no matter how long I leave that particular test running.

So, a bit embarrassing to say that, despite all my time working on PCs, I am a total noob when it comes to stress-testing to any degree. Thus, I suspect there are tougher CPU tests out there. And, of course, the elephant in the case is my RX580 8GB, which was sitting pretty much idle.

I want to be able to observe temps (and make sure the fans are ramping up as expected) for maxing out the CPU by itself, the GPU by itself, and the CPU and GPU together. Any recommendations?

 

[Colif]

I want to be able to observe temps (and make sure the fans are ramping up as expected) for maxing out the CPU by itself, the GPU by itself, and the CPU and GPU together. Any recommendations?

Info - How to use HWINFO to track Sensor values on Ryzen

Download HWINFO - https://www.hwinfo.com/download/ when you open the app, click the tick box next to show sensors only, and click run in the next window, click on the gear icon in bottom right, this opens settings. On General tab, under polling period, set it to 500 and click the set button...

forums.tomshardware.com

always know what CPU & GPU temps are, they show in task bar . Middle one is the NVMe

maybe use Prime 95 to test CPU - https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/prime95-download.html
Prime 95 how to Guide: http://www.playtool.com/pages/prime95/prime95.html

I have seen people run furmark at same time to really cook PC.

cinebench is another way to do it.

 

[Phaaze88]

Cpu only:
-Cinebench R23, single core or multi core. The 10min thermal test.
-OCCT, small data set, normal mode, steady load type, for 10-15mins. Do both SSE and AVX2 instruction sets - they have to be done separately. Cycles don't matter, and leave threads on auto.

Gpu only:
-Unigine Superposition. You can make it loop over and over for a thermal test by starting in game mode, and then clicking on cinematic mode.
-Simply playing the most graphically demanding games you have for 10+ mins. If you don't think you have anything that hard, then do the above.

Both:
Cinebench R23 + Unigine Superposition loop ought to be a nice reasonable load across both.

 

[King_V]

I haven't run the CPU tests as long as recommended, but I did notice that, using Ryzen Master to monitor temps, the CPU never exceeded 65-66° C, and the fans stayed quiet. If I put my ear to the case, I could hear them.

Ho'boy, Unigine Superposition taught me that my GPU has a crazy aggressive fan curve, and definitely audible through the case. Once temps came down, it was really slow to bring the fan speed down from it - almost like the GPU was paranoid about being pushed that hard again, like it was saying "yeah, burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me"

I went to Adrenaline, and tried to create a custom fan curve, but, unless I'm doing something wrong, it won't let me set a 0 fan speed anywhere for low temperatures, whereas if I leave it on automatic, it will go to 0 fan speed for low temps. Kinda weird...

 

[Phaaze88]

Ho'boy, Unigine Superposition taught me that my GPU has a crazy aggressive fan curve, and definitely audible through the case. Once temps came down, it was really slow to bring the fan speed down from it - almost like the GPU was paranoid about being pushed that hard again, like it was saying "yeah, burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me"

That's probably due to the P7 Neo: not too many ways for cool air to get in, nor for heated air to get out, so it takes a little longer for the heatsink to cool down.

 

[King_V]

That's what I would've thought, too, but the case actually flows better than it looks. I was monitoring the temps through Adrenaline, and the temps quickly dropped from the 50s to the 30s. Despite this, the fan RPM was still over 3000 when the temps went below 50, and were still in the upper 2000s when the temp dropped below 40, and just very slowly came back down after that.

Confusing as hell.

 

[Phaaze88]

Yeah, that probably is the software... the heck...

 

[King_V]

I'm digging around to see if PowerColor offers their own software to set a fan curve, outside of Adrenalin, but so far, after a hasty check, no luck.

Worst case, when I start doing some gaming again where it becomes relevant, if the card gets loud, I'll probably create my own fan curve and just live with the fact that I'll have to have them spinning all the time. At low to moderate speeds, the GPU fans are inaudible, or close to it.