The Curse of the 100°C CPU

[Rob Williams]

I'm not sure how I got this curse, but it feels like no matter what kind of preemptive action I take, I inevitably hit 100°C on the CPU I'm using at some point. To help prevent this sort of thing from happening, I upgraded to a Corsair 800D chassis and H60 CPU cooler a couple of months ago, up from an Intel stock cooler (the large one) and CM Storm Sniper. Yet, I managed to accomplish the 100°C feat even still.

Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!

[Doomsday]

Damn! Dusts a killer! I recently bought an electric blower so i will be cleaning up my PC asap!!
Thanx for the heads up mate, never underestimate the destructive power of The Dust!

[Optix]

Bill's prior testing with the different fan configurations showed nearly no difference so I run all of my liquid cooling setups with the fan(s) pushing air out of the system instead of pulling it in. This includes our case testing system although when testing Corsair coolers in our other test system I run them as the manual suggests.

I can understand why Corsair says to run it the other way around seeing how cool air from outside will cool better than air that has already been heated internally but for the sake of 1 or 2 degrees I'll go with a clean system.

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by Optix

Bill's prior testing with the different fan configurations showed nearly no difference so I run all of my liquid cooling setups with the fan(s) pushing air out of the system instead of pulling it in. This includes our case testing system although when testing Corsair coolers in our other test system I run them as the manual suggests.

Doh, I forgot all about that. If I get time later I'll turn the fan back around. In the configuration it is in, I'll just end up getting the same problem sooner than later.

[marfig]

Getting another fan to act as intake close to the liquid exhaust fan, could eliminate any loss (if you experience any) of moving the liquid fan to outtake. Most of the air being pushed in would immediately be sucked out.

[Kayden]

Go with a setup like mine and you will never hit 100c again (c:

I max out below 60c and that's with 2 other 580's on the same radiator fan system, even when my room is at 95f.

Originally Posted by Doomsday

Damn! Dusts a killer! I recently bought an electric blower so i will be cleaning up my PC asap!!
Thanx for the heads up mate, never underestimate the destructive power of The Dust!

I blow out my machine at least every 2 months, I try to do it every month but sometimes I forget. You know those pics of people computers covered in dust? Yeah happened one to many times I was called out to fix a restart issue when I had my own Business in the 90's for fixing and maintaining them, had one catch fire one time. That's why I own a air compressor, much cheaper then can's of air in the long run. It is used for other things but that's the main use for it.

[2Tired2Tango]

This problem in particular isn't one I've ever experienced, though the reason behind it is again simple.

LOL... wait till you pull open a customer's machine and it's packed top to bottom with cockroaches...

Of course my all time favorite is: "My system got real quiet then it shut down"... pulled open the power supply and there was a baby gartersnake trapped in the intake fan!

Yep... schite happens my friend...

[Optix]

The moral of the story - if it doesn't have a filter, it's an exhaust fan.

[2Tired2Tango]

Originally Posted by Optix

The moral of the story - if it doesn't have a filter, it's an exhaust fan.

Or even simpler... cold air in... hot air out...

And yes filters are important... even the lowly scotchbrite pad will do!

[TheCrimsonStar]

Originally Posted by 2Tired2Tango

Or even simpler... cold air in... hot air out...

And yes filters are important... even the lowly scotchbrite pad will do!

huh...I'll have to try that!

-edit-

nevermind, I just bought some fan grilles from newegg

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by marfig

Getting another fan to act as intake close to the liquid exhaust fan, could eliminate any loss (if you experience any) of moving the liquid fan to outtake. Most of the air being pushed in would immediately be sucked out.

You mean like this?

http://www.corsair.com/cooling/hydro...pu-cooler.html

Originally Posted by Kayden

I blow out my machine at least every 2 months

My doctor recommended me do that daily to relieve stress, but he was a weirdo.

Originally Posted by 2Tired2Tango

LOL... wait till you pull open a customer's machine and it's packed top to bottom with cockroaches...

Just the thought of that makes me want to vomit =/

Originally Posted by TheCrimsonStar

huh...I'll have to try that!

Tango is full of it. Cool ideas, that is

[Doomsday]

Originally Posted by Kayden

Go with a setup like mine and you will never hit 100c again (c:

I max out below 60c and that's with 2 other 580's on the same radiator fan system, even when my room is at 95f.

I blow out my machine at least every 2 months, I try to do it every month but sometimes I forget. You know those pics of people computers covered in dust? Yeah happened one to many times I was called out to fix a restart issue when I had my own Business in the 90's for fixing and maintaining them, had one catch fire one time. That's why I own a air compressor, much cheaper then can's of air in the long run. It is used for other things but that's the main use for it.

There was a post here a few months ago showing pictures and there were dead rats in the casings!!

I'll find the post, its disgusting and hilarious at the same time!

[2Tired2Tango]

Originally Posted by TheCrimsonStar

huh...I'll have to try that!

-edit-

nevermind, I just bought some fan grilles from newegg

Do a search here for scotchbrite, we did a thread on that a couple of years ago...

[marfig]

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

You mean like this?

http://www.corsair.com/cooling/hydro...pu-cooler.html

Hehe! Wasn't thinking on something so drastic. But if that works, that works.

You know when two fans sitting close together, one in and the other out, will sort of cancel each other, reducing air flow to a small portion of the case? Well, that's more or less what you would want to happen if for some reason turning the liquid cooler to out reduces the cooling effect on your CPU.

Depending on your chassis, a side fan pointing to the CPU area, or a top fan, could be turned to intake. And the Corsair H60 fan would suck out a large portion of that air coming in. I'm guessing here. But this would allow you to get cooler air to go through the radiator, while not being forced to turn the H60 to intake. Worth a shot?

Originally Posted by 2Tired2Tango

Do a search here for scotchbrite, we did a thread on that a couple of years ago...

I did and it made me laugh, although I was pretty sure I knew what you were up to.

I'd totally go for that. Reminds me also of what I use to blow dust of my system. A simply muscle-driven blower: The Giottos Large Rocket-air.

I used to use an Adorama Hurricane before. But I once read somewhere about the Giotto, by some guy who uses the same thing to clean their system, being a bit more powerful and more importantly, containing a valve that doesn't allow dust to be sucked inside.

These are all camera lenses blowers. They aren't that strong and won't clean a heavily dusted system. But they are all that is required, will work perfectly (and forever) and save you a lot of money, if you dust up once every 2 or 3 months.

[Tharic-Nar]

A friend of mine went through 3 different PC builds with a high CPU temp, different CPUs, power supply and heatsinks each time. When i finally got him to install some decent temp monitoring, i was alarmed that he had been using the same GPU in each build, a 3000 series AMD GPU that was idling at 80C. The GPU was adding an extra 10-20C on the CPU temp.

I bring this up as a reminder of sorts. Many of the modern stock GPU coolers use external venting, they use a blower that sucks in air from one end of the card and chucks it out through the backplate. However, if you were to use central or mutli-fan cooler on the CPU, you will be venting hot air inside the case. This does increase the internal temp.

Now this is when things get complicated. Corsair is correct in that having the fan blow inwards should be better - especially when you consider a GPU without a rear plate exhaust. But at the same time, with an exhausting GPU next to a wall, that hot air will rise and then be sucked in by the inward facing CPU fan.

So the configuration will largely depend on the setup. The air flow in the case, the exhaust of the GPU, number of hard drives, etc etc. So for certain configurations, changing the direction of the fan on the radiator will have little effect, on other systems, it may have a dramatic effect.