am i stupid ?

[nikolov]

omg im sick of this...

i had a zalman 9500 mounted on a p5b deluxe and 6600 o/ced to 2800 mhertz at 1.3500v in bios was at 55 degre celsius under dual orthos..so i bought the upgrade of this zalman and just installed zalman 9700, i took my time, first cleaned the cpu with artic cleaner 1 & 2 using coffee filter..then i put a thick line of as5 as artic silver recommands to do, then i put zalman on it and let it spread the past...i mount everything and turn comp on and what ?!?! 41 degre at idle at 2400 1.28v ?! WTF not even better than with zalman 9500 grrrrrrrrr, zalman heatsinks are pieces of shit or im just too stupid to make good use of them.. plus its already a bit scratched and i dont even touched it !!

 

[FeareX]

Rule nr.1, always use a very thin layer of thermal paste. You said you used a thick layer of AS5. This aint for better cooling, it just has to deliver the heat to the heatsink.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Remove all the compound and put a very thin line of the compound back on. This stuff is only used to bond the CPU to the HSF for heat transfer... so the thicker, the less effective the compound gets. Also, there is a burn-in time with the Artic silver compound of a day or so.


Rule of thumb, ...

the silver compound should be thin enough that if you were to smudge it with your thumb, you would reviel the processor dye.

 

[NotAPimecone]

I dunno, I have the Zalman 9700 with AS5 (drop in the middle method) and a E6400 OC'd to 3.4 GHz (1.325V). My case is the ExtremEngine 3T, it has a 140mm intake fan on the front, a 250mm intake fan on the side, and I put a spare 80mm fan I had for exhaust on the back. I measure temps with CoreTemp.

Idle, with all my fans (Zalman included) at minimum, I'm about 35C.

Under dual-orthos load with all my cooling cranked up to maximum, it's mostly at 51C, occasionally 52 flirting with 53.

There are a number of possible explanations:

You might have put on too much AS5 - the thicker the layer, the worse the performance. Also, I heard that the STG-1 that is included with the 9700 can perform better than AS5.

The air in your room might be warmer than before - I've had my idle temp (fans at minimum) go up to 39-40C when I warmed up my room. Can't remember exactly what it did to my load temp, though I don't think it was quite as much of a difference.

 

[JMecc]

What is the difference between the 9500 & 9700 - I just looked at pics on the internet and they look very similar. I'm not sure what the features that would make one better the other are.

Jo

 

[NotAPimecone]

The 9700 is bigger. I think the 9500 has a 92mm fan, and the 9700 has a 110mm fan, or something.

 

[chunkymonster]

I don't think you're stupid, I just think you're expecting too much from the 9700...the real test isn't how much better the 9700 is over the 9500 when the cpu is idle, it's when the cpu is under heavy or full load that you'll need ot evaluate whether the 9700 was a better buy.

You need to reset your expectations.

 

[JMecc]

The 9700 is bigger. I think the 9500 has a 92mm fan, and the 9700 has a 110mm fan, or something.

In that case I should mention that the tip of the fin is the least effective portion in heat transfer. The tip is not very hot compared with the rest since heat has some trouble moving through the thin fin but mostly because the heat has already been dissipated by the rest by the time it reaches the fin. There is a temperature gradient from the core to the end of the fin rapidly dropping off. A bigger fan means more airflow, but the high flow comes from the fastest part of the fan - yes, the tip. So most of the airflow is hitting the coolest part of the heat sink where not much cooling potential exists.

I think a lot of heat sinks are better at looking like they disperse a lot than actually dispersing a lot. I've only been disappointed replacing stock heat sinks with specialized ones.

Jo

 

[NotAPimecone]

In that case I should mention that the tip of the fin is the least effective portion in heat transfer.

I didn't say the 9700 performs better than the 9500 (though I have seen a few benchmarks that say it's a few degrees better, including one right here at Tom's).

I'm quite happy with mine (though if I already had a 9500, I probably wouldn't have bothered changing it out for a 9700). Maybe I'm just a sucker. But it really didn't cost that much. I hate the stock fan. Even if the 9700 didn't have better performance, I'd have paid to have a CPU cooler I could rely upon to stay properly attached. Any cooler with a backplate support is infinitely better than those damn clips in my book.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Heh. I hate those annoying backplates. I prefer clipons myself. But then again, I have never had a problem with stock HSF. I did go with the tornado at one point, and with that I have got the best temps, but its way too loud. I finaly ditched it after slicing the tip of my finger off twice. Blood aparently doesnt affect electrical devices.

 

[NotAPimecone]

Maybe it was just because my first build ever was a bad experience with the intel HSF (Pentium 630 - same HSF as the Core2). Though I followed all instructions and thought I had the damn thing clipped in right, only one little corner of the thermal material actually melted, so the HSF wasn't actually taking any of the heat. I did clean it off and use some AS5, and eventually got it clipped in right (with some very frustrating effort that felt like I was going to break my board).

It was my only build before this latest one, and this time I just skipped the stock HSF altogether, and I think I'm happier.

I just don't think it's that inconvenient to have to take the mobo out to install a CPU heatsink, considering most of the time you're only doing it when initially building, so it's out of the case anyway.

How often do you change your heatsink?

 

[plankmeister]

55 under load with a 9500? That sounds pretty good to me... Why fix what isn't broken. I bet you'd knock a couple of degrees off that if you neatly arranged your cables and optimized airflow in your case with a couple low-rpm case fans.

But as the others have said... A dribble of AS the size of a grain of rice will give perfect results if applied with even pressure.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

oh bout as often as I change my underwear.

 

[NotAPimecone]

oh bout as often as I change my underwear.

So your "thermal interface material" has cured and you don't want to break the seal :lol:

 

[Nova46]

Well you must have done something wrong because I have an E6600 @ 3.0 Ghz with the 9500 and it idles at 30C. I used the thin line down the middle method.

 

[ocnewb]

Remove all the compound and put a very thin line of the compound back on. This stuff is only used to bond the CPU to the HSF for heat transfer... so the thicker, the less effective the compound gets. Also, there is a burn-in time with the Artic silver compound of a day or so.


Rule of thumb, ...

the silver compound should be thin enough that if you were to smudge it with your thumb, you would reviel the processor dye.

By a couple days he means 200 hours. After that time turn the pc off for a couple hours to allow the paste to "cure". You should do this once a month for optimal performance. =)

According to the AS5 manual and all.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

oh bout as often as I change my underwear.

So your "thermal interface material" has cured and you don't want to break the seal :lol:

ha! Funny.

 

[nikolov]

hey all, thx for replies

i think my tower sux, i have a 1000amg with 2 fan 80mm behind exhaust, one on side 80 mm who blows air inside, and one 80mm front who exhaust too, all my cables are well bundled. my room temp is 25 degre celsius..
atm my cpu idle at 39 at 2.8 gigahertz at 1.325v in bios (1.3 windows) i think its a bit better than with my zalman 9500 finally, plus i need to wait this 200 hours thingy to see maybe better thermal performance.
you know when i press the zalman 9700 to mount it, i can never do "even pressure" cause im almost blind when i do it, i dont unmont motherboard, its inside the case..and when i screw the bolts, zalman moves a bit..anyway someone here is right, i need to see if it performs better underload and not on idle...should i wait a bit before burning cpu with orthos or can i go now ?

 

[apache_lives]

remember the two share a similar design (copper fins etc) so dont expect the masive cooling performance jump

 

[neiroatopelcc]

You have 3 80mm fans exchausting air? and even in opposite directions?
I'd suggest you flip the front 80mm fan around, so it works as intake instead of exchaust! - and make sure the zalman sucks the air from the front, not the back....

 

[nikolov]

nop, i have 2 80mm fans behind who blow air outside
one side 80mm who blow air inside
one front 80 mm who blow air outside
do you think i should switch front for blowing air inside ?

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

If the fan is right above the procesor... that fan should be blowing out... If the side case fan is on the other end of the case, say bottom right, then yes make it an intake fan.... along with the front intake fans.

Idea is to create airflow from front to back...

 

[JMecc]

If the fan is right above the procesor... that fan should be blowing out... If the side case fan is on the other end of the case, say bottom right, then yes make it an intake fan.... along with the front intake fans.

I would blow straight down on the processor instead. Also, make sure just as much air ais blowing in as out and err on the side of too much in rather than out - fans over-pressurizing the inside will leak through the cracks & that's good, but under-pressurizing means exhaust fans have nothing to suck on.

Jo

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

If the HSF is designed to blow towards the CPU (not usual), then ya this applies... but why would you want to roomtemp air towards a fan thats trying to blow it away?

 

[JMecc]

If the HSF is designed to blow towards the CPU (not usual), then ya this applies... but why would you want to roomtemp air towards a fan thats trying to blow it away?

Sorry, you're right Comptia_Rep I was looking at pics from another thread about fan placement when I was writing this - I thought I was replying to the other one.

In this case with the fan blowing front to back I probably wouldn't want a case fan over this at all. Just a 120 in front and back of the case plus the psup, vga & cpu fans.

Jo