Help CPU temp is not avg. Xigmatek Dark Knight

[Oldirty]

I just bought and built my second pc. I am running a AMD Phenom II X4 955, on a GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard, with a XIGMATEK Dark Knight-S1283V. Most people's Idle temps on posts I have read from new egg, and other sites including here, average around 29-33 c and 45-50c on full load. I am seeing around 42-44 Idle 52-55 on full load. Now as it is straight forward on mounting, I know it's mounted right, but what I am wondering is did I put to much arctic silver on it? Or what other reasons may be causing it. My case is a Rosewill Blackbone Black Steel, It Included 2 x 120mm quiet fans, one front and one back, I installed an additional APEVIA CF12SL-UBL 120mm Blue LED Case Fan on the side venting out. It is 21c ambient temp in my house ( Always 68-72 Degree's in here ) and I did Overclock but it is only the core multiplier not voltage, and when I ran it at stock it was only a 1 degree deference. I am using multiple programs to see the temp, Core Temp, Speed Fan ( witch displays my second core at 80 degrees F. has to mixed up with another case sensor or something ) and Everest. All of them besides the one core mis-read on speed fan, are consistently the same.
I put the arctic silver on the heat sync, and the proc (not very much), and spread it thin with a playing card ( witch was brand new and clean ). Actic silver's website suggest I only put about the third of the size of a BB drop only on the proc. and put the heatsinc on twist it side to side to make sure no air bubbles are present ( witch I did do that ) and thats it. Should I clean the existing silver off and try what the site said? Or just wait till the grace period of the arctic silver is up, witch it says may drop 5 degrees. Any replies are most appreciated.

 

[Oldirty]

Quote " Actic silver's website suggest I only put about the third of the size of a BB drop only on the proc. and put the heatsinc on twist it side to side to make sure no air bubbles are present " I forgot to mention it says put the drop on the middle of the proc, it does not say to spread it at all, just drop on top, heatsync after and twist and clamp ( on an AMD )

 

[Conumdrum]

Old, spreading it is old school and fraught with inconsistencies.

A drop bigger than a grain of rice, smaller than a small pea in the middle.

Your temps are under the max and could be explained as easily as the other ones you refer too had a room 5C cooler than your room. What loading program makes a difference too. Case setup makes a huge diff, as does the heatsink.

Your fine.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Arctic Silver 5 requires 200 hours of pc operations and and a lotof turning on and off for the compound to cure and temperatures to stabilize.

The Arctic Silver web site has detailed instructions for applying compound for different types of cpu's. If memory serves there might even be photos.

Conumdrum is right. There are a lot of other factors to consider. I am in the process of writing a little something about the "forgotten factors" of air cooling. Its slow going.

 

[Oldirty]

well I don't know if this could have been the problem but.. the fan that came with the dark knight, burnt out about 20 minutes ago( an hour after the post ) lmao, so I am sending it back to new egg, and running the stock cooler on it now and down clocking to keep it cool ( weak ). When I put the new one back on I will follow the instructions on silver's website, pretty much how you discribed doing it, grain of rice, small pea size.. I was just wary because it doesn't seem like it would cover the whole proc. So when the new one gets here, god knows when, I will repost the results! Thank you both, fastest responses ever!

 

[JDFan]

IF you are worried about it not getting complete coverage and you have enough for a couple attempts - test it !! - put the small amount on and place the cooler in place run the system for a few minutes - shut down and remove the heatsink to check if you got good coverage - clean it all off and redo it - adjusting to use more or less as needed.

 

[4Ryan6]

@Oldirty

The Xigmatek as with all HDT base coolers requires a little more effort than just dropping a drop in the center, because of the grooves between the copper pipes and the aluminum base they're secured in, those grooves must be filled or cooling is seriously impeded.

You'll get a thousand suggestions but as a Xiggy owner myself this is what I do, I use a plastic sandwich baggie put some thermal compound on the heat sink base and use my finger in the sandwich baggie to smooth it out, making sure the grooves are filled level with the aluminum base, you can plainly see your progress as you do it and you're not applying a thick layer but very thin, and then continue and spread a very thin layer on the CPU heat spreader.

Artic Silver 5 spreads really good like this, and when I say thin layer, I mean thin enough to see through, its important that you fill those heat sink grooves, that is if you want the best cooling you can get from that cooler.

My machine is overclocked to 4G my idle temps are 30c my load temps are 43c, my ambient room temperature is 24c, I'm running an AMD 965 BE C3 stepping with Vcore at 1.408v.

 

[Oldirty]

@4ryan
I noticed that to, thats why I but some directly on the heatsync but the way you described it, I am pretty sure I put to much, when I get my replacement I will definitely try out the baggy and use as little as possible and just do what JDFan suggested, trial and error. And before I worry about it to much I will wait for the grace period ( the 200 hours and 4 off cooling times ) But as it is I used AMD OverDrive software, and bumped my fan speed up to %100 and got around the same temps you have, and got my cpu stable at 3.9, @1.4, So about 30 mins into playing Combat Arms, out of no where I heard this weird high pitch humming noise and to my horror it was the cpu fan, so I turned it off, during witch the fan completely stopped spinning... turned the cpu on a second time and the fan was spinning but still making that noise, I think it was a bad bearing because when I play my games the fan automatically under those loads goes to %100 anyways so pretty sure it was a faulty unit. When the I get the replacement I will post my progress. @ Conumdrum, @ JohnnyLucky, @ JDFan, @ 4ryan6 THANK YOU for your replies and suggestions =)

 

[geofelt]

The most common mistake is to use too much thermal interface material(tim). The tim is used to fill in the microscopic pits in the surfaces where air might be. Air is a great insulator. The tim is also an insulator, just much less so than air. You want to use as little tim as possible. It is hard to use too little.

You might want to check if your heat sink base is flat. Put a small drop of water on it and press the bottom to a piece of glass. The drop should spread out evenly, and the suction will almost let you suspend the heat sink by itself. The cpu will almost certainly be flat.

What kind of a graphics card have you installed? Some types have heat sinks that do a good job of getting heat of of the graphics chip, but they dissipate it into the case where it heats up the cpu. The better types are the double slot types that expel the hot air directly out of the back. To test this, see how you do with the case door open and a small house fan blowing into the case. If you do much better, then better case cooling is in order.

Still, so long as your temps do not cause the cpu to throttle, then I would not wory too much.

 

[Oldirty]

ATI Radeon 4770, it vents out the back, and no, no improvement with the side case open. At this point I am definitely leaning twards to much tim, an the faulty fan that came with the Xiga/DK

 

[4Ryan6]

@Oldirty JDFan suggested a trial fit and I second that suggestion, when the Xiggy makes good contact you'll see a picket fence looking footprint on the heat spreader, once you know the footprint looks good just re-spread the thermal compound back smooth and reattach, you won't have to reapply the thermal compound.

Hers a pic of the contact footprint, see the picket fence pattern.

And this is what the heat sink base looks like before you re-spread, sorry this pic isn't that good.

 

[Oldirty]

Sweet, thank you for going out of your way and taking time to put up the pics! Will reply when the replacement gets here.

 

[4Ryan6]

Hopefully you'll get a good one this time, that's just a fluke to get a bad fan, its a rare situation but it does happen.

 

[Oldirty]

So I am using the stock cooler heat sync now, and I get this random windows box, next time it pops up I will see what program is actually posting it, but it says ( loosely )
your cpu fan is not working properly..turn system off right now and check. Same warning I got with the Xiga, but the Xiga DID however start making a weird noise and did stop spinning at one point. The current cpu fan is working just fine regardless of the warning, and I uninstalled the AMD program.
I have a 480 Watt Power Supply and my system is around 410 watts, but none the less my DVD+DL RW burnt out and when I borrowed a friends to install a game...... Burnt his out to.... By burning out I mean no smoke or anything but it worked for like a minute then after a short period of time, it just stops reading disks.. In any Comp. ( checked in three ) What ever the case may be I think my PSU is what caused the initial problem, so with the refund off the Xiga I was thinking a new PSU and then get a another Heatsync/fan for the cpu down the line.
The current PSU unit i am using is this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817338007
Do you think replacing this would solve my problems, or have any advice on identifying the problems that may be causing this?
At my wits end here and my first built PC had 0 problems, was lucky there but this as my second, am finding one after another, Noobie pc builder here lol ^^

 

[Oldirty]

By the way if any of you know of a good PSU for $30, ( or $44 considering Shipping and handling ) feel free to post a link.

 

[Oldirty]

A friend I know got me this, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835124022 He owns one and swears by it, he sent me an e-mail with the tracking # lol..... So when it gets here going to post up my results with this.

 

[ryman546]

so 4ryan6 you spread everything? I filled the grooves on my hyper 212 plus. Then applied thermal paste lines inbetween each copper pipe. Trying to get the temps you have but seem to be failing. Also the overclock you have i'm failing as well lol. so far 3.8 at 1.4. *dont know anything about overclocking* just increased the voltage and prime 95 stress tested.