Hyper 212+ not performing as expected (or installation gone wrong)

[atamarashi]

Hi,

I picked up a CM Hyper 212+ yesterday at my local computer store and upon installing it today (using the Pea/blob method), it doesn't seem to be performing like reviews suggest that it should.

First up, this is my system:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 @ 2.93ghz
RAM: Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2-800
MB: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR
HDD(s): WD Caviar Green 1TB / WD Caviar Blue 80GB
PSU: Antec Truepower New 550
GPU: Gainward GTS 250 512MB Green (@738/1836/1000)

Now, before I installed the cooler, I had another Coolermaster heatsink on it, that had been gaining some dust and slowly rising load temps in games (55-58 C). So I cleaned off the residue of AS5 after taking off the cooler with a fair few tissues (as I didn't have any isopropyl alcohol with me at the time), making sure to rid the heat spreader of any trace of the thermal compound.

I noticed there was quite an excess of thermal compound from the previous cooler (probably an oversight), so that could explain the high load temps on that cooler.

Anyway, then I put on the Hyper 212+'s backplate on the underside of the motherboard, making sure to face it the right way with the insulating tape still intact. The nuts were secured tightly, so I moved on to mounting the heatsink.

This is the part where I'm not so sure if something went wrong:

I started squeezing a rice pellet amount of the CM Thermal compound included with the cooler (my AS5 tube ran out unfortunately), right in the centre of the heat spreader.

Next came the actual mounting of the heatsink (I followed the instructions and took off the fan before, to put it on last), I placed it directly onto the heatspreader (don't fret, I took off the little plastic cover also on the base), applying some pressure and wiggling the base slightly to rid of the air bubbles.

The retention mechanism screwed in easily, and after attaching the fan finally, the heatsink seemed secure.

Finishing up the installation with the fan in the fan header, I turned on the system to see the fan hesitant to spin at first, but eventually spinning with some encouragement.

I went to the BIOS to see the CPU reported at 35 C and the CPU fan header reporting the HSF's fan spinning at 1400 rpm.

Thinking this as strange, I went into Windows (Win7) to do some testing, where idle is about 33 C (ambient temperature is somewhere in the 25-35 C range - Australian temperate climate) and measuring from two games (Alien Swarm and Rigs of Rods - CPU heavy apps), the load temps hit a wall at 46-48 C.

Of course, I thought this was strange, as reviews I've seen of this cooler say that even with a C2Q Q9550 or so, the cooler has some 45 C load temp, even when overclocked.

Now, I acknowledge that my case has poor airflow compared to the reviewer's test setups, (2x80mm fans + twisty tie mounted 80mm fan on harddrive rack), however those previous temps were measured with the case on its side, and the side panel off.

I'm wondering where I've gone wrong in the installation or whatever else to have this popular cooler underperforming...


Also, my CPU VID is set at 1.28750 V in the BIOS, where CPU-Z reports it as 1.248 V.

I haven't added another fan to this cooler (I'm using the stock fan), but I expected this cooler to perform much better than my last one.

An improvement of about 10 C in my system doesn't seem to do the Hyper 212+ justice.

My new case, a CM Centurion 5 II will be arriving next month, and hopefully, with vastly better airflow in that case than my current unknown Thermaltake one, the Hyper 212+ will be performing as expected.

TL;DR - I got a Hyper 212+ to replace my old HSF, temps haven't improved much from old heatsink and I'm not sure why.

Any comment, opinion or criticism/suggestion to fix of my installation method is gladly appreciated.

 

[saint19]

Hi atamarashi and welcome to Tom's forum.

You also can use normal alcohol for clean the old thermal grease. I think that your temp problems are for that.

 

[abully]

get a nail polish remover (preferable without scent and high alcohol content) to remove the residue AS5... if possible get a new AS5 or TX3 although the CM TIM will be sufficient... now i know everyone suggests dot method but why don't you give this method a shot... it sure works for me with AS5... hyper 212+ has DTH pipes so the surface will not be even; hence my suggestion to have a thin even coat in the cpu backplate...

Did you manually set the VID to 1.28750 V or you saw this value in the bios??? i recommend first test with everything on auto setting before changing clock speeds...

 

[tentaxlbunga]

Hi Neighboors, (I live in Indonesia). I Think your temp are normal, consider that you can't expect to have the same result even for twin product. Dont forget that every proccessor also producing different temp, even from the same model and speed. But you may want to try clean your proccessor with alcohol, to make sure that there are no more residue from prevoius thermal compound.
FYI, my 212+ doing great job for cooling down my AMD x3-720BE(@3700) at 41-42C. at idle it runs warm at 28-30 C.
Ambient temp 25-35 just like yours, No Air conditioning
Im using PC case from Coolermaster (Centurion 5-II) with 4fan in this configuration.
1side-pull, 1front pull, 1 back-push, 1 up-push.

If you think my temp are low, you can say im lucky, i brought 2 pieces of this 212+, the other one were used by my friend for his AMDX3-720BE, also runing at 3700, yet resulting in worse result, even worse than yours.

 

[atamarashi]

get a nail polish remover (preferable without scent and high alcohol content) to remove the residue AS5... if possible get a new AS5 or TX3 although the CM TIM will be sufficient... now i know everyone suggests dot method but why don't you give this method a shot... it sure works for me with AS5... hyper 212+ has DTH pipes so the surface will not be even; hence my suggestion to have a thin even coat in the cpu backplate...

Did you manually set the VID to 1.28750 V or you saw this value in the bios??? i recommend first test with everything on auto setting before changing clock speeds...

I was going to use the line method to even out the HDT base on the heatsink base, but I thought the pea/rice pellet method - putting a rice pellet size amount of TIM and letting the HSF spread it - was going to be a fail-safe option... my mistake.

I haven't heard of the dot method, I'll have a look at that video then.

I meant that my VID for my CPU in the BIOS is 1.28750 V, with CPU Voltage on Auto. I've seen some people's E7500's having a sub 1.28 V VID, so I think I had a bit of a disadvantage from the start.

I might try lowering the VID from its setting on Auto to maybe try to lower the temps, that is, after reseating/reapplying the thermal paste.

Also, when I was using plain tissues to remove the old AS5 residue, I made sure there was hardly any trace left on the IHS (to the naked eye anyway).
Could even a tiny amount of the old thermal compound affect the temps that much?

I'm hoping to have at least a 40-45 C load temp in games, so I have decent headroom to overclock my CPU to about 3.4/3.6 ghz. Or I can wait until my new case arrives...

EDIT: Okay, I tried running the fan in both a more aggressive speed scaling and with fan control disabled. Both configs lowered the load temps (Rigs of Rods as the test) to about 45-47 C, but the CPU was about 75-85 % loaded.

 

[Yargnit]

Keep in mind 35c is a very high ambient temp, and will negatively impact the percieved performance of your cooler when measured absolutely.

48c is only 13c above a 35c ambient, and would equate to a more normal 35-40c load temp if you were in a more normal 20-25c ambient.

 

[atamarashi]

Keep in mind 35c is a very high ambient temp, and will negatively impact the percieved performance of your cooler when measured absolutely.

48c is only 13c above a 35c ambient, and would equate to a more normal 35-40c load temp if you were in a more normal 20-25c ambient.

Ah yes, I forgot about the high ambient temp skewing the results - All the reviews I've read of this cooler were conducted in a controlled testing environment, at a much lower ambient (22C) than mine, so what you're saying makes perfect sense.

Hopefully when the ambient temps become colder the load temps will be much better.

At least this heat stresses the cooler in the worst case scenario, and it's performing quite good in retrospect.

Later, I will reseat the cooler and maybe redo the thermal paste/properly clean the IHS when I get my hands on some AS5 or similar. Maybe I'll be getting the best out of my new cooler when that happens, but for now I'm happy.


Thanks for everyone's help for clearing this issue up.

 

[atamarashi]

Best answer selected by atamarashi.