Zalman CNPS10X Extreme with Phenom II X4 955 high temps

[divante]

Hello everyone,

I recently bought a Zalman CNPS10X Extreme for my Phenom II X4 955, replacing my 2 year old Cooler Master Hyper 212, and must say that I am not impressed.

The temps, in idle, are usually at 43º Celsius, hitting 52º at full load. This is with the clock multiplier set as 17x (3.4 GHz). I haven't tested with any higher multipliers yet, since I'm not confident about this temp. The core is set with auto voltage, and usually stays at 1.3v~1.39v while testing.

I installed this cooler with the supplied thermal paste (Zalman ZM-STG2) instead of my Arctic Silver 5 also.

Oh, and another thing that I noticed, I cannot get the cooler to blow the air backwards. The only way to install it is blowing the air either up or downwards (towards the VGA). Since my case is a Cooler Master Elite 333, It doesn't have any air exit on the top. I also have aux 2 120mm fans pulling air in from the front and another one blowing the air out in the back of my case. This was, I was thinking about adapting an mouting base for this cooler so I can direct the hot air backwards directly towards my exhaust fan, so that the cooler doesn't pull the hot air from my VGA.

Any tips about what I should do to lower these temps and get a higher OC?

My set up is:
Phenom II X4 955
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO
2x2 GB G.Skill Ripjaw + 2x2 GB Corsair Reaper
ATI HD 5970 2 GB
Cooler Master Elite 333 case
Corsair PSU CMPSU-750

 

[simon12]

I recommend you reinstall the 212+ with the fans from the Zalman. I did some testing and found with a x 4 Phenom all 120mm coolers perform the same except the fans only trhe hotter i7s benefit from larger heat sinks.

 

[saint19]

Hi diVante and welcome to Tom's forum

Did you cleaned the old TIM in the CPU?

I recommend you reinstall the 212+ with the fans from the Zalman. I did some testing and found with a x 4 Phenom all 120mm coolers perform the same except the fans only trhe hotter i7s benefit from larger heat sinks.

Read the OP thread again, he isn't using the Hyper 212+.

 

[divante]

Hi diVante and welcome to Tom's forum

Did you cleaned the old TIM in the CPU?

Thank you!

yes I did. Just didn't clean it with isopropyl tho

I recommend you reinstall the 212+ with the fans from the Zalman. I did some testing and found with a x 4 Phenom all 120mm coolers perform the same except the fans only trhe hotter i7s benefit from larger heat sinks.

my previous one is a Hyper 212, not a Hyper212 Plus, and I was already using 2x120mm fans with it (besides case fans), and it was still a bit hotter than now.

 

[saint19]

What do you use for clean the TIM?

 

[divante]

i used just cotton swabs

 

[saint19]

i used just cotton swabs

You need use something more, u can use normal alcohol to clean the TIM. What method do you use for apply the new thermal grease?

 

[divante]

You need use something more, u can use normal alcohol to clean the TIM. What method do you use for apply the new thermal grease?

I applied something about a size of a rice right in the center, and used the cooler base to spread it around. should I try another method?

 

[saint19]

Yeah.

Apply the TIM to the CPU and use a credit or debit card to cover all CPU, after that install the cooler.

 

[divante]

Yeah.

Apply the TIM to the CPU and use a credit or debit card to cover all CPU, after that install the cooler.

i'll try that and post back the result in a few hours

thanks a lot for your replies!

 

[saint19]

I'll wait for it and your welcome.

 

[wolfram23]

I have the CNPS10X Extreme as well, on my i5 750. It's actually a really good cooler, but it needs to be attached properly. saint gave good advice for the TIM, although my personal method of applying it is to put two thin lines parallel to eachother, and then let them get squished out by setting the heat sink on top.

You didn't really say why you can't have it blowing towards the back, but for me, I added more RAM so with all 4 slots full the fan on the heat sink interfered with the 1st slot. I ended up flipping all my fans around, so my rear and side fans are blowing into the case, and then the top and front fans are blowing out. My heat sink is therefore blowing back to front.

(The fan you see on the right is an internal fan to help blow air out the front.

 

[divante]

@saint19
I re-installed and used a credit card to cover all the CPU with TIM. I'm getting around 38º Celsius on idle and 47~48 with full load!

@Wolfram23
sorry, forgot that detail =P
well, the componenet that Zalman includes for AM3 mounting is just a clip that should be used to hold the cooler on top of the mobos bracket. but the thing is that my mobos bracket is vertical, as you can see on this image:

(the red rectangle is how the clip holds the cooler)

therefore, in order to mount in the same direction that you mounted, I have to create a component that allows me to fix the cooler in that direction

 

[wolfram23]

Ah I see, that sucks. At least it looks like there's a decent gap on the bottom. You could try putting a piece of plastic as a baffle to separate the hot GPU air from the CPU (you can see in my pic a clear plastic piece because the GPU heatsink/fans are wider than the PCB so it directs the air away from the CPU)

Looks like your temps are better tho so that's good.

 

[divante]

@Wolfram23
hmm the piece of plastic is a good idea to separate the hot air from the VGA! tho I think that my problem is that the hot air blown up simply doesn't leave my case that easily.
I'm even thinking about opening a hole on the top of my case and put a 120mm fan pulling the hot air out instead of redirecting the cooler.

 

[wolfram23]

Yeah, opening the top should help a lot with your set up.

 

[divante]

i'm trapped between opening the top or adapting the cooler...
what you guys think would be most effective?

and thanks a lot for all the answers until now!

 

[wolfram23]

Adapting the cooler? Or do you mean the mount bracket? I'd say if you can make a good bracket to allow a horizontal set up that would be prime, however, it would be quite difficult. Opening the top would be quite a bit easier, just need a drill.

 

[divante]

I meant the mount bracket
not so difficult I think, as there is a mounting component from my previous cooler that, after some adaptations that I already did, fit the zalman's base. I just need to drill it so that the screws fits and then it's done
I think i'll try this then!

 

[wolfram23]

Nice well yeah if that works then great! Just make sure it's able to apply enough pressure.

Also, it might be worth your while to send Zalman an email. The fan on my cooler died and while it did take them a couple weeks to get a firm reply from them, they sent a new one free of charge and it's working fine. So maybe they have some special thing for your type of socket.