Kraken x41: is It Enough?

[suchageek]

I have spent very long hours everyday researching every 240mm radiator on the US market and even one not available in the US, the Fractal Kelvin S24. Seriously considered importing it, but because Fractal has yet to respond to my query of almost a week, I could end up stuck if anything went wrong or if I had a question.

I actually spent 4 hours last evening researching the new Corsair H100i GTX. At full blast it's an ear splitting 37+ dB. Saw a You Tube video and it was loud! I thought, no problem, I'll add Noctua fans and run it on Quiet mode. Except then I read that there is a problem with third party fans being detected. And here's the kicker, at least 2 people had a hard time trying to get it to mount on the slight mound of their Haswell-E chip! Also, cannot run any Asus fan utilities with their Corsair Link software. Makes it almost impossible to know what's going on.

I won't bother to list all if the CLC kits I have researched. I just read the Kraken x41 review posted here at SPCR. My local Micro Center has them in stock. But I have no idea if I can overclock on it.

Relevant specs:
Asus X99-A
i7 5820k
16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666MHz DDR4 (NOT the weird ones with the spikes on the heat sinks). I'm just guessing, but maybe LPX means low profile something.
Fractal Design Define 4

I want to front mount it as I do not want to open the ModuVents on the top. It will be quieter in the bottom too. Both drives cages are removed and it will be much easier to mount it there. I watched a video where a slim 240 slid right into the front fan bracket quite nicely including the dust screen. It was very, very slick. The Kraken X41 is a little chubby at 36mm and won't fit in the bracket, but there is enough room behind either front fan to mount it. I'm hoping to manage a push/pull to maybe wring a bit more performance out of it. I am grateful SPCR uses Noctua fans as reference fans. Lawrence commented in the review about the price. He'd probably be shocked adding one or two fans to that price. But I am feeling a little desperate and have run out of other options. The Kraken X61 looked great but the hole fastening space is too wide at 20 to fit my case.

I have done air cooling for close to 20 years and want to venture into water. So please no suggesting a big air cooler. I pulled an HR-02 Macho off of my Sandy Bridge when I swapped boards. I was able to do a modest OC easily. I see CLC as the bridge between it and someday building a custom loop. But I am not prepared to do that now.

So to get back to this thread title, is the Kraken X41 going to be enough to do a modest OC on this hot Haswell-E chip? Is it enough to keep it cool if I happened to get lucky in the chip binning lottery? Will a push/pull config add to the cooling enough?

Thanks in advance!

[quest_for_silence]

is the Kraken X41 going to be enough to do a modest OC on this hot Haswell-E chip?

Enough with reference to what? Cooling-wise may be enough and, for the record, SPCR reported figures should be referred to an OCed LGA1366, so not too far (thermally) from a <1.2V 5820k.

Is it enough to keep it cool if I happened to get lucky in the chip binning lottery?

As several sources pointed out (and as expected), not every chip is created equal.
Said that, an average chip run under 1.2Vcore can be cooled by a single 140mm radiator, as already pointed out (link to Anandtech review).

Will a push/pull config add to the cooling enough?

No, but it doesn't hurt (as well as in air cooling).

[suchageek]

I will do more digging around as I can do a push/pull but it may get a bit tricky and I would have to replace my front Fractal fan. All 3 case fans are Fractal and currently run off the fan controller. I don't know what the math is. As in, it would increase cooling by what percent?

Thanks for the Anand article link. I just started researching this. We in the US have Monday off for Memorial Day so I have time to order a fan or two and pick up the X41 locally. Placed the X41 on hold for pick up at MC.

Edit: Ordered 2 Noctua NF-P14S Redux 1500 rpm 140mm square frame models based on a thread on the fan section. I didn't realize the ones SPCR uses were discontinued.

[suchageek]

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[quest_for_silence]

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Man, you look like a bit overwrought...

[suchageek]

Not a man and not overwrought. Just burned out on all of the research.

I have the Kraken X41. Not sure how mounting is going to work, but I'll find out soon.

My PC Power & Cooling MKII Silencer 600w PSU worked perfectly on my Sandy Bridge. Now, it's different on start up. It's as though it's trying to muster all it can. Before purchasing, I read that an Asus X99-A needs a minimum of 500w PSU. So I thought I was good. I have a feeling something is up with it as it sounds very different. I've had it for a while and know what it's supposed to sound like.

Enter the EVGA SuperNova 750 G2. Marketing blurb:
Unleash the next generation in power with the EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 Power Supply. Based on the award winning G2 series Power Supplies from EVGA, this power supply features 80 PLUS Gold rated efficiency, and clean, continuous power to every component. The new ECO Thermal Control Fan System offers fan modes to provide zero fan noise during low load operations. This provides improved efficiency for longer operation, less power consumption, reduced energy costs and minimal heat dissipation. Backed by a 10 year warranty and Japanese capacitor design...

JonnyGuru gave it a 9.8 rating. The 850w version a 9.9.

Now just waiting on the fans.

[quest_for_silence]

Not a man and not overwrought.

I was teasing, I remember your NAS thread, "Antec-girl", I thought the winky smile were enough.
Said that, all your re-editing, deleting comments, asking for moving messages, well, I think it's unnecessary and IMHO neither good: public boards are meant for sharing, otherwise private researches and comments wouldn't become shared knowledge.
Take it easy, please.

My PC Power & Cooling MKII Silencer 600w PSU worked perfectly on my Sandy Bridge. Now, it's different on start up. It's as though it's trying to muster all it can. Before purchasing, I read that an Asus X99-A needs a minimum of 500w PSU. So I thought I was good. I have a feeling something is up with it as it sounds very different. I've had it for a while and know what it's supposed to sound like.

I will suppose you have an Mk.III 600W (the alternative would be an Mk.II 650W, a rather different PSU).
A Kill-a-watt would have you helped/served better than any advice: anyway, a 600-III is mainly a M12II of Seasonic, so a platform with a conservative cooling (rather noisy at somewhat high loads & ambient).
If you say "it's different on start up" I think it's not related to the new CPU, as idle load and low loads efficiency aren't that worse than Sandy.

Said that, you don't need more than what you already have, wattage-wise, unless you have a Crossfire of oc'ed R9 290X in your rig, even when you overclock.

JonnyGuru gave it a 9.8 rating. The 850w version a 9.9.

The 850W is way noisier than the 750W: way noisier and unnecessary.

Now just waiting on the fans.

I wish those P14s won't delude you.

[suchageek]

I was teasing, I remember your NAS thread, "Antec-girl", I thought the winky smile were enough.
Said that, all your re-editing, deleting comments, asking for moving messages, well, I think it's unnecessary and IMHO neither good: public boards are meant for sharing, otherwise private researches and comments wouldn't become shared knowledge.
Take it easy, please.

Ack! I forgot my I was teasing you right back. I tend to be very verbose so I just tightened it up in an effort to be more concise. The deleted message was contained in the one above it. Btw, I love my NAS. Had to add a switch when I outgrew the ports on my router but I have a nice little gigabit network I built around the NAS.

I will suppose you have an Mk.III 600W (the alternative would be an Mk.II 650W, a rather different PSU).
A Kill-a-watt would have you helped/served better than any advice: anyway, a 600-III is mainly a M12II of Seasonic, so a platform with a conservative cooling (rather noisy at somewhat high loads & ambient).
If you say "it's different on start up" I think it's not related to the new CPU, as idle load and low loads efficiency aren't worse than Sandy.

Idle it's the same. My bad, it is a MKIII. Glad you picked up on that. IMHO, PC Power & Cooling made great PSUs back in the day. They went under and bought by OCZ I think. I don't think I will have to worry about EVGA being around to honor their 10 year warranty. A 750 is a lot and I think PC components more and more tend to use less energy. I have SSD drives over the mechanical ones. I do have a drive dock and two HDDs but they are mostly a collection of older stuff and only used when I need them. Not a good enough reason to install them. A monitor is a better example. I had two really big CRTs and they would warm up my room. I always thought my next PSU would be a Seasonic. If I still lived in Silicon Valley, I probably could have bought one. As is, I am lucky to have a Micro Center here and am limited to what they have. I am not going to take everything apart again to order something different. There are a lot more choices then even a couple of years ago. I have 30 days to decide if I want to return it and could order something different to have on-hand. I didn't feel like even more than cursory research. If it doesn't work out, I'll return it. That would be a PITA and my own fault if I do. I admit, one big plus is that even the GPU and ATX cables are not only sleeved black like mine, but the wires are also black.

I wish those P14s won't delude you.

The last time I ordered from Amazon I was surprised they used the US Post Office. Not happy either as they were a day late. Amazon refunded the shipping costs but my time is more important. If it doesn't arrive today, I'll have to wait until Tuesday and put this off until next weekend. It arrived at the hub in STL proper a little over 2 hours ago. I live in a suburb outside of STL. So we'll see. They also have until 8PM! I just want to get on with it. When I asked at MC why they didn't carry Noctua fans, they said at one point they did and didn't know why they no longer did. My guess? People didn't like the brown and went for the ones with LEDs instead. lol. The Redux are gray.

I went into my BIOS yesterday and need to make sure I have it correct and not some errant "auto" fan setting isn't lurking around. I'll be glad when I know this BIOS as well as my last one. Out of curiosity, what motherboard do you use?

[suchageek]

Okay, I won't edit my previous post.

One thing that made swapping everything out easy was the Asus Q-connector. I LOVE it. I am pretty old and it's perfect! It was hard to visualize it but in practice it's slick. Mine is black and slightly different. The panel header is always last to wire and by then I'm tired. I like not having to peer in to find the two tiny rows of pins. Having the wires outside the case, first plugged into that connector is pretty awesome.

asus-q-connector.jpg

[CA_Steve]

FYI - Amazon has a deal with the USPS and delivers on Sundays.

I live near Silicon Valley, and there are times I wish we had a MicroCenter here. Couldn't compete with Fry's I guess. In any case, I buy most of my components on-line.

[suchageek]

I miss Fry's! The Sunnyvale store was down the street from where I worked. Too close to the candy store!

Already had USPS let me down when I ordered from Amazon for a Sunday delivery was my point. MC IMO has incredible CPU prices and $40 off any motherboard when bundled. Most of my purchases are online like my monitor, NAS, R4, etc. Switched from New Egg to Amazon just because they pack them better and except for my R4, everything was double boxed.

[suchageek]

The fans just arrived! 11:30AM local time. Going to drink some coffee and charge up my laptop.

[quest_for_silence]

Out of curiosity, what motherboard do you use?

Mainly what's compatible with SpeedFan, mostly ASUS and MSI, some ASRock.
My favourites were high-end Intel-branded ones, but unfortunately they stopped selling (that's odd: that happened to me more than once in the past, with Abit, DFI...).

[suchageek]

I'm making very slow progress. Phone calls, neighbor came by. I had to remove the heatsink/fan, clean the chip off, wipe the dust away from under where the PSU sat, etc. Plus, routing my cables through the back panel is going to take some time. The 24 pin connector and 12 pin ATX were hard to remove. They were really stuck in there. Read the manual, sorted the cables I don't need and put them in this nice little included pouch. Finally time to install the PSU.

I loved my Abit boards. I alternated between it and Asus. No more ASRock for me. No support, very finicky with RAM. I really had to fiddle with it to POST. Once past that, it was stable.

[quest_for_silence]

No more ASRock for me. No support, very finicky with RAM. I really had to fiddle with it to POST. Once past that, it was stable.

Never got similar issues with those boards: probably either you overclock more than me, or you have less time than me to configure systems (which is time consuming).

[suchageek]

No, when powering up for the first time there is no OC.

[CA_Steve]

I miss Fry's! The Sunnyvale store was down the street from where I worked. Too close to the candy store!

Yeah, same thing when I worked over that way (near Kifer and Central) as well.

[suchageek]

I'm making progress. First problem is that R4 fans just snap into a bracket. So there was nothing to mount the rad to. Tried to mount it on top exhaust and it was all but on my GPU. So I took the long screw and pushed it through the Noctua fan in the bracket and there was just a few threads on the screw but it was enough to use 2 screws on the top! The bottom of each fan bracket has little nubs that the fan hole sits in. But it's snug with just a few threads on two screws!!

Edit: Woo Hoo!!!!!

[suchageek]

I got everything connected and now my PC won't even boot. The Kraken comes with a 3 pin power connector. I have a 4 pin header on my motherboard. I checked many times to make sure only the PWM wire was exposed. I am going to pull the pump and put the other cooler on. It has to be something in the BIOS or the Kraken cable is bad. The Noctua fans do not spin up. I tried the fan it came with and nothing.

[quest_for_silence]

It's not an uncommon occurrence: I never assemble/rebuild a rig inside a case but on a bench, and only if/when everything works as expected, I build again into the enclosure. Even so, it happens to me more than once.

Said that: if I were you first of all I'd try to light up the mobo with a screwdriver, to rule any case wiring damage out. Second move is connecting a spare PWM fan to the CPU fan header, just to see whether there's some weird sensing (I don't think so, but I have not any X99).
As third option, I would triple check those 24-pin and 8-pin EPS connectors, given you said they were difficult to pull out, maybe they're hard to correctly push in.
Then, if it doesn't work, I'd try the paper clips trick with the PSU, Eco mode disabled, in order to rule your new EVGA out of the equation.
Eventually I'd reset the BIOS, power cable detached for some minutes.

If anything above don't work, I'd put the system out of the case and redo everything.

I wish you a good'n'quick luck!

[suchageek]

I am back up. The problem was in the UEFI BIOS. I had it set to PWM. When set to PWM that 4th pin has to connect. So by putting my old cooler back, which has a 4 pin, I was able to boot into the BIOS and change it. I am almost certain that's all there is to it. I am pretty darn good at wiring stuff up. When I very first booted this new mobo, memory and chip, it booted right up. I just had to flip a wire for my power light. So I am too tired to clean the block and CPU. I usually keep at it until it's all done, but since I need to do some cable management to really be finished, I'll do it tomorrow since I can sleep well knowing it was a setting. All my drives show up. I'm happy.

The 24 & 8 pin were hard to remove on the old PSU. I always double check everything before I flip the switch.

Edit: I made sure Eco Mode was off. It's off by default btw. The old screwdriver trick would not have worked in this situation. Only letting the BIOS know what to do with a 3 pin will it work. It's in DC mode by default, I made the change to PWM. Then hooked up the 3 pin power cable. The LED did come on. The default is blue. It turned red which means something bad was starting to happen. Powered it right off.

The radiator is still in my case and the water block has its little plastic protective case back on and tucked out of the way until I switch it back.

[quest_for_silence]

The problem was in the UEFI BIOS. I had it set to PWM. When set to PWM that 4th pin has to connect. So by putting my old cooler back, which has a 4 pin, I was able to boot into the BIOS and change it.

So was it my second advice/option (weird sensing on CPU fan header)?

So I am too tired to clean the block and CPU.

Unless you're performing some stress tests, you can run off the bare metal, and just finally apply the paste.
At least, that's what I usually do with air coolers.

Edit: I made sure Eco Mode was off. It's off by default btw.

IIRC that switch on EVGA units is inverted (check some reviews, like JonnyGURU's one). BTW, if it was the fan, that doesn't matter.

[suchageek]

I googled 3 pin to 4 pin, then started drilling down. I haven't done much with the BIOS as I knew I'd be replacing this cooler so I only turned off obvious stuff. Part of my preparation was to check the fan settings. Then I started poking around to make sure there wasn't some auto fan setting or something and came across PWM. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

There is an interesting thread right here on SPCR. viewtopic.php?t=66283

I am not enjoying this very much right now so I may just postpone the cabling. The pump has a fan splitter , power cable and USB coming right off of it, so I may look at post install photos to get some ideas. So I need to get a move on.

[quest_for_silence]

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

In case, disable also the warning thresholds for the fans speed (though I think it could be unnecessary).

There is an interesting thread right here on SPCR. viewtopic.php?t=66283

Take note that current 97-series from ASUS doesn't sport anymore those fake PWM headers, and they can run indifferently both kinds of fan (with the proper setting, of course): I don't know your '99-series, but I guess it shouldn't be that different.

The pump has a fan splitter , power cable and USB coming right off of it, so I may look at post install photos to get some ideas. So I need to get a move on.

I think there should be also a 3 pin fan connector to hook up the pump to the mobo. As you may have found, the splitter is for a second radiator fan (for push-pull setup), the SATA power is to supply the 7.5W needed by the pump itself, while the internal USB connector is the only way to use the CAM software (under Win) to control the variable speed pump (and the fan: I think you may give a try to SpeedFan also).

[suchageek]

I read a lot about the various connectors and apparently so have you.

Success!

I had already downloaded the latest CAM software. So I was ready to go. Installed fine and came right up after a required reboot. Windows found everything it needed and everything is fine in Device Manager. It is bloated but they continue to work on it. I changed the LED to red, then back to blue for now. I have my PC below my desk and the side panel off so I can keep a eye on it. Will probably button it up shortly so I can start monitoring the temps.

I have read that the CAM software can inexplicably disappear or stop working. Maybe it was from a previous version.

Both Noctua fans are working and in push/pull. I have another intake 140mm Fractal fan above it and a Fractal 140mm exhaust.

What a PITA! I really screwed up by changing the DC to PWM setting. Out of thermal paste, so I will add that to my list and may change it out if I am not happy with the temps.

My 3 day weekend is almost over and I need to do some other things. Cable management will have to wait.

Edit: There is no SATA cable. There is on the X61. This just has 3-pin power, fan splitter, USB connector. The bug or issue with reported CPU temps is true. RealTemp reports it a full 10C less.

We can also see that NZXT added a trio of hard-wired meshed cables extending from the X41’s waterblock: a USB internal header, a 3 pin power cable and a double headed 4 pin fan controller wire which allows for up to two fans to be powered. Due to its higher power requirements when four fans are installed, the X61 utilizes the exact same connector layout but adds in two more fan connectors and a SATA power connector.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/ha ... iew-2.html