HR-01 Plus and Core i7 920

Schlotkins · Post by **Schlotkins** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:54 am

Hello all-

I put together a new box last night and I'm having what I think is a little issue with my cooling situation. Here is the complete system:

Core i7 920 (default with turbo on that takes it up to 2.80 under load)
Asus Deluxe P6T (latest BIOS)
12 GB (2GB x 6) OCZ Gold 12800 DDR3
1.5 TB Seagate (OS on this drive)
1 TB Green WD
2 x 750 Samsung F1 (RAID 1)
LG HD-DVD/Blu-ray burner
ATI HD2400 Pro
Vista x64 Business

Thermalright HR-01 Plus with Scythe Medium speed fan recommended by SPCR. I used silver 5 for thermal grease although it's a number of years old. (it was still liquid and was stored with the cover on of course.)

Using Realtemp and my power meter, the system is eating about 130W at idle in Vista and my temps are around 44C-40C-40C-40C for the 4 cores. The first core is always about 4C higher - I'm not sure if that's usual or not.

When using the latest Prime95 that stresses all 8 threads (99.4% utilization), the temps zoom up to 74-70-70-70 after 30 minutes and power usage goes up by about 120W. So, quick math is 30/120 = 0.25C/Watt. This seems really high. My fan has higher CFM than the fan in the review at 12V and for some reason, the C/Watt is only 0.17.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article842-page4.html

I'm getting the same performance as if my fan was down at 5V. Bios says it's going at 1200RPM, so it appears to be at full speed. I do have it blowing into the headsink toward the case exhaust fan.

Any thoughts are much appreciated!
Chris

CyberDog · Post by **CyberDog** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 12:52 pm

what are the case temps? It really matters... And did you check the contact between CPU and sink? AS5 takes a while to settle and maybe even longer because its old.

Schlotkins · Post by **Schlotkins** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:21 pm

Thanks for note.

OK, today it's about 80F here but probably closer to 70F in the room with the machine. The 'motherboard' temp was about 36C when I started prime and after 30 minutes it's at 38C. As before, the temps are up about 34 degree for 125 watts which again seems to be pretty poor performance. I'm not sure how I could have installed it incorrectly - I just screwed it in until it won't screw any more.

Thanks,
Chris

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:56 am

IMO the HR-01+ wasn't the best choice for the i7. Even if the base is perfectly flat, it would perform very well with lower heat CPUs and a low speed fan.
Since you already are willing to endure the noise of a medium speed fan (which means S-flex or Slipstream or ?), I'd suggest to switch to the Mugen2.

echn111 · Post by **echn111** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:09 pm

HR-01+ is a great choice. But make sure you get the air duct as it helps a lot.

I've got my i7 920 running mildly overclocked (i.e. 3.4Ghz) with it. Didn't even bother having a fan on it, much less a noisy 1200rpm fan. Just using an air duct and case airflow from the rear exhaust fan (800rpm) to cool it, semi-passive. Try to keep the CPU slightly undervolted yet prime stable and you'll be fine.

With my overclock and with all 8 threads being stressed by prime95, my temps hit around 77c. This is around 8c above what I get when I actively cool the CPU with a fan, but I will sacrifice slightly higher temps to keep noise to a minimum, and the i7 can tolerate high temps anyway.

Edit=> Note a previous post of mine a few weeks ago reporting temps of 71c with semi-passive cooling on the i7 was actually with only 4 threads being exercised by prime95. With all 8 threads, temps go up.

echn111 · Post by **echn111** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:23 pm

...those temps are in a closed case after several hours of stress testing so they are proper temps after the system has achieved equilibrium.

increasing the rear fan to 1000rpm decreases temps by around 5c or so, but fan speeds above 850rpm or so generate too much noise.

p.s. in your case, with no OC, and an active fan, your temps are a bit high, but not abnormal. If you haven't got a fan duct, I suggest you get one. And if you haven't undervolted, I suggest you do that as well. You'll find you can overclock quite a bit while undervolting. Or do nothing - your temps are reasonable so don't worry too much.

gianni · Post by **gianni** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:49 pm

Your temps look a little bit high.
My setup is (was) really similar to your.
I used same mobo and CPU.
I used 12 GB of Corsair memory (1.5v instead of 1.65v of OCZ).
I used XP-120 Ultra Extreme with Scythe Slipstream Medium@5v instead of HR-01+, but they are supposed to have the same performance, with that airflow.
My room was at 21Â°C, and the case was an Antec P-180 with 3 Scythe fans in upper chamber @500~800 rpm.
My CPU temps were 65Â°C at full load (8x CPU-Burn) on Asus Probe.
My mobo temps were 40Â°C on idle and 38Â°C on load, due to 2 case fans ramping from 500 rpm to 800 rpm under load (Scythe Slipstream Low controlled by mobo).
I didn't use my 5 years old AS5, but I have used it recently in another PC and it worked fine.
Are you sure you mounted your CPU-grease-HS the right way?
BTW, which case are you using? Case fans?

Schlotkins · Post by **Schlotkins** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 7:51 pm

Thanks for the replies. I'm on an older Antec case that Ralph Hunter started with.. a 3700BQE or something like that. I have 1 120mm fan blowing out and that's it. With or without the case cover, the temps are the same so I don't think it's a case temp issue.

After doing some more research, I think my problem lies with the cooler. I ordered up some new AS5 and after looking at the installation instructions, I definitely didn't do it right. I used the 'old school' drop a dab in th middle and spread it around thing. I probably used too much, it's performance is probably affected by it's age as well. Hopefully it's here tomorrow and I'm going to reinstall the heatsink and see what happens... I'll let you know.

bobov · Post by **bobov** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 1:31 am

I think your problem is that you are using turbo mode. This mode will increase multiplier to 21, also it will overvoltage your CPU.

bobov · Post by **bobov** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 1:41 am

I think your problem is that you are using turbo mode. This mode will increase multiplier to 21, also it will overvoltage your CPU.

ces · Post by **ces** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 5:06 am

Schlotkins wrote:Thanks for the replies. I'm on an older Antec case that Ralph Hunter started with.. a 3700BQE or something like that. I have 1 120mm fan blowing out and that's it. With or without the case cover, the temps are the same so I don't think it's a case temp issue.

After doing some more research, I think my problem lies with the cooler. I ordered up some new AS5 and after looking at the installation instructions, I definitely didn't do it right. I used the 'old school' drop a dab in th middle and spread it around thing. I probably used too much, it's performance is probably affected by it's age as well. Hopefully it's here tomorrow and I'm going to reinstall the heatsink and see what happens... I'll let you know.

What did you eventually determine to be the problem? Or were you not able to determine what the problem was?