Q6600 B3 Temps HELP! (long post, lots of detail)

[Merkwürdigeliebe]

Important specs:
Q6600 B3
Gigabyte P35-DS3L
Antec Nine Hundred
Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme w/ Scythe S-FLEX fan
Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound



Well, I just finished disassembling/reassembling my system to reorganize the wires/fans and also spray paint the inside of the case black. I've learned to highly regret this because the amount of stress I went through was not worth the end result whatsoever.

I decided to also try the line method on my Q6600 and TRUE with MX-2. Cleaned off everything with rubbing alcohol and applied a very thin line across the middle using the two pieces of tape trick. I put my TRUE straight down, gave it a little 1 degree twist counter-clockwise and clockwise and tightened the heck out of it onto my DS3L. I also replaced the thermal compound in my 8800GTS.

I set up my fans like this:

Just to explain a little, the green arrows represent the airflow direction. If any of you are familiar with the Antec 900, you'll know that the front is split into 3 compartments (1,2,3). The pink squares are the HDD and optical. #4 is the TRUE, and the red box next to it is the fan. #5 is obviously the 200mm fan which I assume is an exhaust and not an intake (please correct me if I am wrong) I know nothing about organizing airflow in a computer case and I would be more than happy if someone can kick me in the nuts if I've done a bad job, so long as you actually give me good advice on how to have it fixed

Also consider that my computer is docked into one of these computer desk compartments, somewhat like this:

so airflow is a little restricted. I'd like to have it out, for better airflow, but my mum isn't too keen on that and she insists on me having it mounted in there (the price I have to pay for living with my rents )

So now, everything's back together, and the first thing I noticed was the poor temps in coretemp. Horrid. So I decided to set everything back to stock settings and voltage. My fans are all set to low for quietness, and I've had the computer idling by just doing some browsing for the past hour.


Yeah, terrible, horrid, disgusting.

And here's my system on load on Prime95, Test 7 of the second set of tests (8K):



The idle temperature in my house is currently 69 degrees Fahrenheit...

Alright, so that's just about it, I'd also like you guys to take note of my GTS temps, as they are also a little high as well.

So, yeah, please help me out!

 

[gurusan]

Hmm, are you positive the HSF is mounted properly and has good contact with the IHS?

Also, you want fans 1 and 2 as intake fans sucking air into the case...and the heatsink fan blowing toward the exhaust.

Like so:

 

[Peter.Cort]

is there a back on the desk there? cause if it isn't then you're essentially sucking and blowing hot air and it's just going to get hotter. what you could do is take out the divider and have more square space and that would allow it to move around more. you could also like take some 120mm tubing and attach it to the back of the case where the fans blow air out and bring it out to the front and into the open.

 

[IBM/PS1]

The only experiences i've had with overheating is when i try and overclock my video card it jumps to 100C. Either the heat sensor is going or my video card is about to melt. I've heard applying thermal paste incorrectly can actually increase temperatures. Maybe that's part of the problem?

 

[gurusan]

You could always go for watercooling

 

[SapperX]

Gurusan's suggestion should fix the problem. As it is you have almost no intake and a ton of exhaust, meaning a lot of the hot air is simply circulating around since the intake cannot keep up. I would suggest doing exactly what he said with two intakes in the front, and check your temps.

 

[Merkwürdigeliebe]

You could always go for watercooling

Why would I pay that much money when I could just put it towards a better processor and the best air cooling available?

Anyway, I'm gonna pick up some paint thinner and undo the horrible paint job I've made. I think it might actually be interfering somehow with the temps.

And Peter, I will try and remove the back side of the desk to allow the exhaust some room to breath. Maybe the tubing's a good idea, I'll look into that as well.

And yeah, I'm going to re-distribute the fans like you said Guru, plus I have an extra 120mm fan that was initially intended for the side panel, but the TRUE got in the way. It needs to be fixed first, but once that's done, where should I put it you think? I'm thinking on the other side of the TRUE, to help shoot out air towards the exhaust... (Where can I get a second set of those thin metal fan clips for the TRUE?)

I'm fairly certain the HSF is mounted properly, all mounting screws are as tight as can be. I mounted it straight down, and the bracket on the top was expanded to a perfect X shape.

As for the graphics card, are those decent idle temps, considering that the airflow is pretty bad as well? I'm scared to turn my memory over 1000 now for benching, because if there is one thing I'm somewhat iffy about it's the contact with the heatsink and the memory modules, but I'm fairly certain that it's as tight as it can go, and it does look to me like there is decent contact. The reason why I am concerned is because from factory, it used a really thick thermal gauze, whereas I'm using a liquid/paste.

 

[Akubane]

I like guru's fan directions. that way the air isn't fighting itself trying to go too many different ways.

somethings wrong cause those are the temps i'm getting. but im using stock intel cooler and mx-2 haha.

and those temps arent that bad for your gpu. they run hotter than CPU's anyway. I run mine OC'd at about 75C load, idle 62c. I might throw some mx-2 on there instead of those pad things but i'm iffy about taking the cooler off lol

 

[patonb]

I left mine in stock positions.. 2 front ones intake and low. Then my turniq pointing out to the rear exhaust. My HD is mounted in the middle fan tray.

You really should suck in at the bottow and exhausxt out high. Right now you have a dead air zone at the psu and gpu. Remember think of flows.... Cool in the bottom.. heat rises sucking air up and out the top fans.

Right now i'm prime95 running, no oc just built it last week, and my temps are 49,50,45,45, but I am a G0... Not to hyjack, but is a 5deg different okay?

Oh... Try to run an exhaust out of your area to disppears the heat away.

 

[gurusan]

patonb has a point...your GPU and PSU need some airflow.


and patonb yeah it's normal to have a large difference between cores on the quad. I have about a 7c difference between cores 0 and 3