Thumb Screw Tightness w/ Compression Springs

earwicker7

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Hey, all.

I'm getting what I consider to be so-so temps with my EK Supreme HF CU waterblock on my new build. It's a different CPU on a different socket (the motherboard came with an adaptor bracket for the block), so maybe that's it, but it seems a little high.

I've tried reapplying the thermal paste, and that helped by a few degrees. What I wonder is if I'm not tightening down the thumb screws on the waterblock enough. The old manual, which I can't find, had instructions for my screws, but the only one I can find online has different screws... ones with no guesswork, as they "dead-end," with a specific stop point where you could no longer tighten them. Mine don't do that, so you have to guess whether there is enough pressure.

Does anyone have a good guildline for how tight you make the screws? Are you supposed to tighten them to where there is only a little resistance from the spring, or do you torque them down until the point it hurts your fingers to move them?

I should remember this from my build from a couple of years ago, but I don't. Old age, maybe.
 
My Koolance 350 has the same spring mounts, I basically just keep tighting it and tried to move the block until it was tight enough that I couldn't move the block easily. I'm getting temps between 25-65 from idle to 100% running at 4.7ghz. So that should give you an idea of if your block is doing its job.
 
Hey, all.

I'm getting what I consider to be so-so temps with my EK Supreme HF CU waterblock on my new build. It's a different CPU on a different socket (the motherboard came with an adaptor bracket for the block), so maybe that's it, but it seems a little high.

I've tried reapplying the thermal paste, and that helped by a few degrees. What I wonder is if I'm not tightening down the thumb screws on the waterblock enough. The old manual, which I can't find, had instructions for my screws, but the only one I can find online has different screws... ones with no guesswork, as they "dead-end," with a specific stop point where you could no longer tighten them. Mine don't do that, so you have to guess whether there is enough pressure.

Does anyone have a good guildline for how tight you make the screws? Are you supposed to tighten them to where there is only a little resistance from the spring, or do you torque them down until the point it hurts your fingers to move them?

I should remember this from my build from a couple of years ago, but I don't. Old age, maybe.
Email EK so they can send you the new mount system that is 2011 specific.

I basically told you the same thing Veedub did. I have my own EK block right now and still waiting for my board to come in from Newegg. As soon as I get it I'll get you numbers from a 3960x.

My Koolance 350 has the same spring mounts, I basically just keep tighting it and tried to move the block until it was tight enough that I couldn't move the block easily. I'm getting temps between 25-65 from idle to 100% running at 4.7ghz. So that should give you an idea of if your block is doing its job.
He has a 3970x so it's going to run much warmer than your 3570k.
 
I pulled out some calipers to make sure that the screws were all tightened down equally. They weren't, but it doesn't seem to make a difference in the temps now that they are.

Do you think there is any chance that emptying the radiator when I switched CPUs might have dislodged something and clogged up the water block? I'm thinking about taking it apart to see if there is any gunk stuck in it.

Then again, it could just be that this CPU is 150W, which is much higher than the other stuff on the market... I think 130W is the next step down.
 
3970x is 150w and 3960x is 130w. The only difference is a 100Mhz bump though.

Did you air out your system by letting it run with the res top off? If you have audible air bubbles in your system then you will have decreased performance.
 
No, I haven't ever run the loops with the reservoir top off... I figured that would be like leaving a gap in the plumbing beneath your sink. So the water won't squirt up in the air like Old Faithful?

One other thing that might be the culprit... I recut the tubing when I set up the new hardware, and I've noticed that there is a "valley" in the tubing that isn't present in the GPU loop, which is getting awesome temperatures. Basically, in the GPU loop, the tubing drops a few inches from the pump, plateaus before going into the case, then drops straight into the GPUs. On the CPU loop, the tubing drops much further (about six inches), comes back up into the case, then drops into the CPU. This means there is about six inches of "uphill" tubing that isn't in the GPU loop. Maybe this causes a flow issue?
 
Well I could tell you if your loop is setup causing bad temps if I had some form of diagram or picture showing it.

Depending on the res you have it should be 100% safe. You're actually supposed to run your loop with no hardware for 24 hours to air it out.
 
Ran the loop with no cap on... there were definitely bubbles in there which weren't in the GPU loop. I run it for four hours without the hardware... I thought it was just to check for leaks.
 
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