Heres one for the watercooling experts

I've got a rather odd problem with the cooling system on my new XP2100+

First up the specs are;
Swiftech MCW5000 waterblock
Eheim 1250 pump
Senfu Daul fan radiator.

Now i suspect the radiator to be the cause of my woes.. but my temps are rather odd.

55c idle
59c load (58 if i put another 50cfm through the rad)

@1734 using 1.6v vcore. The senfu is a multipass type radiator and where the tubes join to go back through it steps down to what looks to be 3/8 OD copper tubing... Now would i be right in assuming that is a flow related problem ?

I have a Black Ice Extreme here in another rig but it's very hard to get out and 9 out of 10 times the mobo gets wet and i cant afford for that rig to be down for a few days to dry out. I also have another black ice x on order for this system but it wont be here till late next week and i want to oc now, so i was thinking of getting a heatcore from the wreckers as a temp solution. Although i dont want to go to the trouble of brazing fittings, cleaning ect.... if it's not the cause..

Any suggestions


Ta

FaTs

Also i'm using De-mineralised water not distilled water. I dont know if that cause problems.

Did you just put the rig together? I ask this because it may be the mobos temp sensor reading wrong. If your CPU is that hot, then the water block should be hot to the touch also, assuming that the waterblock is making good contact. Touch the water block on the base when your rig is running. At those temps, it should definitely be noticeably warm atleast. If it's not, try pushin it harder against the CPU. Just add a bit of pressure to it, aimed straight down on the core, and see if your temps drop. If they don't, then it may just be a messed up thermal probe.

If your block is hot though, then the radiator ain't doing it's job. Might be flow related or just a crappy radiator.

Try reseating the block. I had to try around 4-5 times with my 5000 before the temps started looking right.

Do whatever you have to do to get the temperature of the water itself. You might have to get the system up to temp and drain some water out.

It will either be extremely hot or lukewarm. Hot means a flow/radiator problem, lukewarm means a waterblock problem.

what is the rest of your system? 1/2"? if so, then the water will move the fastest through the radiator, which is the opposite of the optimal set up... also, i've heard of several complaints about the mcw5000's mounting.. as someone else suggested, try pushing on the middle of the block and see if the temps drop...

Fats, I would definitely have to say this is flow restriction. I recently had to replace the RIO pump that came with my kit. It was only rated at 185GPH. I replaced it with a VIA Aqua 370GPH, and nothing else changed. My temps dropped by like 10C. If you push another 50cfm through the radiator and only drop 1C, you have flow problems.

You didn't mention whether you had previously used this same waterblock before, but you wouldn't be the first person to get a waterblock that needed lapping before it performed optimally.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Un4given
Fats, I would definitely have to say this is flow restriction. I recently had to replace the RIO pump that came with my kit. It was only rated at 185GPH. I replaced it with a VIA Aqua 370GPH, and nothing else changed. My temps dropped by like 10C. If you push another 50cfm through the radiator and only drop 1C, you have flow problems.

You didn't mention whether you had previously used this same waterblock before, but you wouldn't be the first person to get a waterblock that needed lapping before it performed optimally.

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Thanks for all the replies, i think i will go with the heater core. I've reseated this thing maybe 10 times now with 3 different thermal compounds. This block does take a couple of goes to mount right because at one stage i had an idle temp of 69-70c.

BTW the mobo is an 8K3A+ so it's reading fromt he diode, so i dont think it's the mobo reading wrong.

For the person that asked i've used this waterblock before on my p4 and i was getting some great temps. 33c idle (33c case temp) and 38c load @ 29xx 1.8v.

As for contact, from the looks on the thermal paste on the bottom of the block it looks pretty good, but i might lap it just to be sure.

Oh and the tubing is a Fix of 1/2 ID and 3/8 ID, the only bit thats 1/2ID is the return from the rad to the pump

Quote:

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Originally posted by FaTs


Thanks for all the replies, i think i will go with the heater core. I've reseated this thing maybe 10 times now with 3 different thermal compounds. This block does take a couple of goes to mount right because at one stage i had an idle temp of 69-70c.

BTW the mobo is an 8K3A+ so it's reading fromt he diode, so i dont think it's the mobo reading wrong.

For the person that asked i've used this waterblock before on my p4 and i was getting some great temps. 33c idle (33c case temp) and 38c load @ 29xx 1.8v.

As for contact, from the looks on the thermal paste on the bottom of the block it looks pretty good, but i might lap it just to be sure.

Oh and the tubing is a Fix of 1/2 ID and 3/8 ID, the only bit thats 1/2ID is the return from the rad to the pump

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If you've used the block before and it seems to make good contact, I would look to replace the radiator, as you said, and get something like a heater core. My heater core from DTek works very well, and their prices are quite reasonable.

One other thing to consider is updating the motherboards bios to the latest version. Sometimes the motherboard doesn't report the temps accurately and a bios update sorts this out.