CoolIT Systems

Hi there,
I've just abuilt a gaming rig for a friend with the Domino Cooler but am getting very high temps. At idle with the fan on full temps are 47,43,45,43.
The Processor is i7 920 oc'd to 3.2 with a Vcore of 1.29. When running Prime 95, they go up to 85 C. Mobo is a Foxconn Flaming Blade and Patriot Viper 1600 Mhz. The case is a NZXT Lexa but currently has the side off.

After installation with the stock thermal paste the temps were roughly the same as above although I never ran P95. I replaced the factory past with MX-3. The paste was applied by being spread over the CPU, the AS-5 method of a thin line down the centre and also a grain of rice sized blob in the centre. All of these methods yeilded more or less the same results -idle and a P95 te,p of 85C

The numbers on the Domino are:-
Fan=2734
Pump=3210
Temp=32C


As a comparison my water Q6600 @ 3.6GHz right next this rig is idleing at 26 C. (Swifttech GPZ, Laing DDC w/XSPC top and 124mm rad)

Whilst I'm not necessarily expecting temps as low as mine I am kinda expecting something close, not an average of 45C idle with it on max settings.
All temps measure with Core temp and RealTemp.

Any ideas ?

Many Thanks

Carl

Hey Carl

What stepping is your 920?
Do you have Hyperthreading on?
What are temps like if you remove OC?

Altho the q6600 are known to be very hot chips they are still very cool compared to any i7. Even if using identical cooling the i7 will always be much warmer.

The Dominos are not the greatest when it comes to OCing the i7s and can be overwhelmed quickly But I still think your temps are still a little on the high side. The strange thing I noticed is that your core temps are close to 20c warmer than the coolant temp. Cant say Ive ever seen them that much higher during idle. Stupid question time.... Are you sure the block is torqued down tight enough?

The Processor is i7 920 oc'd to 3.2 with a Vcore of 1.29. If you have the D0 stepping, your Vcore is quite high for your OC. Most users report having to use a Vcore of 1.248 - 1.282 to hit 4GHz. There temps are almost bang on yours.

You should easily hit 3.2 and higher on stock.

That's just what I was going to say, youeffsee. Even with a C0, you should hit 3.5 at 1.225 vCore, which is right around stock. Actually, with my C0 on auto and voltages on auto, the vCore jumps to 1.250 on load, so I figured this is closer to stock than the 1.2 advertised, but 1.225 seemed to be the sweet spot for my C0.

The only thing I can suggest is to manually set voltages at 1.225 for the QPI-VTT and vCore, and then slowly raise the BCLK until you hit temps that you are still comfortable with. I'd say 85C is too high, I'd be comfortable with no more than 80C for 24/7 use. I ran at 3.5 with those settings and a great big air cooler at just under 80C, and idle temps were similar to yours, probably averaging 44C. Hope this helps, and if you have any questions let me know. I'd guess that the domino should perform about equally as well as a TRUE or Noctua heat sink, judging by all of the reviews I've read.

Good post mikellini

Im have no personal exp. with i7. Everything I know is just from reading so its good to have some1 with personal exp. post.

There a whole nother world to OC than LGA775 so personal exp. really helps.

Thanks youeffsee, I'm still learning to overclock the Nehalem architecture, but I feel like I have a pretty good handle on it.

One more thing about the overclock, if you're using a 21x multiplier, you should manually set it because if you leave turbo enabled, you may run into issues with stability depending on load. Myself, I manually set a 20x multiplier and ran the BCLK to 175 for 3500 mhx (you could go to 160 for 3200). Remember to set the RAM multiplier to a setting compatible with your RAM speed and timings, and set your uncore and QPI frequencies to the lowest setting allowed.

Thanks for the replies.

The 920 is the D0 model
Hyperthreading was on but I turned it off. this lowered the temp by about 8C (below 80C now !!)
The idle temps are about the same without the overclock- still in the mid 40's

The first thing I noticed was the CPU temp /water temp delta. I would of expected them to be roughly similar.
The block is torqued down to the stops on the 4 screws.

Yep, I thought the Vcore was a bit high too for a modest overclcock but it's the minimum I could use to get the thing to boot into Vista without falling over.
I have manually set a 20x multiplier and ran the BCLK to 160 for 3200). This is an OEM chip that (apparently) does not give the X21 multi like the retails boxes do.

Eitherway, I think something might be wrong somewhere...it still shouldn't idle in the mid 40's ...surely ?