EvilVir

Well it’s kinda old topic but still alive I went long way with this thing. I’ve replaced the 360 radiator with other EK type, added 140 at the back. Replaced CPU block, added RAM coolers into the loop as well (lowered overall temp in case a bit) and, what probably did most difference... added additional washers on the CPU block’s mounting screws, so I get better contact. Yes, four cheapest plastic washers improved things by like 5C at least lol. It’s hard to tell how it will handle during summer, but right now I see temps idling at around 35-45C with random spikes above 50C. Normal work takes me to around 45-55C, a little heavier goes beyond 60C, spikes to 70C sometimes if there are, for example, multiple projects compiling at the same time and some other working pieces in the background. Cinabench 20 after 30 minutes took me to range of 70-80C. This is all with ambient of around 27-25C (which is what I had here last year when trying out that AIO which was worse under same conditions) and with all 7 fans set under 1000RPM. It’s still not perfect, but I feel like I got some improvement there, temps are visibly lower now (still I would like to bring them a little bit down but run out of ideas), and are dropping much faster after heavy load is over. It’s still tempting to try and fit another radiator into this, but that would mean I have no intake at all (not to mention I would need some custom 3D printed holders), so probably not the best idea. Not that I don’t have parts though, by now I have everything (apart from distro plate) doubled lol

I think we can rule out the light factor. This is how piece of EKWB tube looks after sitting for 3 days in closed jar, filled with EKWB’s premixed clear coolant. Jar was kept in dark closet + was covered with masking tape and dark foil (picture below).

I have some issues with my loop, using same block, as well. Same temps, just higher CPU (but no GPU) Is there possibilty you would take a picture of springs compressed while block is attached? I want to see how far they went.

Mine PTSD is well documented in two other threads. Long story short: I exchanged AIO for $1500 EKWB custom water cooling loop, just to get same (or maybe even worse) thermal performance that I had with off the shelf AIO. Due to multiple problems along the line whole build took me more than a month and I'm very unpleased with how it turned out. And the final nail to this coffin - while I was struggling with that stupid water loop I managed to do all sorts of damage all over the place. Had to replace DP cable, front case panel (Evolv X, panel alone costed me around $50 with shipping). I have three other machines acting as all sort of local servers. With all of them I had three goals: small, quiet, packed with parts (mostly ssds). And I almost achieved that, just the case manufacturers are complete morons, designing their cases in such a way that there is plenty of wasted space everywhere, that you can't do anything about it and, unless you want to use a driller, you need to mount everything in some randomly pre-defined places. This is insane. Let's take Bitfenix Phenom micro-atx case. There is so much room inside it, you can literally stack eight 3.5" and like twenty 2.5" drives but noooo sir! Some idiot decided that only space you have for the drives are... on the side panels! And each time you open this thing you rip half of the cables. And just don't let me started on all these damn youtubers with their worthless tech reviews. This alone gives me PTSD and pain. Watching them you learn that there is no better screwdrivers set than iFix It, which is totally overpriced garbage, everyone is one big happy family of EKWB, and water cooling in general, advocates, and then you sit there staring at your just-bought loop, exactly matching one they showed and praying that your rig would not melt. That's when you realize how much bullshit is going around. How all these LTTs, GNs and other "test" the hand-picked parts sourced by manufacturers PR departments, in the air-conditioned rooms on open-benches. And you feel like a total moron that got screwed on quite some cash. So cheer up mate! You're not alone in this misery

Well that is kinda true that I'm mostly used to 4 cores Intel thermals and when I see 55C I panic. As for that "appears to be worse" part it makes me want to go back to my AIO at least for a moment and see what temps I can get in such hot day as today with it and also the speeds. Just if it wouldn't be so hectic to disassemble all of these lol But maybe I'll just do semi-open bench check soon, since I anyway want to check on the TIM spreading under the water block.

@Den-Fi thank you for stopping by, I really appriciate that! Here are my temps right now: Computer is running for 4.5h now, mostly idling, but right now, when I took this screenshot I have two Hyper-V virtual machines running, both installing some Windows updates, Skype, Windows Mail, Edge, Fork, Visual Studio with ASP.NET application in debug mode and Visual Studio Code with Angular application in debug mode. And some background tasks. When I shut down all of them and let it idle for a moment it looks like this: Tell me what number you need, I'll happily provide them ASAP! You have same Velocity water block, two rads and a GPU in the loop right? I have one PE 360 rad, no GPU and same block. And I never saw this CPU going to 37.5C minimum as yours did

Hey @Den-Fi help me here if you can please? @ShrimpBrime nah I'm not comparing the Athlon - it just arrived today and I'm still working on that NAS build. Just saying what I got around and what temps I got on them as a refrerence. After all if small 7700T (mind the T this is the 35W unit) is running only 6C less than this Threadripper monster then maybe that's just how things work? But then again it's cooled by thin piece of aluminium with one little fan on it... IDK. RMA of the CPU is possible but knowing how such process goes in where I live, it would take weeks if not months and after all I would receive the exact same chip with "working as expected" sticker on it. I will try to contact some AMD representative directly and see what they can advice me. I will also check that TIM spread under waterblock just to be sure. This block is meant to be copper with just nickel plating. At the end of the day it could be possible to remove the plating with some chemicals. If we're going into deliding area, which I would love to avoid because as you mentioned this is dangerous and this chip is not cheap, maybe de-plating would be first reasonable step?

ps. On the side note, this is not the only computer I have. In fact this is one of four. Two others are on Intel CPUs (7700T and 2600K) and another one is some Athlon 200GE. Athlon is not yet completed (it will do as NAS) but 7700T and 2600K are running right now, they have these small stock coolers, are closed in small cases with no additional fans at all (7700T in ITX and 2600K in MiniTower) and I know these are much lower powered, 4 cores processors. But still they manage to sit around 43-48C right now. IDK if this information is helpful, maybe would give you some perspective into operational environment I'm in right now. I remember that this 2600K thing, when it was acting as my main desktop, it had some big thermaltake air cooler installed and had like 10C less temps than it has now.

@ShrimpBrime I read that post by HWInfo developer yesterday and yes, number I'm watching and giving above is TCtrl/TDie (I have both on same row, no separation). Right now, after couple of hours idling, I have only few background programs (like Enpass, Docker Desktop etc.) + Clockify, Skype, Windows Mail and Edge Chromium opened and I'm seeing it jumping around 54-62C. This is way too hot IMHO, like 10C too hot to be comfortable. Also spinning pump or fans up doesn't make any perceived difference here (right now all are set on about 50%, with going to 100% on the 70C mark). I just can't understand how the EKWB's block that covers whole CPU die is performing same as standard off-shelf AIO? Is that even possible if everything is connected properly? Because that's the first point which I think should be rulled out - is this custom loop on par with AIO and then indeed I should admit that all I got for these c.a. $1500 I've already put into it is just questionable look (frankly I liked AIO's look better) and focus on finding problem elsewhere (like VRMs, airflow in case etc.) or this is not possible and I should focus on finding problem with the loop itself first (maybe water block doesn't make good enough contact still, is uneven or something else is wrong? should I RMA it? go back to AIO?). Any idea how I can check if the loop is doing its best and there is no room for improvement there? I got impression that custom loop with dedcated waterblock will always work at least a bit better than AIO with smaller coldplate and with less fins. Everyone - LTT, GamerNexus, JayZTwoCents, just to name few, is like "oh yeah, this is one big waterblock, it will chill out your CPU, two GPUs and you can even overclock all of your components" or like "this Asetek based AIO is good enough but if you really want to run this thing cool then you need to go with custom loop". Even skipping the fact that all the tests they do are on open bench in air conditioned rooms, there MUST be some difference right? I mean this EKWB's water block alone weights probably more than Fractal's AIO as a whole (with rad, pump, tubes and fluid). And also let's not forget that AIO has pump, that is generating heat on its own, inside the water block! IDK, I'm again on the road this weekend but I think on Monday I will take out the water block and see if I can improve contact somehow, how the paste is spread. Last time it wasn't even, like lower half of the block was fully covered with paste and upper half was clean as it would barely touched the TIM at all (or otherway around - like the "clean" half was making so good contact, that it squeeze all the TIM into lower half where there was some air pocket - I don't know how to read that, maybe you do?). What I'm hoping here is that there is some flaw in the loop, that once fixed will bring me down some nice 5-10C and then on top of that I can work towards cooling down components around the CPU to gain even more. If I can achive stable 5-10C in same scenarios where I'm right now looking at 55-65C range (so light, desktop type load) then I would call it a success and go drunk AF out of happiness

@ShrimpBrime thanks man, I appriciate that and will try. Yesterday I pointed a household fan, that I use to cool myself, on the motherboard and no change at all. I will try to point some smaller but directly on the VRMs. This thing is really weird, just like it doesn't care about ambient and whatever you throw at it. All the temps I gave you guys before were taken when ambient temp was about 24-26C, during night, with window open. Right now I'm sitting here, window closed, it's bright sunny day, Ambient is about 28-29C now in the room and guess what - no change. Nothing, still going between 45-55C, with occasional blimps to as high as 62C and as low as 43C. Insane. I start to think that one of the thermal probes inside CPU is broken lol It's just not physically possible that whatever you throw at this thing it behaves exactly the same. I will try and cool these VRMs though as well as RAM sticks (as there are 8 of them, closely packed together in all available slots, generating some amount of heat on their own).

Just compress the files into one big one? Also are you using Samba/Windows Shares for copying? If so then it's kinda slower than using SFTP or SCP.

@bowrilla fully premixed, bought in two separate places from two separate production batches, poured straight from sealed botttle into the loop, no diluting on my side whatsoever. This is also Cryofuel Clear not Solid, it has some tint to it, from the additives, but this is nothing like near how milky these tubes became. You know, at this point I'm not even mad. I will probably ultimatelly go with black tubes when I will next time do a maintenance of this rig (perfect would be sleaved ones like in AIOs - I like that look, anybody knows if somebody sels them?), I'm now just curious what the hell is going on here. Four brands, from cheapest ones (XSPC), through dedicated (EKWB) to expensive medical/chemistry grade (Tygon) and all are turning white when everybody tolds me this is not possible I don't have luck with this loop, I get temps that nobody else experiences and tubes that turn weird while everybody has quite clean systems. I must be cured by gods of custom cooling lol

Hm that's a good idea, will give it a shot in coming days. I need to think how to pull this off though because this distro plate has required inlet/outlet pairs to be used. For example I don't have GPU in the loop so I had to do a bridge (eventually I've put flow indicator there) so water can pass from one side to another. Right now my config is distro -> CPU -> distro -> flow indicator -> distro -> rad -> distro. Heck, it might be easier to just buy some cheap reservoir, even used, and test on that. I'll see what can be done here. I'm affraid that the block isn't even or something else is wrong with it. These temps should be at least 5-10C lower IMHO. This or the CPU or Mobo is malfunctioning and giving too much current to the CPU (in BIOS I see 1.44V but then in Windows it depends on the tool I use to meassure - Ryzen Master shows 1.2-1.3 in idle mostly, but HWInfo shows 1.4-1.45).

Oh, nice to know, thanks! Money isn't an big issue, just want to get something worth it lol For now I'm also fighting with poor performance of that loop, so don't want to spend extra before I make sure it even stays in the PC, but maybe once that's solved I will think about going for glass ones.

Load temp (like Cinabench 20 10 minutes test) goes to around low 80-ish range. In normal work, like compiling the code etc. it usually spikes to around 68C and then drops down after done.