Search the Community

Hello, im getting a new (used) pc with the Zalman ZM-T3, but It looks like it doesn't have the best air flow. Should i be worried about that and my temps? The pc has Ryzen 5 1600x and MSI 1080.

i have a Zalman CNPS 12x a nice tower cooler but it always bugged me about the base not being very flat and with a lot of gaps in the base plate. it looks like they pressed it flat causing the pipes to be high on the center for most of the surface area and requiring thermal paste to fill in a good part of the area (while not that much). More on it later but i also got some really cool stuff to help test and just show the horribly flatness of this heatsink and the improvement done by the lapping process. Very cool stuff Materials a piece of glass that is flat - had one already a Binder Clip - wish i had a few more to hold the paper down to the glass Dawn Platinum Dish soap and Water and the sanding paper what i got is made out of silicon carbide - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DHCRHZ6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 some basic googling reviled that the silicon carbide should be able to sand and polish copper and i was able to use it for the process. with each grit i would rotate every 5 minutes 90° on wet paper with a little bit of Dawn dish soap. i started moving the heat sink in figure 8 motions but it was causing scratches in the copper so i started doing "Z" motions up and down the sheet allowing for the entire sheet to be used. for 360 (in the beginning) and 240 were every 10 minutes until the base was all copper, then moved to 5 minutes x2 for each grit. Because i did not want to take off to much and did not know exactly how quick it would go i started with 340 Grit - which was a lot slower than i though it would be. This took for ever, but i was watching a podcast and did not feel it passing that quickly. ^ I'm fairly certain that this was done on 240 - did not take note when taking the picture on this one. this one i know is at 240 by the time i got to 1000 i did not notice to much different between the different grits but continued because i still had up to 7000 grit and want to see it very shiny. at 2000 it actually scared me a little when i was cleaning it for the picture and the paper towel i was using started moving weird, it was it reflecting very cool. for the discoloration i think it is an impurity in the copper, as the pipe to the right of it was round down even more than it was. at 7000 the reflection was very clear but only at an angle, it never got reflective straight on. still very cool that it got that nice and smooth. so now for the cool part i teased at the beginning. i remember a while back Gamers Nexus was using something really cool on a heat sink review, it was Pressure sensitive paper. it is very cool stuff. take 2 things that smash together with the PSP paper between them you can see how well they contact and where they do contact. and what better thing to test on then an imperfect platform of the Zalman CNPS 12x. as you will see in the picture below it did not change color to much i think that it is because i requested a sample that is too strong for what i was testing and i should have request the 4LW instead of the 3LW. but even with the the 3LW [rated for 28 - 85 PSI (2 - 6 kg/cm2) ] it did show contact points and very nicely on the edges of the pipes before hand. i do think it would have turned out a lot better with the 4LW which is rated a lot lower that the 3LW. i did not lap the CPU heat spreader as it is already fairly flat and will be replace soon to Zen3 when that comes out later this year and that will not be able to be lapped because i would like the warrent just in case. So. conclusion time with tempatures i did not Gamer Nexus my testing (multiple test and rounds of cooling and heating) with the heat sink and did a basic small burn in to test before and after the lapping. Testing on a Stock Clocked FX-8350 Pre - Lapping, idles were around 40-45°C and took 2.5 minutes to reach 60°C when under a P95 Small FFT and after a few minutes started to rise more but stayed around 62°C Post - Lapping idles are now 34°C, after 3 minutes would reach 55°C and did get close to 60°C but never broke it after 20 minutes of the same p95 testing. i did see a drop in the temperatures but i think the previous temps were good because of the quality thermal paste MX-4 i'm using. all in all it was a cool experience, if i would do it again i would probably do something to fill in the gaps between the pipes with jb weld or something, but now that i have lapped it i don't want to mess with it any more.

I plan on buying Zalman Z3 Plus case, but im not sure i'll be able to connect all the stuff like integrated 4 fans, front usb's to my motherboard ASUS H81M-K, please help.

After a around 6 years, the front powerbutton is now slower to press, I need to use more "force" to get the computer to turn on. If I just do a light click, it wont. I'm guessing the power switch is going bad, what to do?I sent an email to zalman 17 days ago, still no reply. I'm worried one day it wont turn on at all. -Thanks.

Hi, So I currently have an i7 7700k with a Corsair H80i cooler in a Zalman Z9 Neo case. I was thinking about upgrading my H80i to a H100i, but I was wondering if the H100i would fit. It is not the length, I know the case is built for a 240mm rad at the top, but I am worried it will be obstructed by the top of my motherboard, and it will certainly block off all those holes at the top for cable management. So I was wondering if anyone had had any experience with a H100i in a Zalman Z9 Neo case and was wondering what problems it causes . Thanks

Hi, I have got a Zalman Z9 Neo case with a windowed side panel. The title pretty much says it all, but When I clean the side panel it is crystal clear but then after about a day marks will form on it. I am assuming these marks are dust, as they come off with a cloth. Any tips on how to stop these marks forming? Thanks

I recently noticed that my ATX Full Tower System had been overheating after around 1-2 hours of gaming, so i opened it up to see what the probnlem was. i noticed that my CPU heatsink (Arctic Pro Rev 2) had stopped working and was no longer spinning on boot. even though the pc was POSTing fine.So ultimately the system was running for an hour or 2 with games running on just the 5 case fans (including GPU fan), before getting too hot and turning off today i bought a new heatsink cooler, the Zalman CNPS5X, after cleaning the CPU and applying new artic silver thermal paste, i booted my theoretically fixed machine and opened up HW Monitor to monitor my new core temperatures, but just as i opened the software, it overheated again! i managed to just get a glimpse of "110 Degrees" for my Core ) temp, i have no idea why this happened i thouroughly cleaned my system and it is pretty much dust free, i am currently waiting for it to cool down before trying again Any help would be appreciated. -Jamie Specs : CPU:AMD phenom II x4 965 black editiuon 3.4Ghz RAM: 8GB(2x4) DDR3 Kingston HyperX 1333mhz Case : Inwin Maelstrom

Hi, I have checked the height of the 210 Evo (159mm) and the maximum CPU cooler height for my case (160mm) and I am wondering if this will fit. How much lee-way should I leave between the height of the cooler and max height for the case? Will this be ok, or will the side panel not go on or something like that?

So basically, I was planning to paint the front and top panels of my Zalman Z9 Neo case white, as the colour difference between the black steel and the black plastic annoys me. Do any of you know if it is possible to completely remove the front panel, so I can spray paint it? You can pull it off, but the front panel connectors are still connected to a little PCB there (picture attached) There cables seem connected pretty well, and I don't want to break them by pulling them with too much force. Does anyone know if these connectors are actually removable? Secondly, can you remove the front panel door, because I would like this to remain black and so taking it off would allow me to easier paint the front panel itself and avoid getting paint on the door. Thanks

Right now, I have a black Zalman Z9 Neo case and am looking to paint the plastic parts, as the colour difference between the plastic and metal parts annoys me. I want to paint the top panel and the front panel, not the door on the front panel, white - to match the fans in my PC. I have never done anything like this before, and just need some advice on painting. What kind of paint should I use? How many coats should I apply? How much paint will I need? Do I need to sand the plastic then apply primer? Answers to these questions, and any another advice you have, would be greatly appreciated

I have an old Zalman Hybrid Cooling System Reserator XT and i was wondering what its worth or if someone could use it since i have no need for it anymore. Works great and is clean, it just sits around now.

Well, I was wondering if I should go a head and replace my old and trusty Zalman Performa with a Noctua D15 (or U14S), for better temperatures, but before that, let me delve into some details: Setup: - CPU: Intel 7700k, OC to 4.7GHZ, at 1.25 vcore (No AVX offset) - MB: Gigabyte Z170X-UD3 - Cooler: Zalman CNPS10X Performa - Paste: Zalman STG2 (Bought it in 2011 or something, but it's still holding up) - Case: CoolerMaster HAF912 Advanced with decent airflow (2x IN fans + 2x OUT fans) - Ambient temp: around 27c Problem: First of all, I know the 7700k is a hot potato, but I would like to have better temperatures than the ones below: - Gaming: 72c max. - Asus RealBench: 80c max. - Prime95 v26.6 8k FFT: 81c max. - Prime95 v28.10 8k FFT: 92c max. Now, based on almost all of the reviews I have found online comparing the Performa with the Noctua D14 (which is close enough to the D15 anyway) says there's like 3-4c difference between the two at max, of course noise is a different story but I don't honestly care much about that: http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2498&page=5 https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3199/zalman_cnps10x_performa_cpu_cooler/index6.html http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/zalman-cnps10x-performa-cpu-cooler-review/6/ Questions: 1- Is the performance difference between the two really that small? 2- Do newer coolers like a Noctua D15/U14S perform better on new generations CPU's than old ones or it doesn't matter? What's Locally Available: - Noctua D15 + extra AM4 kit: Almost new, used once for a review --> about $85 - Noctua U14S + extra AM4 kit: Almost new, used once for a review --> about $57 What to Do: A ) Nothing, temps are fine as it is. B ) Keep the Zalman but get a better thermal compound and maybe a better fan C ) Buy the Noctua U14S, as it's almost the same performance as the D15 with lower price D ) Buy the Noctua D15, it's the best E ) Delid and use any of these coolers Any thoughts or input is very appreciated! Thank you in advance.

So I have bought a new aftermarket cooler and decided to try it out, ZALMAN - CNPS5X Performa on my on my Quad core Q8200 (Stock Speed 2.33GHz), I bumped up the OC to 3.01GHz, FSB 430 and it seems to be working nicely, (My PC wouldn't even enter the OS when I applied 3Ghz using my stock Intel cooler) I was curious to see if my CPU is indeed running at 3.01GHz when gaming, I put Payday in the background in window mode and launched CPU-Z, (I'M a noob when it comes to OCing pls no hate) Its running at 2.33Ghz when playing my game (Check the screenshots) I wanted to make sure that the OC was applied so I went to Computer > Properties and it says 3.01GHz What the hell? Can someone help or explain if I'm doing something wrong here?

Just a quick off the cuff note. I tried building a budget system for a friend in the NZXT S340. Nice design, if a bit barebones. Clean. However, my particular case had mismatched standoffs and a bent bracket where the screws to lock down the cards go, so that resulted in an RMA. Under a time crunch, I bought a Zalman Neo Z9 from my local shop and built the system in that, and I have something to say (unfortunately, no pictures, sorry). 1) Rubber grommets are nice, but if they pull out when running wire of any gauge through, they're flipping annoying. 2) PSU basements are nice, but not if they're fixed and cannot be removed for installation or personal taste. 3) Lots of fans are nice, but not including PWM fans in this day and age is strange. 4) Zalman's case is why I will always continue to build in full tower cases or higher-end mid-tower cases. No room for my fat hands to run wires. I had to unmount the PSU and tilt it towards the side of the case to get any wires in. 5) Good things about Zalman's case: that it had rubber grommets at all, nice if cheesy lighting options, still had 5.25" bays. Side note: AMD's AM4 default cooler is nice, but the mounting plate system is annoying when you get a motherboard that doesn't have a permanently mounted backplate and can't change the cooler without removing the entire motherboard. Picture from the amazing WWW:

So my intel stock cooler broke and now im planning on buying an aftermarket cooler but im on a tight budget! This one costs 24 euro at my local electronics shop(and the reviews for this heatsink arent bad at all on newegg): http://www.eshopcy.com.cy/zalman-cnps5x-performa-p-PER.806901 Is it worth it at all? Or should I get a new intel stock cooler? Also I want to oc my Q8200, with the intel cooler I achived from 2.33GHz to a stable 2.8, giving me 61 degrees underload. I will try to put out a libk in the comments for my local shops website. Thanks!

I got this Reserator for free from work since it was not doing anything for the past 10 years and it was considered as broken... I glued back together the pump and now its working fine! I had to put on a new block but other than that is there anything I should know about this if I want to daily drive it?

Hello, I'm in the process of building a brand new desktop for myself. I was recently gifted a Zalman T11 as my friend upgraded her case. Im going down the Skylake route with a Core i5-6500. Im looking at AIO cooling solutions and I was wandering if anyone knows what AIO solutions would fit into the T11! I have come up with a list of potential solutions which I think may work, and a list of ones which I know wont. (N.b. I DO NOT intend to make ANY modifications to the case what so ever!) Potential Raikintek Triton 140mm (Here) Ruled Out Corsair H100i (REASON: Radiator is too big, required modification) I am open to sensible suggestions! Many Thanks, Cameron

Can anyone please tell me which psu is better? The powerstation one or zalman one ? Both are same is price

So the thing is I got a really good bargain on a Zalman cnps12x (around 10 bucks). The drawback is that it doesn't have any of its brackets nor the backplate. My plan was to replace the Deepcool Gammaxx300 on my R5 1600x for a little more thermal headroom but as I search Zalman stopped shipping the AM4 brackets. The question is would it worth to experiment with other brand's brackets or try to hunt a Zalman one online.

Hello there. I am about to build my first pc, have already ordered all the parts, but I am having difficulty trying to figure out how to install the fans, so that I can control their rpms and colour via the motherboard's software (Mystic Light it's called I guess). Case: Zalman Z7 Neo (manual on same page) PSU: Super Flower Leadex III 650W Gold (can't find a manual online, but a review with images here) Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk Max (manual here) CPU: Ryzen 5 2600X and will use the stock cooler (Wraith Spire). The case comes with 4 fans (3 rgb at the front, 1 rgb at the back) and I bought 2 more rgb fans for Top. It also has a preinstalled rgb led controller (if you scroll down in the manufacturer's page you'll see it). There are also some reviews of the case on youtube, here (russian), here (russian) and here (german). So, what am I supposed to do?

Just curious what you think of the quality, I may be considering a Z9 NEO.

Alright, I’ve been getting this error after I installed my new CPU. I never have gotten this error and it’s the same CPU cooler. I don’t have the exact cooler model but it’s by Zalman. I’ve tried re-applying thermal paste, and turning off the fan limiter (something along those lines) in the bios, but after I did that my system shut down and did not start up again. I then unplugged everything and tightened the CPU Cooler more and I’m still getting this error. What did I do, and what should I do? Thanks guys.

Okay guys... I need some advice. I'm thinking about getting a new case to replace my Aerocool X-Worrior which I bought as a pre-built a few years back and just haven't upgraded the case as of yet. I've came down to 2 cases. First case is the Zalman Z9 Neo. I've wanted this case since I've seen a review on it by HardwareCanucks and NCIX TechTips. The only downside about this case is that the front and top fans are Molex and not 3/4pin. I would be installing my own anyway, and I would give them to my little brother. Second, the Aerocool Dead Silence. I like this case with it being small and compact, but compared to the Zalman, it seams just doesn't seam as good. I'm also not sure about the whole thing with the motherboard lying down, but it should be fine, I guess. I could also have a 3.5inch SD card adaptor if buying this case. In simple terms, I dunno what to buy for my next case upgrade. Also, the Specs for said PC are in my signature under "Current PC". - Joe

Hello, Following up me returning the Antec 1250 PoS, I believe it'd be better to consult the Internet rather than returning the next one. I should stop trying new things/makes... I've got an H440 by NZXT case, mostly want something sub 80£, however if it is justified would drop more. Would need to be from Amazon as well, as it was bought with the amazing voucher money credit imagination money. Plus prime. Main candidates being https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00QWZIN92/?tag=pcp0f-21 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00Q2Q2BBC/?tag=pcp0f-21 (really don't know as never heard of them, but looks reasonable) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00IH33G5I/?tag=pcp0f-21 (looks ballin, but i do not know about clearance...) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00N93KG4A/?tag=pcp0f-21 (really head runner at this point, CM has been good to me) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LA77EPQ/?tag=pcp0f-21 (looks very basic?) I could go for a 120mm one, i suppose it would be plenty, have a 6300 FX currently, waiting for Zen to see what that offers before upgrading as intel prices are silly. Also has there been any news on cooler mounting for the new sockets? If it was noctua they would mail the mounts later, but i wouldn't trust other makes that much... if anything i can DIY something anyways...