NH-D15 and 3600x

[Omid123457]

Hello,

 

I recently gave my pc it's first ever upgrade. I took it from the stock cooler to a NH-D15, and I was excited to see how cool it would get. Before I was getting the mid 40s to mid 50s at idle, and up to 70-80 in games. I was expecting to get a fairly dramatic reduction in temps with the NH-D15, and in all fairness, I kind of have. Now at idle I'm getting low 30s to mid 40s, which is pretty great. Under max load with prime 95, I'm not hitting anything above 83 degrees.

 

I wanted to see how my temps stacked up so I did some searching around, and I found that people are saying very different things on temps, and it made me doubt my own temps. I posted on reddit and was told that my temps were too high, and maybe my thermal past application was botched and it didn't spread out enough, so I I took it out, cleaned everything and remounted it. My temps got even worse, so I did it again, and now I'm back to my original temps.

 

The initial and second time I used the single pea sized dot in the center, and both times the paste didn't spread across the whole surface. The first time it didn't get the top of the CPU, and the second time (the one with the worst temps) it didn't get one of the sides. Now this third time I went for the 5 small dots method, and my temps are back where they were before. Does this mean it didn't spread evenly again, or perhaps this is just the best I can possible get? I really don't want to got through this process again, but I'll do whatever is necessary. I'm honestly at my wits end. Are my temps normal?

 

Thanks in advance for any help

 

EDIT: Just want to add, my case is a fractal Meshify C with 1x120mm and 1x140mm intake, and 1x120mm output

Edited March 14, 2021 by Omid123457

[WhitetailAni]

This is probably the best you'll get without changing anything else about your PC.

Can you take a picture of the inside of your PC, making sure to get all 4 sides (front, back, top, bottom) so we can see where your fans are and how they're mounted?

[tishous]

Just looking at temperatures is a bit misleading. Sure you're hitting a max of 83C (which isn't high by any means), but if the CPU cooler is still silent, then I wouldn't say that's out of the ordinary. If you're worried about your temperatures being too high, you can change the fan curve in the BIOS to what you want.

[Omid123457]

16 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

This is probably the best you'll get without changing anything else about your PC.

Can you take a picture of the inside of your PC, making sure to get all 4 sides (front, back, top, bottom) so we can see where your fans are and how they're mounted?

These are some photos I took of my initial installation:

 

 

[WhitetailAni]

Yep, looks right to me - air comes in the front, moves through the cooler, and goes out the back.

This is the best you'll get unless you really want to squeeze out the extra degrees and liquid metal the CPU die and use Kryonaut on the CPU IHS.

[Omid123457]

1 minute ago, tishous said:

Just looking at temperatures is a bit misleading. Sure you're hitting a max of 83C (which isn't high by any means), but if the CPU cooler is still silent, then I wouldn't say that's out of the ordinary. If you're worried about your temperatures being too high, you can change the fan curve in the BIOS to what you want.

No the cooler is not silent by any means. I let it ramp up to 1500 when temps exceed 70 degrees, and its running (silently) at 650 when I'm idling

[tishous]

Just now, Omid123457 said:

No the cooler is not silent by any means. I let it ramp up to 1500 when temps exceed 70 degrees, and its running (silently) at 650 when I'm idling

Is your CPU at stock? What power draw are you seeing when you use Prime 95 and reach these 83C temps?

[Omid123457]

1 minute ago, FakeKGB said:

Yep, looks right to me - air comes in the front, moves through the cooler, and goes out the back.

This is the best you'll get unless you really want to squeeze out the extra degrees and liquid metal the CPU die and use Kryonaut on the CPU IHS.

If it's a matter of a couple degrees, then fair enough I'll be grateful for what I have!

[HQi88]

What is your ambient room temperature?

 

I have a 3600X as well and a NH-U14s, basically a single tower version of the NH-D15. I get about 35C at idle and about 60C on Prime 95 all cores with a room temp of about 20C

[Omid123457]

Just now, HQi88 said:

What is your ambient room temperature?

 

I have a 3600X as well and a NH-U14s, basically a single tower version of the NH-D15. I get about 35C at idle and about 60C on Prime 95 all cores with a room temp of about 20C

my room temp is at about 22-23 celcius.

[Omid123457]

5 minutes ago, tishous said:

Is your CPU at stock? What power draw are you seeing when you use Prime 95 and reach these 83C temps?

Yes its a stock 3600x, and the core voltage I'm seeing is 1.281.

[tishous]

2 minutes ago, Omid123457 said:

Yes its a stock 3600x, and the core voltage I'm seeing is 1.281.

Then there's something up with the cooler or the mounting. Are both fans connected and running? Are you using enough thermal paste? Too much paste can't hurt but too little can.

[Omid123457]

Just now, tishous said:

Then there's something up with the cooler. Are both fans connected and running? Are you using enough thermal paste? Too much paste can't hurt but too little can.

The fans are running just fine, but maybe I am being too conservative with the paste. Ill do this one more time, but if this doesn't work I think I'm gonna have a mental breakdown. At this point I can install this cooler with my eyes closed

[Omid123457]

@tishous @FakeKGB Thank you both for all the advice. I will update with the results of this fourth attempt at mounting, but whether or not anything improves, I thank you both for your time and help

[tishous]

3 minutes ago, Omid123457 said:

The fans are running just fine, but maybe I am being too conservative with the paste. Ill do this one more time, but if this doesn't work I think I'm gonna have a mental breakdown. At this point I can install this cooler with my eyes closed

I understand your frustration. You could always return it for a replacement or a refund and get a Scythe Fuma 2 or an Arctic Freezer 34 Duo, although the latter isn't supposed to perform close to a NH-D15. Both cheaper, and you likely wouldn't notice a difference between the supposed performance of the Noctua cooler and the other two coolers with your CPU.

[Omid123457]

2 hours ago, tishous said:

I understand your frustration. You could always return it for a replacement or a refund and get a Scythe Fuma 2 or an Arctic Freezer 34 Duo, although the latter isn't supposed to perform close to a NH-D15. Both cheaper, and you likely wouldn't notice a difference between the supposed performance of the Noctua cooler and the other two coolers with your CPU.

Well, I finally mustered the willpower to open this up again, and I found that I had perfectly fine coverage on my CPU, which tells me there must be something wrong with the cooler unless I'm missing something. Im going to reinstall this one last time, but if it doesn't work, I'll be contacting noctua to see what I may be able to work out with them

[tishous]

@Omid123457honestly I would say that you're being a bit too conservative with the amount of thermal paste. The IHS shouldn't be so visible. I would say add 20% more paste just to be sure it's enough.

 

Edit: looking at it again, it is actually fine. You could try adding a bit more just in case, too much can't hurt.

[LightCrimson]

Maybe to make sure you're getting the paste all over the CPU, try doing the X-cross paste application method. Make sure when you're placing the Cooler to screw little by little each side so the thermal paste will share an equal amount around your cpu.
Idk what thermal paste you're using, but i would advice trying to get an Arctic MX-4 or Arctic Silver 5 if you want the top quality thermal paste.
Also if you need a more silent cooler performing as good as the noctua, you can try a Dark Rock Pro 4 from be quiet! .

[IkeaGnome]

A couple of quick dumb questions. How tight are you tightening down the cooler? Are you by chance using the "low noise adapter"?

[Omid123457]

39 minutes ago, tishous said:

@Omid123457honestly I would say that you're being a bit too conservative with the amount of thermal paste. The IHS shouldn't be so visible. I would say add 20% more paste just to be sure it's enough.

 

Edit: looking at it again, it is actually fine. You could try adding a bit more just in case, too much can't hurt.

@tishousI tried again, and my temps are the exact same. At this point ill be speaking with Noctua to see what I can do. The silver lining about all this is, I have gotten a lot more comfortable messing around the inside of my pc, I just wish I had more successful results. You have been unbelievably patient and helpful, thank you so much for all your advice

[Omid123457]

45 minutes ago, LightCrimson said:

Maybe to make sure you're getting the paste all over the CPU, try doing the X-cross paste application method. Make sure when you're placing the Cooler to screw little by little each side so the thermal paste will share an equal amount around your cpu.
Idk what thermal paste you're using, but i would advice trying to get an Arctic MX-4 or Arctic Silver 5 if you want the top quality thermal paste.
Also if you need a more silent cooler performing as good as the noctua, you can try a Dark Rock Pro 4 from be quiet! .

I have applied it in the pattern you described, I made sure not to be too conservative (though I wasn't super aggressive either). I used some arctic 5 i had from a laptop refurbish i did. My temps are the exact same as before, but I will take that over it being worse. I am honestly not to bothered about noise, I just really wanted the best air cooling possible and the NH-D15 seemed like it was it. Thank you very much for the advice, because you have at the very least helped me rule out 2 variables for why this is not working as well as it should!

[Omid123457]

39 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

A couple of quick dumb questions. How tight are you tightening down the cooler? Are you by chance using the "low noise adapter"?

No question is stupid, I appreciate you wanting to help! I followed the instructions, so I tightened the coolers, going for each screw incrementally, until neither could turn anymore, as the manual instructed me. The cooler was not budging so I felt good about that. I decided not to go for those cables as I could do the same thing in the bios, and not be locked down.

[LightCrimson]

5 minutes ago, Omid123457 said:

I have applied it in the pattern you described, I made sure not to be too conservative (though I wasn't super aggressive either). I used some arctic 5 i had from a laptop refurbish i did. My temps are the exact same as before, but I will take that over it being worse. I am honestly not to bothered about noise, I just really wanted the best air cooling possible and the NH-D15 seemed like it was it. Thank you very much for the advice, because you have at the very least helped me rule out 2 variables for why this is not working as well as it should!

Lets try to squeeze more variables out, could you tell me your motherboard? Maybe it is a bios issue or driver so you may need to update it. 

[IkeaGnome]

1 minute ago, Omid123457 said:

I decided not to go for those cables as I could do the same thing in the bios, and not be locked down.

I just figured I'd see if you accidentally used it not knowing what it was. Seen that happen before. I'd make sure your case fans are blowing the correct way. You could also put your hand in front of the exhaust fan and behind the exhaust fan out side the case to make sure that you have enough air going out. Alternatively, you could go in BIOS and set that fan to 100% no matter the temperature and run your temp test again. See if that improves or not.

[Omid123457]

24 minutes ago, LightCrimson said:

Lets try to squeeze more variables out, could you tell me your motherboard? Maybe it is a bios issue or driver so you may need to update it. 

Oh my motherboard is a MSI tomahawk b450 max, and I only recently updated it to the newest driver set (I think a month ago). Ill check again to see if they have a new relese!