Before I overclock, have I cooling setup properly?

[dusf]

I have been reading through some guides online and I still have a few questions.

Here are some pictures so you can get an idea of the airflow:

 

This is the CPU with stock settings at idle:



In a RealTemp I left running with a blend test which started 10 minutes prior I can see the max is already 68c!



The CPU cooler is a Noctua L-12, as the larger more recommended Noctua would not have fit this HTPC case. The manual for the Fractal Design Node 605 node case recommends, if putting in an extra 120mm fan at the back (top left of first image), it usually works best as an outtake. It made no recommendation for the two extra 80mm fans I put at the back (left of first image) but considering all but one 120mm was intake I made both 80mm outtake. I have all of the 120mms hooked up to the case's fan controller which has a switch with low, medium, and what I assume is full speed. The two 80mm fans are connected to two SYS_FAN ports on the motherboard, leaving a third free. I leave the 120mms set to full using the physical switch, and although not loud enough to put me off gaming, I was hoping they would have been quieter. I have tried to manage the cables and attach them to the bottom of the case as best I could but there is a lot of surplus cable, mainly cable tied between the PSU and GPU, although not directly obstructing the GPU fans. There is also a lot of cable at the front of the case, which is right in the first image. I was thinking I may be able to measure with a piece of twine what length would be perfect for each of the PSU cables and order them individually. Ideally I would like the system to automatically increase and decrease the speed of all fans as needed, although I am not sure this is possible with the fans all being three-pin and there only being three ports. The options for the fans, at least in the basic bios (there is also a smart bios) are for normal, full, manual, and disabled.
 

• Is the fan intake outtake configuration correct? Would it make any sense to configure the upper-left 120mm fan as instake instead of outtake, leaving just the two 80mms as outtake?
• Would there be any reason to connect different fans to the three port switch controller and different fans directly to the three motherboard SYS_FAN ports?
• Could I automate fan control somehow, if connecting to the motherboard maybe with some Y-cables to connect 5 fans to the three ports?
• Should I set my CPU_FAN and OPT_FAN (second CPU cooler fan) to full in the BIOS instead of normal? Maybe these already increase speed automatically when the CPU temperature rises?
• Would it be worth investing in PSU cables to size? Is there any reason not to take out the motherboard and put some cables between the motherboard and the bottom of the case in the space the standoffs take up?
• One guide I read mentions making sure no core exceeds 75C although 60 is more comfortable. Other guides list different temperatures and one quotes intel advising one should not exceed 72C. 60 seems low enough, I saw Far Cry 4 yesterday generate a max of 62C and Assassins Creed Unity at a max of 68c in RealTemp. What maximum should I be aiming for? And do I need to make sure the CPU at stock settings is not getting to 68c while gaming/stress testing first before attempting to overclock?

   

   

[Lmp]

What are your current idle & load temps?

[Lmp]

Sorry just saw your 62°' didn't read fully, my bad

[Laputacake]

I'd say you're ready to go with those idle temps and cooler.

1.Personally id have the two 120mm as intakes and leave the 80mm as they are

2. Id leave the cpu fan connected to the motherboard SYS_FAN ports

3. You can do that with NZXT Grid+ Not sure if you can do that from the BIOS though

4.Just leave them at auto and they'll increase in speed to keep the cpu cool.

5.What do you mean?

6.It depends on the processor. Some can go higher temperatures than others. When you overclock do regular Aida64 cpu stress tests and make sure the temperature doesnt reach 80C

[Lmp]

Personally I'd stick to a 4ghz oc, I wouldn't go much higher in that chasis, you may be able to get higher with fans ramped, but not at a decent noise, I'd have thought those 80mm's won't be too quiet a high rpm

[dusf]

What are your current idle & load temps?

 

 

Sorry just saw your 62°' didn't read fully, my bad

 

No problem, thanks for reading at all. I posted on several other forums, starting yesterday, and Linus Tech Tips is the only place I received a response, and all within minutes

 

I'd say you're ready to go with those idle temps and cooler.

1.Personally id have the two 120mm as intakes and leave the 80mm as they are

2. Id leave the cpu fan connected to the motherboard SYS_FAN ports

3. You can do that with NZXT Grid+ Not sure if you can do that from the BIOS though

4.Just leave them at auto and they'll increase in speed to keep the cpu cool.

5.What do you mean?

6.It depends on the processor. Some can go higher temperatures than others. When you overclock do regular Aida64 cpu stress tests and make sure the temperature doesnt reach 80C

 

1. Just to confirm so there is no confusion on my part. Do you mean have the *three* 120mm as instakes and leave the two 80mms as outtakes? Would that having more intake than outake, cause negative pressure/airflow, decreasing dust but also cooling?

 

2. Why connect the two CPU fans to the motherboard SYS_FAN ports rather than one connected to CPU_FAN and the other connected to CPU_OPT? Are those ports not just SYS_FAN ports for the CPU cooler?

 

3. Is that what you would recommend?

 

4. So BIOS will automate CPU_FAN and OPT_FAN control but not regular SYS_FAN control? Also, leaving them as they are seems to counter your answer for question 2, please clarify

 

5. I mean there is a lot of surplus cables in the case, mainly from the PSU, what would you think about me measuring with a piece of string what size would be perfect for each cable and then ordering them individually, therefore removing the surplus cable? Would it be practical, in an attempt to tidy cables, to remove rhe motherboard, then run whatever cable I can directly along the bottom of the case beside the standoffs, and then placing the motherboard back on top?

 

6. Yes, different temps for different processors and unfortunately many different recommendations for max on the 4690K  :wacko:  I am having trouble pinning down what is safe, I mean are you sure less than 80C is safe? And on the subject of temperature, can I configure something that will automatically shutdown my pc if gaming and/or stop a stress test if the CPU temperature reaches say 81, rather than waiting until the 105C, which I think it shuts itself off at, but could potentially cause damage? Also, is Aida64 the one to go with then, and should I run prime 95, cinebench, and OTTC or will Aida64 test it enough?

 

Personally I'd stick to a 4ghz oc, I wouldn't go much higher in that chasis, you may be able to get higher with fans ramped, but not at a decent noise, I'd have thought those 80mm's won't be too quiet a high rpm

 

That's a real shame considering I opted for this i5-4690K instead of an i7-4790K as I was persuaded by someone telling me once the i5 was overclocked there was not much difference in gaming. Regarding the fans, unless I am configuring them some other way than leaving them as they are set on the faster of the three fan controller settings, I do not think they can get much louder? The 80mms are controlled from the SYS_FAN ports at the moment. Would you also agree with Laputcake above that I want to stay under 80C? I ask as if I could maybe get higher than 4.1 Ghz depending on the temp limit. If you believe i won't be able to get 4.5 Ghz in the case as is what would it take to get there, different fans? Watercooling? Please considering I would like to put a second GTX 970 running in SLI at some point.

[Lmp]

I would defiantly keep below 80° on full load, i top out at 55° But that's a different chip & custom loop

You could go with a closed loop cooler.

It's not that the chips can't be pushed higher & bar hyper threading the 4690 & 4790 ks are very similar chips (think the only difference is level3 cache, stock clock & the ht) most games wouldn't use 8 threads so your friend is right.

If your looking at a second 970 then the case temps may get a bit high on an open card rather than blower exhaust which won't help anything.

Is there a fan mount behind that white bracket? If you wanted to add a second I'd advise a fan there if possible to draw air across the card.

If not you may want to consider a different case with 120mm / 140mm front intakes to feed cool air through the system

[Lmp]

Scrub the front bracket I've just looked at the case from anoth angle.

Also I dont think your have the clearance between the case wall & the board edge for an aio liquid cooler or custom loop unless you mounted fans externally & had a radiator inside

[dusf]

I would defiantly keep below 80° on full load, i top out at 55° But that's a different chip & custom loop

You could go with a closed loop cooler.

It's not that the chips can't be pushed higher & bar hyper threading the 4690 & 4790 ks are very similar chips (think the only difference is level3 cache, stock clock & the ht) most games wouldn't use 8 threads so your friend is right.

If your looking at a second 970 then the case temps may get a bit high on an open card rather than blower exhaust which won't help anything.

Is there a fan mount behind that white bracket? If you wanted to add a second I'd advise a fan there if possible to draw air across the card.

If not you may want to consider a different case with 120mm / 140mm front intakes to feed cool air through the system

 

Are you sure 80 is low enough for safety? And what do you consider low enough and safe, I mean, at 80 would you expect the CPU to live as long as one running stock or not as long but allowing to to get your 'best bang for buck'?

 

55 sounds nice and cool

 

I am considering a second 970 in the future but not right now as I am broke after building this PC last week! Also, it seems to play all games on Ultra settings at 1920 x 1080 which is the maximum display we have at the moment. In a few months I would like to get either a 4k HD TV, or a 32" 4K HD monitor for playing games and it would seem I will need this before actually needing a second 970. Things I would consider changing in the meantime are fans, maybe adding water cooling if practical. 

 

Scrub the front bracket I've just looked at the case from anoth angle.

Also I dont think your have the clearance between the case wall & the board edge for an aio liquid cooler or custom loop unless you mounted fans externally & had a radiator inside

 

My bad, I should have explained this is a HTPC. The case is a Fractal Design Node 605 which I am very happy with aesthetically although I would considering changing it for performance. I would rather not mount anything externally unless it was on the back, which is the left of the first image, where the two 80mms are.

 

Basically this is what I have right now, the second GTX 970 is something for the future but I think it worth mentioning that will be my intention.

 

I would like to guest the best out of this system I can and I am prepared to swap out or add additional cooling, and as a last resort change the case

[Lmp]

It's 55° as I have 2 x420mm rads on it

[dusf]

I have the heat on here and once the room is hot I want to run OCCT and then an Aida64 test for 15m each. After which I would like to change the back right 120mm (top left of first image beside two 80mms) from outtake to intake, leaving just the two 80mms as outtake, what would you think of that? I will then run the same tests again. Also, I could take some measurements for watercooling while I am in there?

[Lmp]

Personally I think 80 is too high & wouldn't be comfortable with that in my system but some will say it's acceptable.

although you may be able to get away with it I wouldn't recommend 80° under load as a long term solution.

Part of the issue isn't just the cpU temp, it's the surrounding components on your motherboard (vrm's ect).

when overclocking those then to heat up pretty dramatically so even if water cooling your cpu it's advisable to have some airflow across the board.

I think realistically in that chasis your be limited to air cooling due to clearance issues & although I've seen one or two in the past in general 80mm radiators are pretty few and far between.

If you could get them (one would not be enough) you would still have the issue of clearance & mounting fans to it.

Unfortunately if you did look further into a liquid cooling solution in that chasis you wouldn't be able to mount enough radiators for a passive loop (no fans) so you would be stuck again with air.

I know you mentioned adding a second 970 in the future & this isn't an immediate concern, but anything else you add will generate more heat in the case in general & on all existing components.

I guess you would have to look at what you gain fps, speed ect from your overclock and weigh up if the increased temps are acceptable & stable.

The problem with htpc cases is they are not meant for top end hardware & you trade off a clean design & small footprint for airflow & expandability.

[dusf]

Personally I think 80 is too high & wouldn't be comfortable with that in my system but some will say it's acceptable.

although you may be able to get away with it I wouldn't recommend 80° under load as a long term solution.

Part of the issue isn't just the cpU temp, it's the surrounding components on your motherboard (vrm's ect).

when overclocking those then to heat up pretty dramatically so even if water cooling your cpu it's advisable to have some airflow across the board.

I think realistically in that chasis your be limited to air cooling due to clearance issues & although I've seen one or two in the past in general 80mm radiators are pretty few and far between.

If you could get them (one would not be enough) you would still have the issue of clearance & mounting fans to it.

Unfortunately if you did look further into a liquid cooling solution in that chasis you wouldn't be able to mount enough radiators for a passive loop (no fans) so you would be stuck again with air.

I know you mentioned adding a second 970 in the future & this isn't an immediate concern, but anything else you add will generate more heat in the case in general & on all existing components.

I guess you would have to look at what you gain fps, speed ect from your overclock and weigh up if the increased temps are acceptable & stable.

The problem with htpc cases is they are not meant for top end hardware & you trade off a clean design & small footprint for airflow & expandability.

 

AIDA64 max running stability test is averaging around ~57C and OCCT averages ~55C, both run over 20m. What temp maximum do you think I should set myself when stress testing setting up overclocking? I have not gone near any overclocking options on the GPU yet. I am going to take a few more pictures when I open the case up late to turn the back 120mm around, maybe if you could see better it might be clear if I would fit a better long term solution in.

[Lmp]

Personally I don't like anything hotter than 65°, as well as the cpu try and see what your vrm's & chipset temps are.

[dusf]

Personally I don't like anything hotter than 65°, as well as the cpu try and see what your vrm's & chipset temps are.

 

Can you recommend software for that, a lot comes up in Google!

 

I have the case open here and although I did confirm both 80mm fans working when initially built I discovered one had stopped. Windows 8.1 then locked me out of BIOS with fastboot or something else, which I disabled, and I was not able to get in through the boot into UEFI firmware settngs either. Removing some of the frame, then the drive bay, then the 970 and finally the CMOS battery solved this. The manual said that if I do not have a jumper I can hold a screwdriver to the cmos reset pins but it has not worked for me Anyway, both 80mm fans now working again   The 120mm also still has a dust cover on it so I am going to remove the CPU cooler etc to get to the dust cover, rubber screws means I cannot just screw them out though I may rip them out and replace with regular screws, at least while testing.

[dusf]

The protective cover over the rear right 120mm is two fold. There is a metal which has a tough kind of clip on each side, it was very difficult to remove one but once removed I was then able to take out a plastic feeling cover inside it. I am not sure if just the plastic layer or also the metal layer needs to come out to test this as an out take fan?

[Lmp]

What board do you have, I can't see clearly in the pictures?

Some boards do not have temp sensors aside general board, cpu is generally taken by the chip itself these days.

There is usually a monitoring tool shiped on the driver did of the board, or downloadable from the manufacturers website

[Lmp]

Could be in the gigabyte easy tune software, I've not had a gigabyte board for a long time so can't say for sure

[dusf]

The protective cover over the rear right 120mm is two fold. There is a metal which has a tough kind of clip on each side, it was very difficult to remove one but once removed I was then able to take out a plastic feeling cover inside it. I am not sure if just the plastic layer or also the metal layer needs to come out to test this as an out take fan?

 

 

I think the metal bit, which also seems like a filter, especially to how bare the two 80mms are from the back of the case looking in, might actually be supposed to be left on, and I can see it being an absolute bitch to get back on, which I can do but would rather see if you think it is supposed to remain on. Uploading pictures after I post this.

 

What board do you have, I can't see clearly in the pictures?

Some boards do not have temp sensors aside general board, cpu is generally taken by the chip itself these days.

There is usually a monitoring tool shiped on the driver did of the board, or downloadable from the manufacturers website

 

Gigabyte Z97MX Gaming 5. I have all the drivers and most utilities, apart from timelocking children from using it etc, installed. I will have a look once ready for testing. Basically looking for GPU temp and 'VRM temp'? I am not familiar with what VRM is.

 

Could be in the gigabyte easy tune software, I've not had a gigabyte board for a long time so can't say for sure

 

Cool, will have a look when ready for testing. Since I am now checking my GPU and VRM temp in addition to my CPU, should I be putting my GPU under stress when testing to truly get an idea of how hot everything will be? I have not overclocked anything yet and I read it was best to start with CPU...

[dusf]

This is the plastic bit that I was able to remove after removing that top 'lip' from the case:

 

 

Black piece of filter which should probably stay on? It really feels dense to the touch, as in not perforated all that much. The surface area of the grill/filter itself does not have as many holes in it as the little lip on top, or at least if it does it feels like there is a non-removable layer of something else.

 

 

Fan not secured in proper place, but this is a view from outside with just the metal part of the filter on:

 

 

Better view of filter/grill:

 

 

I am thinking you are probably going to say the metal piece stays on, even if the fan is functioning as an outtake... ?

[dusf]

Edited last post re grill.

[Lmp]

Gpu temp you can get in afterburner (msi app) or gpuz.

Vrms you may need your board utility for, I did have a quick look at the board on gigabytes website & it says that it has temp sensors for cpu, chipset & system so you may not be able to get vrm's.

Stressing your gpu & cpu will give you an idea of the cases internal temp. For that the motherboard temp is probably s good indicator but it depends on where they put the sensor.

[Lmp]

Difficult to see, could be a fine mesh, could be there to blank hole if not using fan.

I guess you could blow through it to see if air is flowing through.

If your exhausting through that fan a filter is less necessary as it will not be sucking in dust from ther air

[dusf]

Difficult to see, could be a fine mesh, could be there to blank hole if not using fan.

I guess you could blow through it to see if air is flowing through.

If your exhausting through that fan a filter is less necessary as it will not be sucking in dust from ther air

 

Well basically it's the same filter/fan the other 120mms have, which are intake, only I removed the plastic that was attached to it. I could remove the metal filter also, just you would see the bare fan and through the blades easily into the case, is this how exhaust fans should be?

[Lmp]

I meant it doesn't matter so much if an exhaust fan does not have a filter on it.

If an intake fan does not have a filter it will suck dust in & deposit it inside the case.

Even if they are exhaust fans I'd still leave the mesh in place, it will stop any stray cables landing in the fan & stopping it