Temperature concerns

[philelliott]

Hi folks

I bought a PC last year that has water cooling, but still seems to be running very hot. If I run anything with 3D on it (WoW, Diablo 3) the fans after a few minutes make it sound like a plane is about to take off. The room is so-so ventilated, and I clean for dust regularly, but I'm turning down visual settings because I don't want it to overheat (and it's pushing up the room temp quite a bit too!).

Any advice?

 

[keynes]

Hi folks

I bought a PC last year that has water cooling, but still seems to be running very hot. If I run anything with 3D on it (WoW, Diablo 3) the fans after a few minutes make it sound like a plane is about to take off. The room is so-so ventilated, and I clean for dust regularly, but I'm turning down visual settings because I don't want it to overheat (and it's pushing up the room temp quite a bit too!).

Any advice?

What is your spec mate? Have you recorded your temperatures?

 

[philelliott]

Running a GTX 580, normal browsing at about 61 degrees. 5 minutes into Diablo 3 and it's up to 85 degrees with fan at 81% speed.

 

[keynes]

Running a GTX 580, normal browsing at about 61 degrees. 5 minutes into Diablo 3 and it's up to 85 degrees with fan at 81% speed.

If you could post the full specs, the temperatures you are recording is that for the GPU?

 

[philelliott]

If you could post the full specs, the temperatures you are recording is that for the GPU?

A DXdiag dump? Or something else? Sorry - not done this before.
The temps are the GPU, yes, as monitored by MSI Afterburner (not overclocking though - I only got it to monitor temps).
The spec from my order is:

Case COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card 3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE
Processor Cooling COOLIT ECO II A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER)
Sound Card Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium
Network Facilities ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 P

 

[sanj]

A DXdiag dump? Or something else? Sorry - not done this before.
The temps are the GPU, yes, as monitored by MSI Afterburner (not overclocking though - I only got it to monitor temps).
The spec from my order is:

Case COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card 3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE
Processor Cooling COOLIT ECO II A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER)
Sound Card Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium
Network Facilities ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 P

Hello,the Elite310 case has no fan's bringing in air from the front of the case so it could be that with the heat given off by the GTX580 in quite a small case there is nowhere for the hot air to go other than through the watercooling exhaust fan of the ECO watercooler so therefore causing a build up of hot air in the middle of the case,you could try adding a fan to the front of the case and see if it help's(did your Elite310 come with a clear perspex side panel as i'm sure you could mount one 120mm case fan on there as some did and other's did'nt),you would have to get a 120mm fan and some fan screw's,ring our PCS helpline first thing Monday morning and they should be able to sort one out for you.

 

[Fear]

Wow thats a lot of high end components and a pretty low spec case with not the best cooling have you tried running it with the side panel off to see if that helps and can you leave the system idle for a while and see what the GPU temp drops down to.

 

[budgie]

You can add 120mm fans to the front and to the side panel of the 310, the screws for fitting the front fan should be in your welcome pack as they come with the case, they're different to normal fan mounting screws.

I've added a 120mm fan to the side panel of my case to bring cool air in over the graphics card (6870), it's reduced the max temperatures by about 5-10 degrees C and reduced max GPU fan speed by about 10%

 

[philelliott]

Hello,the Elite310 case has no fan's bringing in air from the front of the case so it could be that with the heat given off by the GTX580 in quite a small case there is nowhere for the hot air to go other than through the watercooling exhaust fan of the ECO watercooler so therefore causing a build up of hot air in the middle of the case,you could try adding a fan to the front of the case and see if it help's(did your Elite310 come with a clear perspex side panel as i'm sure you could mount one 120mm case fan on there as some did and other's did'nt),you would have to get a 120mm fan and some fan screw's,ring our PCS helpline first thing Monday morning and they should be able to sort one out for you.

The side panel is solid - is it easy to add a fan to the front? If it will help I'll happily give it a go, but I've not done something like that before. The most I've done inside a PC is change GPU, RAM or add a second HDD.

I must admit, I'm a little bit disappointed that this wasn't something that PCS mentioned when I ordered the PC. Frankly, I had no idea that different cases helped with things like cooling... I just thought the different sizes allowed for more internal room.

:-(

 

[philelliott]

Wow thats a lot of high end components and a pretty low spec case with not the best cooling have you tried running it with the side panel off to see if that helps and can you leave the system idle for a while and see what the GPU temp drops down to.

Sounds promising, thanks for the info. As with the other suggestion, I'll look into trying to add some fans.

 

[budgie]

The side panel is solid

There should be two grille areas on the side panel towards the back, one higher up which sits over the CPU, and one lower down which should have sets of holes drilled to fit an 80, 92 or 120mm fan.

I've fitted front and side fans to my 310 and its a fairly easy job. For the front one you'll need to take the front bezel off then screw the fan in using the special screws, while for the side one you just screw it into place with the screws that come with the fan.

Then attach the fans to either the motherboard using the 3-pin cables or to the power supply leads using the 4-pin cables.

I attached mine to the motherboard, the front one to the spare connector next to the CPU fan connector at the top of the motherboard (CHA_FAN2), and the side fan to the spare connector just above the graphics card (PWR_FAN) - I've got a P8Z68-V LX motherboard rather than the PRO but I'm sure the fan connectors will be the same or very similar. I bought fan extension cables to connect them which are a couple of quid because the leads from the fans were quite short.

 

[Fear]

Sounds promising, thanks for the info. As with the other suggestion, I'll look into trying to add some fans.

I would not run it without the side panel all the time as it's too open for dust i know some people do and even use a big room/desk fan during the 1 hot day in summer but i only suggested just to see if it makes any difference best thing would be looking to see if you can add a fan to the front and you might be able to buy one of those side panels with the window and fan slot that someone suggested seperate from the coolermaster spares site.

 

[Corfate]

With the front bezel, theres a place under the front of it to put your fingers, then pull it towards you and the bezel will pop off There will be long screws in your welcome pack that are used for the front fan

About the side panel, it's cheap but the shipping is like £20 i think: http://www.cmstore.eu/cases/elite/elite-31x/elite-310-windowed-side-panel/

Get some good fans that shift lots of air and it'll decrease temps (hopefully). Ambient air temp also comes into play, but you can't really help this too much. Make sure the vents on the case have room to expel air

 

[PokerFace]

Wow thats a lot of high end components and a pretty low spec case with not the best cooling have you tried running it with the side panel off to see if that helps and can you leave the system idle for a while and see what the GPU temp drops down to.

When you say 'idle', do you mean with no programs running and the screen permanently on (monitor set to 'never switch off' in power plan settings)?

 

[Fear]

Yeah just basically as though you have just booted the system and get to the desktop so no other programs running ie. web browser, media player etc. and yeah make sure you have got it set to never switch off and also make sure your system is not set to go to sleep mode or hibernate if you use them.

 

[PokerFace]

Thanks Fear.

 

[Karnor00]

One thing to bear in mind is that the liquid cooling installed in the system is for the CPU only. The GPU is still air cooled and modern GPUs are pretty hot & noisy beasts.

However those idle temperatures seem very high (which will obviously have a knock on impact on the load temperatures/fan speeds). As others have suggested this could well indicate that the overall airflow isn't very good. I'd also be interested to know whether the fans from the liquid cooler are pulling air into the case or pushing it out. If they are pulling air in then this will be optimal for cooling your CPU, but the downside is that they will be blowing hot air over the rest of the components, including the GPU which will increase its temperature.