EXTREMELY high CPU temps with MVG - possible mobo problem?

[agent009]

Hey guys,

This week I picked up a 3770K to replace my 3770 in my system which was already running a H100i. On the 3770, it seemed to work fine with a 40C idle temp and 55C temp under load (with a 73C temp while running Prime95). I'm NOT overclocking, just trying to run everything at stock settings.

Upon replacing the processor with the 3770K and booting up, I started getting idle temps of 43C while slowly creeping up to 65C+. When I ran Prime95, it quickly shot up to 100C.

Thinking I didn't reseat the H100i properly, I removed it, made sure the backplate was in the correct position, reapplied thermal paste (Arctic Silver 5, pea-sized blob in the middle), and then rebooted. Same results. I then tried reapplying the thermal compound a third and fourth time with the exact same results.

I then went to the nearest retailer and purchased another 3770K. Same results.
I then tried switching to the stock Intel cooler. Same results.

A few observations:
1) The bottom hose connected to the H100i pump was extremely warm while the top one was cool
2) Both the SP120s mounted to the radiator (in pull) were operating at full speed
3) Every single time I went to reapply the paste, I found the copper block to be extremely warm (felt after I cleaned off the old paste)
4) Ambient air in the room is 78F and I was getting these results with the side panels OFF
5) When mounted, the block was not wobbly (didn't move at all) and the retention screws were only finger tight.
6) CorsairLink says the pump is operating at 2200.
7) I also checked the temps with HWMonitor, RealTemp, and ASUS Suite and they were all showing the same behavior. I didn't run the monitors at the same time--only independently.

Any ideas? Could the mobo be defective? Here's a screenshot of HWMonitor while running Prime95:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/1150538_10100603989062999_604603258_o.jpg


Thanks


Hardware...
Case: Corsair 650D (side panels both removed)
Proc: i7-3770K (only drawing about 1.15V according to BIOS)
Paste: Arctic Silver 5
Mobo: Asus ROG Maximus V Gene (latest firmware, default settings)
Cooler: H100i (firmware 1.05 with SP120 Quiet Edition fans)
PSU: AX1200i

[MagR]

Hi

Sorry for my previous post - I missed the bit where you had tried the stock cooler. That suggests it is not the Corsair cooler at fault. You say you've even tried another 3770k? - that rules out a faulty cpu then. If your at stock speeds Ivy Bridge should run pretty cool - its only overclocking which causes its temps to increase much faster than with Sandy Bridge. I'm using bios 1802 on my MVG and its rock stable. You could try flashing back to an older bios to see if that helps - perhaps your bios 1802 has become corrupted and is sending ridiculously high voltages to the cpu using the manual setting? If the temps aren't actually causing your cpu to throttle or shut down the readings could be wrong - however I thought the core temps were taken from the cpu directly so if you've tried a different cpu this can't be the reason either. Also your temps are topping out at 105 degrees which I've just checked is the max TDP of the 3770k.

The only time I got results anything like yours are when I was experimenting with thermal paste and simply hadn't used enough. When you remove the cooler are you getting a nice spread of paste over most of the IHS surface - the corners don't matter - and does it look like you are getting good even contact? Try a different bios, try turning off hyperthreading in the bios to see if that was confusing things (advanced menu in bios, cpu configuration, hyperthreading) and if nothing works it looks like your motherboard is indeed faulty.

Hope this helps and keep us posted as this is baffling and I want to know what the problem was.

Mag

[MagR]

Hi

I've been following developments with interest and it seems you've finally got to the bottom of it. I can confirm it is fine to run radiator fans in pull (I've tried mine both ways and pull works better for me). There isn't a huge body of evidence available but from what I've seen push tends to work better with high rpm fans and pull with lower rpm (Martin's Liquid Labs research I think). The SP fans you have are high static pressure designed for radiators rather than case fans so should be fine in either orientation.

When you get a new MVG can you post your results to finally put it to bed. It would also be interesting to know what Asus say the problem with the board was. Just out of interest why do you need a Corsair AXi 1200? Are you planning to use multiple greaphics cards in future?

Hope everything is fixed soon

Mag

[agent009]

MagR wrote:
Hi

I've been following developments with interest and it seems you've finally got to the bottom of it. I can confirm it is fine to run radiator fans in pull (I've tried mine both ways and pull works better for me). There isn't a huge body of evidence available but from what I've seen push tends to work better with high rpm fans and pull with lower rpm (Martin's Liquid Labs research I think). The SP fans you have are high static pressure designed for radiators rather than case fans so should be fine in either orientation.

When you get a new MVG can you post your results to finally put it to bed. It would also be interesting to know what Asus say the problem with the board was. Just out of interest why do you need a Corsair AXi 1200? Are you planning to use multiple greaphics cards in future?

Hope everything is fixed soon

Mag

Yes, I plan on running SLI on some extremely power hungry cards in the very near future. On top of that, I got the thing for a great price ($240 USD) and I know that PSUs operate most efficiently somewhere in the 50-75% load range.

I just got an RMA number; hopefully I don't encounter one of those few ASUS RMA horror stories. 🙂 I'll be sure to post back with my findings after receiving a replacement. The only other thing it could be (besides the miniscule chance of user error at this point) is my AX1200i is overvolting. I'll test it out on that same HP computer later this week in order to check it off the list.

Thanks to MagR, Arne, WhitePaw, Zkal, MagR, HiVizMan, and Chino for all the suggestions. Hopefully everything is solved after this RMA.

EDIT: One last observation I had was that on the MVG, the black heatsink to the left of the CPU socket would get extremey warm under load. I don't know if that means anything, but I figured I'd mention it.

[Zka17]

agent009 wrote:
One last observation I had was that on the MVG, the black heatsink to the left of the CPU socket would get extremey warm under load. I don't know if that means anything, but I figured I'd mention it.

Yeah, that's the VRMs... it means that for some reason high voltage is going through them... - which should not occur at stock settings...

So, yes, the best idea right now is to RMA that board... - good luck!

[agent009]

So after nearly a month I finally received back all of my RMA'd parts (Asus sent my mobo to the wrong address). I'm happy to report that my temps are now at 31C idle with a peak of 68C when under Prime95 load in a room with ambient temp of 77F.

Asus sent me back the same motherboard and Corsair sent me a brand new H100i. Unfortunately, Asus didn't send me any documentation telling me what was wrong with the motherboard though.

Thanks for everyone who helped me out in this thread. Now it's time to try to overclock this puppy.

[HiVizMan]

agent009 wrote:
So after nearly a month I finally received back all of my RMA'd parts (Asus sent my mobo to the wrong address). I'm happy to report that my temps are now at 31C idle with a peak of 68C when under Prime95 load in a room with ambient temp of 77F.

Asus sent me back the same motherboard and Corsair sent me a brand new H100i. Unfortunately, Asus didn't send me any documentation telling me what was wrong with the motherboard though.

Thanks for everyone who helped me out in this thread. Now it's time to try to overclock this puppy.

Very pleased to see you are sorted my friend.

[Retired]

Ok..

if water is circulating, and fans running on the rad. and the mating between the block and the cpu is good.. i really dont know what the issue could be..

have you checked the mating..

Apply a very thin even layer on the cpu, no nap.. thin

Then seat the H100 block, press it down with your hand, remove it, and check for the print..

No print, no mating..

If you only use a nap of paste, and check. You will also have a print, but not a accurate one..

i have got this a couple of times in the past with gpus, when installing h2O blocks, without a IHS.. The only contact was the paste, with extremely high temps as a result..

you got a good print?, Use praz advice..

Do you got a photo of your rig?

Ps; one again> are you using 4 pin PWM fans?

[agent009]

From the 7 times (literally) that I reinstalled any cooler (H100i or Intel stock), I can confidently say I was achieving proper mating and the print was good. I'll be asking Corsair for an RMA as well.

The odd part is that I tried it with all 4 combinations of two different processors and two different coolers and was still getting the same temperature results. The only thing I could find so far to alleviate the high temps was to manually set the VCORE to 1.03 (down from its VID of 1.30). I'm not trying to overclock it at all; I'm just entering BIOS, pressing F5 for defaults, and then letting the computer boot.

[agent009]

WhitePaw, I just caught your Edit.

As part of my troubleshooting, I have all the components out of the case just connected and sitting on a table. The air conditioning vent blows directly on it as well.

[Zka17]

agent009 wrote:
The odd part is that I tried it with all 4 combinations of two different processors and two different coolers and was still getting the same temperature results. The only thing I could find so far to alleviate the high temps was to manually set the VCORE to 1.03 (down from its VID of 1.30). I'm not trying to overclock it at all; I'm just entering BIOS, pressing F5 for defaults, and then letting the computer boot.

A 3770k on a MVG can support 1.5V on the Vcore with the H100... temps around 75C with AIDA64 stressing for 30 mins... - so, no, I'm not thinking about your mobo being the culprit...