Aquarius II & P4 3.0 (800fsb) on P4C800-E Deluxe MB

[rozel]

The Aquarius II seems to get bad opinions on this Forum but the views are rather vague when it comes to the reasons.

I bought this coo;ing system at the commencement of my project because I thought - probably wrongly - that it would provide very good cooling.

When I first installed it and started to install my OS and Progs, I monitored the temp anything between 23 and 49C. If I left the PC switched on but doing nothing, the temp gradually built up to the high 40's. When using it under normal load conditions the temp came down a wee bit.

Today though, I stressed the system using 3DMark2003 Pro and after getting a benchmark of 5707 with my Gigabyte 9800 Pro (128), I clocked a max temp of 64.9C

This is way too high and although I've tweaked the fan speed in Asus's Q-Fan a wee bit and this has increased the speed of the radiator fan (which is connected to the MB CPU fan connector) I am scared to stress the system again, until I've sorted this out.

I've probably made the wrong decision in buying the w/c system but along with the Thermaltake Xaser III case, with it's 7 fans, I thought this would present me with the best cooling system for the money.

There must be many people using the AqII and Xaser III setup and I would welcome anyones thoughts and comparable temps so that I can see if there is another alternative before replacing with the stock HSF to see what difference that would make.

I have a totally unclocked setup but would like to tweak it, provided the cooling system is up to it. Under stress what is the max temp that I should see?

Would appreciate some help peeps

TIA

[Boli]

Sounds to me like you have NO airflow in your case/room at all.

if your rad ain't getting a good airflow of cool airt then it isn;t gonna work very well. - if that doesn't work try remounting the things.

~ Boli

[rozel]

Thanks Boli.

Could you please be more specific - you seem to imply, I should not be getting the problems I am getting.

My concern re initial installation are twofold: -

1. The "H" bracket would only fit one way and when it came to mounting the water block, again there was only one way to install it, given the orientation of the "H" Bracket and this was 90 degrees out to that shown in the manual. The outlet pipes are shown adjacent to the memory dimm slots, whereas mine is orientated so that the pipes are pointed towards the bottom of the case when the case is in it's operating position.

2. I have installed four SATA drives in the cradles and these are situated directly in front of the 2 Front Case Fans. I suspect not much air is getting to the radiator from this source - I guessed that the reason for these 2 front mounted fans was to cool the HDD system? I figured that the Radiator Fan itself would be sufficient for the cooling system. Further more my concern is not for the MB temperature at this moment in time - this barely rises above 30C

Given the above additional information could someone please help me further. The Aq II and the Xaser III surely were meant for each other - but is the Aq II enough for the 3.0 Ghz CPU ?

TAIA

[winewood]

I clocked a max temp of 64.9C

Those temps are very .. not good.
If that system can do better, I would make sure the block is evenly mounted on that proc. I just made my own radiator shroud, and I can attest that, at startup, if your temps are good, but they gradually get worse.. then bad, it sounds like your water is getting hotter and hotter. Thus not bringing cool flow to the cpu. IF your temps are awful from the startup, I would check mounting of the block.
My temps went down by many degrees by changing the radiator setup. If you really can't figure it out, I would assemble your own system from parts. And don't be afraid to modify that case to allow for more airflow. The bad thing is, with pretty cases, you don't always have the guts to cut into them.

[rozel]

Originally posted by winewood
Those temps are very .. not good.
if your temps are good, but they gradually get worse.. then bad, it sounds like your water is getting hotter and hotter.

This what I've been getting and what I feared. Taking up Boli's suggestion, I turned the wick up on the Hardcano controller for my case fans - this seems to have done the trick!

My CPU temp seems stable at about 33C now under normal loads rising to no more than 36C

I ran 3DMark2003 Pro for the second time and lo and behold the CPU temp only reached a Max of 46.4C then dropped back - is this good?

I would welcome opinions on these temps

I woulod like to know how to increase the Radiator Fan (this is connected to the MB CPU Fan Connector) as with Q-Fan disabled the Fan speed is still only around 2500 rpm.

TAIA

[shiltz]

that's better than what you were getting before, but still high, I have the exact same MB and CPU, that MB reports temps about 10C lower than what they actualy are I belive, with mine OCed to 3.6Ghz I only get around 30C at full load acording the the MB temp probe.

[rozel]

Thanks Shiltz - that system looks wonderful, but is not comparable to mine.

What I would like to know is what are "normal" temps for an Intel CPU - I know AMD's can operate at higher temps but what are Intel CPU normal, under load and stressed typical temperatures and what ultimately will fry it.

My Hardcano is presently reading 33.8C and Asus Probe is reading 33C. The MB temp at present is 26C.

Cheers

[Boli]

If your machine is stable the you don't NEED low temps - and I dont think ANY motherboard sensor is truely acurate.

Best you can do is make sure your rad is in the path of the coldest air - I have built "wind tunnels" to help me direct the cold air from outside the case to the rads. This makes sure the warm air of the case is NOT used to "cool" the rads.

As for remounting - you'll be surprised how often that works - a bad TIM directly affects your CPU temps - i.e its no good if you have the best water cooling system in the world - if it ain't actually touching the CPU block properly to cool it.

But back to the first point - are you really having problems with these "high" temps - if the temperature keeps on increasing then you DO have a problem as your computer is not lossing the heat - but if it stabilises and your computer runs OK - you don't need to worry about it.

Hope this helps

~ Boli

[shiltz]

Originally posted by rozel
Thanks Shiltz - that system looks wonderful, but is not comparable to mine.

What I would like to know is what are "normal" temps for an Intel CPU - I know AMD's can operate at higher temps but what are Intel CPU normal, under load and stressed typical temperatures and what ultimately will fry it.

My Hardcano is presently reading 33.8C and Asus Probe is reading 33C. The MB temp at present is 26C.

Cheers

I belive the max temp rating for a P4 is 80C?, they are pretty damn near imposible to kill from heat though cause of thermal throtling, they just start down clocking themselves when they get to hot.

before I put the water cooling setup on my system and before I O/Ced it I was running around 48-50C under full load, that's with the heatsink that come packaged with the retail CPU.

[rozel]

Thanks Shiltz and Boli - your advice is just what I needed. The radiator is immediately in front of my 4 SATA drives (2 x RAID 0 setups) as there is nowhere else to mount the HDD's or the radiator. The radiator therefore sucks the warm air coming off the HDD's.

If only I could move it away somehow to be in front of the two side fans, but these blow the air on to the CPU and Northbridge and I'm reluctant to block this otherwise cold airstream the front 2 fans are designed to blow air over the HDD's - what do you think?

An obvious solution would be to install the Rad outside of the case lol, but I would need longer pipes. At present I have the backup resevoir connected - but the less than perfect instructions suggest this can be removed once you've tested for leaks - would this help?

At least now my CPU is steady when not being used or under normal load conditions - before it was increasing. The Radiator fan as stated by Asus Probe and the Bios, is around 2500rpm and the water pum, coneected to the chassis fan connector is running at 2200rpm. How can I increase these speeds? Would it help if the Water pump were connected to the Power Fan Connector, whatever that is - there are three on this MB. What if I bypass these connectors altogether and connect them to the normal PSU power supply?

Sorry to keep asking but I do want to get to the bottom of this thing. By the way the water block seems very well seated on the CPU, but still wonder about it being 90 degrees out.

TAIA