Thermal compound question.

Thank you all for your input. This is a new built so I'm being a nit picker. I'm waiting for the damn back order case to come in. In the mean time I have made drawings on different fans and location just in case the air flow doesn't suit my system or me. I never had a case that I didn't change the air flow. I'm a nit picker. My last case I made cardboard temp-lets of both side panel. Made vents, installed fans until I got the temps their best. Then used the temp-lets to make the changes in the O.E. side panels. Still works great. This all takes a while but I enjoy it.

I have an H50 in my system. I bought 2 Noctua fans for it but didn't reverse the airflow as Corsair recommends. This may sound strange, but I figured that I bought a good case with plenty of fans in order to get hot air out. I couldn't see any advantage to putting more hot air in it. It seems to work OK. tjmax on my CPU is 98C. I idle a little too high (35) but idle temps are notoriously wrong. But where it is important, it seems to work well. I OC my CPU to 4.4 and ran it for 4 days solid at 100% CPU usage. The highest temp I got was 61. I think if you have a case with good airflow, it really doesn't matter.

essenbe I agree. No way I'm I going to blow hot air into a case. Do you have 120 or 140 Noctua on that H50?

I am using the P12-1300R 120mm. According to Noctua's web site, that is the one designed for CPU coolers. The P supposedly is the designation for pressure.

linnemeyerhere said:

No the H50 hasn't been out long enough to be old. But yes in my opinion it is best to remove the factory installed compound and use a premium paste. Or you can even give this mind blowing stuff a try:
Indigo Xtreme™ - High Performance Thermal Interface for Overclocking Applications

I just tried out Indigo Xtreme and there are a few warnings not printed anywhere you should be aware of.

An important part of the process is what they call the reflow procedure. That's where they get the compound to spread out across the cpu. In order to achieve reflow, you have to heat the cpu up. They want you to put on your heatsink, but remove the fan (or at least the pin, so it doesn't spin), then boot up and stress all the cores. The cpu is supposed to run at near shutoff temps. The problem is that they never say for how long, and, more importantly, what they don't say is that if you've got a good heatsink, then you'll never achieve reflow. To add insult to injury, Indigo Xtreme advises against using heatsinks that don't cover the entire cpu... like the stock Intel cooler. So it seems the only way to get reflow is to buy a semi decent cooler, which seems like a waste to me.
/a little annoyed at indigo extreme/

essenbe said:

According to Corsair's forum, the compound on the h50 is shin etsu if that helps any.

Shin Etsu is the best paste available.

Fumz,
The Indigo should flow when the cores all come to a high enough temp to set the material in motion. Then the temps drop very quickly and stabilize lower then they've ever been. The seal is air tight but from what I've read very easily removed as it pulls up and off. I will for sure use it a some point soon but I may be swapping my H50 for likely the H70 unit. It does seem like quite a process but one that should last for awhile producing much lower temps.

linnemeyerhere said:

Fumz,
The Indigo should flow when the cores all come to a high enough temp to set the material in motion. Then the temps drop very quickly and stabilize lower then they've ever been. The seal is air tight but from what I've read very easily removed as it pulls up and off. I will for sure use it a some point soon but I may be swapping my H50 for likely the H70 unit. It does seem like quite a process but one that should last for awhile producing much lower temps.

Hi linnemeyerhere,

I know what it should do, but things don't always do what they should... and after googling my issue with Indigo Xtreme, I'm not alone.

The temps are supposed to drop quickly, but they don't stabilize "lower than they've ever been". The drop you're looking out for is from 80-90 down to 60, then back up again (because you don't have a fan attached). It is at this point you're supposed to re-attach the fan and then see nice low temps... but only if reflow has taken place.

That stuff starts out pretty hard. I was unable to get reflow to occur; it just isn't possible with my Thermalright Venomous X. That, as well as a lot of other good aftermarket coolers dissipates too much heat, even without a fan.

I just did this 2 weeks ago with this new build. It's supposed to happen within minutes... but again, since they don't specify time in the documentation, I can only assume the procedure takes a few minutes... I ran dual instances of Orthos for 15 minutes, with no fan, twice, wasting both kits.

It was agonizing. The idea of maxing out all my cores and detaching the fan ran against everything in me... but I did it anyway, and got no joy for all the nervous energy I burned.

And that's the kick in the nads with Indigo Xtreme. Once you place the heatsink on, that's it, you cannot remove it to check to make sure reflow has taken place. If you remove the heatsink, you must then use the second application. Your only indicator that reflow has occured is that drop in temps from 90 to 60... but how fast does it rise again? Did I blink and miss reflow? They don't say.

JeremyAlexander said:

I almost hate to ask this but my amd chip came with the cooler on it and the documentation states that it will void the warranty if the cooler is removed so does that mean I should just leave well enough alone untill the warranty is up at least.

Hi Jeremy Alexander,

I got into a big brush up on this about a year ago. I concede that technically what you say is true: removing the stock heatsink or using a 3rd party heatsink will void the warranty.

However, in practice, if a chip is or went bad through no fault of the heatsink, then both AMD and Intel will replace them, as will the online retailer if they're good (tiger, newegg). I've never used stock heatsinks, and have had to rma a few cpu's over the years... never had a problem.