i7-5820k Overheating After Lapping

Freakie

n00b
Joined
Sep 19, 2012
Messages
5
So I decided to get adventurous and take some sandpaper to my CPU and AIO cold plate because I've never been happy with my temps. Started with 240 grit wetordry, finished with 2000 grit, on a piece of glass for flatness. The cold plate was remarkably even (check picture, no hotspots) and didn't need lapping. As you can see if the picture, the CPU IHS was convex and I took some material off. At first I thought the overheating was because water got into the small hole in the IHS and hadn't dried completely and was shorting something, but now I'm not sure. Here is the order of events so far:

- Lap CPU and cold plate

- Top off AIO with distilled water and cleaned out the gunk build-up in the coldplate's fins.

- Resocket and repaste with IC Diamond

- Replace GTX 1080 with RTX 3060 Ti

- Turn on computer and update Nvidia drivers first thing (was 2 updates behind)

- Fans start ramping to max towards end of update

- Computer starts shuddering and crashes within 15 seconds of stuttering starting

- Try turning back on, system shuts off within 2 seconds of pressing power button.

- Wait a few min, try again, POST displays CPU overtemp warning. Shut down and wait 20 min to cool down more.

- Turn on and go into BIOS. CPU temp starts at 70⁰C and steadily climbs to 85⁰C in 2 min. Shut down for the night.

- Next day, same behavior

- Take CPU out, clean off and put distilled water into the IHS hole. Used hair dryer to dry it out.

- Next I put isopropyl alcohol into the hole, and used the hair dryer again.

- Resocketed, repasted and changed back to my GTX 1080.

- Temps in BIOS are now stable at 33-35⁰C, figured the problem was solved at this point because before this it would overheat even in BIOS.

- Boot into windows, CPU hits 90⁰C within 3 minutes, except it doesn't crash. Downclocks to 400MHz and everything is slow as hell, but doesn't crash. I shut down after being on for 10 min.

So this is where I'm stuck. I don't know why it was overheating in OS and BIOS at first, but now after trying to displace any water that may have been in the hole, it only overheats in the OS. I've of course reset the BIOS to defaults as well.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? already have another 5820k order from ebay but I'd like to explore what is going on with this one.
 

Attachments

  • 20210211_151428.jpg
    20210211_151428.jpg
    233.2 KB · Views: 0
  • 20210210_163921.jpg
    20210210_163921.jpg
    248.1 KB · Views: 0
Do you have another cooler to test with? Changing two things at the same time (lapping + AIO refill in your case) without testing the results of one or the other alone first makes it a lot more difficult to isolate which change caused the issue.
 
1-Lapping should give you a mirror-like finish.
2-Water inside the CPU, how?
3-Don't use water, use coolant.
4-Did you put paste?
5-AIO refill?
6-You put more water in the CPU? Smart!


Sounds to me like "refill" the AIO could be ONE the causes, it's not really FULL, and which AIO you have that can be filled? Also, if that's the end result of your lapping "adventure", then it's really bad from what I can see compared to other lapping jobs.
1 - I went with a surface texture similar to the IHS's original texture. Didn't want a mirror finish as I heard it's not good for the paste
2 - See first picture, I highlighted the hole in the IHS that I referenced
4 - Yep, used paste
3 & 5 - Aquachanger 240. And top off not a drain and fill, so just used distilled water. Refilling is easy, the hoses are secured with screws for one, so I took them off the pump and topped it off that way first (it's nearly 5 years old, it had permeated a lot) and finished topping it off by putting distilled water in the pump with the cold plate removed, and running the pump to circulate any trapped air.
6 - I was using non-distilled water during lapping (mistake in hindsight) so I displaced it with distilled water and dried it out with the hair dryer. Then displaced any remaining distilled water with isopropyl.

Do you have another cooler to test with? Changing two things at the same time (lapping + AIO refill in your case) without testing the results of one or the other alone first makes it a lot more difficult to isolate which change caused the issue.
Unfortunately I don't :( though I don't think the refill did any harm. The pump runs fine, and I can feel the outlet tube getting hot and inlet is cool so heat is transferring well. And with displacing any trapped water in the IHS fixing the overheating in BIOS but not Windows is just weird.
 
The pump runs fine, and I can feel the outlet tube getting hot and inlet is cool so heat is transferring well. And with displacing any trapped water in the IHS fixing the overheating in BIOS but not Windows is just weird.
If you can feel a clear differential between the inlet and outlet temperatures of the radiator then you clearly have a flowrate problem.

My custom loop got gunked up not too long ago causing the flowrate to massively drop. The symptoms were oddly high CPU temps, and a major difference between inlet and outlet temps.

My only suggestion would be to take it apart and find out where the blockage is, assuming there is one, but it sounds like there is. ;)
 
If you can feel a clear differential between the inlet and outlet temperatures of the radiator then you clearly have a flowrate problem.

My custom loop got gunked up not too long ago causing the flowrate to massively drop. The symptoms were oddly high CPU temps, and a major difference between inlet and outlet temps.

My only suggestion would be to take it apart and find out where the blockage is, assuming there is one, but it sounds like there is. ;)

It sounds like taking it all apart to "fix" everything ended up knocking something loose that is causing a blockage.
 
If you can feel a clear differential between the inlet and outlet temperatures of the radiator then you clearly have a flowrate problem.

It sounds like taking it all apart to "fix" everything ended up knocking something loose that is causing a blockage.
Pretty sure if you can feel a clear difference, that means it is working 😂 It's trying to cool a CPU that's at 90+℃, so the outlet is going to be rather warm as long as the pump is working. And the fact that the inlet is cool, shows that the radiator is doing it's just fine at cooling the incoming warm liquid.

But that's of course a bit besides the point. Cleaning out the vent hole on the IHS fixed overheating in BIOS, but rapid overheating in Windows is still happening. Makes me wonder if there is an SMD under the IHS that is being shorted by some sort of residue, and that the particular SMD isn't activated during BIOS but is while in Windows. But I don't know enough about what kinds of transistors are under the IHS and whether that's even possible.
 
kirbyrj spine

You guys were right! Took the AIO all apart again (Lepa Aquachanger 240) and drained it completely except I filtered it through a coffee filter. Next I ran vinegar though the hoses and radiator and let it sit for 5 min. Let the cold plate and pump housing sit with vinegar on them for 10. Flushed with vinegar, then tap water, then did a bunch of flushing with distilled water. Quite a bit of gunk came out. Put the drained and filtered original liquid back in and topped it up with distilled water and reassembled it all. Installed it back in my tower and it's cooling just fine! Even better than pre-lapping, actually, so in spite of the problems I caused myself, I was still successful 😂

I know that putting in fresh coolant would be best, but the point of the project was to spend as little money as possible so I just put the old coolant in. When this thing dies, I'll probably switch to the Arctic Freezer II.

I think what happened is that when I topped it up with distilled water the first time, I did a LOT of shaking to the hoses and radiator and ran the pump for brief 5 second intervals to get any air bubbles out. I think the combination of shaking it a lot, and running the pump multiple times, cause debris to break loose and then pile up at a single choke-point and that was killing the flow-rate. And of course the low flow-rate meant it's cooling capacity went to shit.

Thanks for the help, everyone!
 
I lap mine to finish like you did because difference in finish was enough to measure.

I tested a few AIO/CLCs and found CLCs (not all AIOs are CLCs) to be marginal at best. Not sure if you care or not, but not only are CLCs the cheapest built of the cheapest water cooling, but their pumps rarely flow more than a healthy adult urinates after a few drinks 50-60L/h). AIOs that are not CLC have threaded fittings, fill port, copper radiator, and pumps flowing at least twice, some 5 times what CLCs do.

Coolant flowrate is important, and CLC pump flowrate is only marginally enough. Most popular custom loop pump is D5 rated 1500L/h. Custom loop flowrate testing has shown significant improvement in component temp as flowrate is incresased up to about 200L/h. Above 200L/h curve flattens off. Pumps in AIOs that are not CLC flow 100-500L/h .. 2-10 times as much as CLC pumps.

So not only do AIOs that are not CLC (like Swiftech Drive X3 & Alphacool Eisbaer lines) have much better flowrates, they also have copper radiator, threaded fittings and fill port so can be serviced/repaired as needed.
 
I dumped my Arctic Cooler 240 AIO (4 fan combo) for a Noctua air cooler on my 5960x and could not be happier. Slightly better performance and so much quieter. I feel after having a couple of AIOs they were a bit of a novelty. Either go full on water cooling or just get a really good air cooler. Glad to hear the issue is fixed though. :)
 
I agree. The AIOs I listed while much better than CLCs are still made with components as low or lower in quality than lowest quality custom loop components.
 
Back
Top