9900K AIO Upgrade - from the Eisbaer lt360 to the iCUE H150i PRO XT

timmymagic07 · 23 Sep 2020 at 16:43

Good evening,

So back in February 2019 I bought the Eisbaer LT360 from OCUK, received it and noticed it was not working, so sent it back and got a new one. On getting the new one I managed to get 5Ghz out of the 9900K straight out of the box, simply changing the multiplier up to 50.

After a few months the PC would suddenly start rebooting and crashing randomly, which after looking into it I decided was likely the CPU being clocked too high and causing issues. I decided to go back down to 4.8Ghz and everything was OK again.

The thing is the CPU runs pretty hot (I know it does generally), hitting 92C if I run the short CPU Mark test via PerformanceTest by PassMark Software (I use the trial version, takes a couple of minutes or so to just do the CPU test, so by no means a 'taxing' test in terms of duration). This is slightly higher than I remember it getting when I was running it at 5Ghz when I first built the PC, which is somewhat worrying.

In recent weeks I have noticed an audible humming sounds that I cannot remember hearing before when I first built the PC, so I am also wondering about whether there is an issue with the cooler. Needless to say my initial experience with having to return the cooler has not helped my confidence in the product, and I am wondering whether it is worth upgrading to a H150i?

Aside from the cooler, could it be the CPU at all? I highly doubt it as my PC is very stable at 4.8Ghz, my only concern is that the CPU is getting pretty hot during that test I mention above and a worry that the cooler is on its way out already - am I wrong and the heat might be CPU related? I do not plan on upgrading my PC for many years, 3 at least as I see little reason (unless something drastic happens) to do so - this CPU should not show its age for quite some time.

In case it is useful my case is the Lian-Li PC-O11 Air Midi Tower, any other cooler recommendations would be welcome

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

mickyflinn · 23 Sep 2020 at 17:06

How many fans do you have in your case ?

What temps were you getting at 5ghz

Does the cooler come with software so you can Check the fan and pump.

Buzzing noise could be the pump or from the vrms on the motherboard.

timmymagic07 · 23 Sep 2020 at 18:33

Thanks for your reply,

Not 100% on fans in case, I think around 3 or 4, I would actually need to check and ensure they are running correctly.

I was getting high temps at 5 Ghz - around 90c, but it was stable in every day use.

No software as far as I am aware (and I have looked this up), but fans are running correctly - have stuck them all on max in BIOS and you can hear them chugging along OK. Not sure on pump, but if pump was compromised I would assume I would be seeing far higher temps?

VRMs on the motherboard is an interesting point, I noticed in HWMonitor that TMPIN2 reach 72C during the PCMark test. I am not 100% what that refers to just yet (could be NB, but only had a quick Google thus far) but I imagine it being far higher than everything else probably isn't good.

Hakanese · 28 Sep 2020 at 09:53

What voltage are you running your cpu at?

mickyflinn · 28 Sep 2020 at 10:09

timmymagic07 said:
Thanks for your reply,

Not 100% on fans in case, I think around 3 or 4, I would actually need to check and ensure they are running correctly.

I was getting high temps at 5 Ghz - around 90c, but it was stable in every day use.

No software as far as I am aware (and I have looked this up), but fans are running correctly - have stuck them all on max in BIOS and you can hear them chugging along OK. Not sure on pump, but if pump was compromised I would assume I would be seeing far higher temps?

VRMs on the motherboard is an interesting point, I noticed in HWMonitor that TMPIN2 reach 72C during the PCMark test. I am not 100% what that refers to just yet (could be NB, but only had a quick Google thus far) but I imagine it being far higher than everything else probably isn't good.

Did you resolve it ?

timmymagic07 · 2 Oct 2020 at 13:43

Sorry for not updating.

I decided to upgrade to the Arctic Freezer 2.0 and that has brought down temps by around 10c during that test I mentioned before (which lasts around 2 minutes and has gaps between tasks, so hardly thorough), but it still hits 80c. In gaming I notice I do not go above 70, which I guess is a more real world scenario.

I am thinking of getting the CPU de-lided and having a copper heat sink fitted, to see if that might help.

Not sure on voltage of CPU, I need to look into that really.

I noticed something on the bottom of my Motherboard when fitting the new cooler, like a liquid around something below where the VRMs are located. Will take some photos and create a thread in general hardware perhaps, it is concerning but then the PC has been very stable running 4.8Ghz.

hlennie · 2 Oct 2020 at 15:08

Just post the pics in here. Also sounds like you got your voltages set to auto. I suggest fine tuning these to get lower cpu temps

have you read any i9900k Overclocking guides/read through owners thread

timmymagic07 · 2 Oct 2020 at 19:16

I am adding some RAM later and sorting out a broken SATA cable later, so I will take some photos. To be honest I am kinda wanting to put it off as I am somewhat afraid of having to get another motherboard D=

I always assumed auto was best, but I guess that is totally incorrect? I did early last year when I first got the chip, but I think I settled on just upping the multiplier.

timmymagic07 · 2 Oct 2020 at 20:20

OK so here it is, this is next to the CPU as you can see. From above looking down nothing looks particularly wrong, but the below obviously does not look great.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro Intel Z390 that was pretty highly rated from what I read, I received it in February last year. As I said there have been no stability issues and the PC has been running fine, I just noticed the CPU overheating (90c+) when on max all cores during that test I mentioned (it was around max 80-85c after a long gaming session playing something like Quake Champions that hits each core a decent amount). Since getting the Arctic Freezer 2.0 that has come down around 10c.

Of course I did have to downclock the CPU to 4.8 after the stability issues previously, that was a few months ago and I did not really think anything of it as 200mhz makes no real difference to my day to day - or at least it did not, now I have a 3080 I want to push it a bit more. Obviously if I am unable to that is no big deal either, I don't want to risk the long-term health of the CPU for a couple of hundred mhz. This does look concerning though.

timmymagic07 · 2 Oct 2020 at 20:31

Having done some actual research, it might just be thermal pad residue and nothing to worry about? That would be a result and make sense bearing in mind stability has been fine.

timmymagic07 · 2 Oct 2020 at 21:45

OK so here is the results of a PerformanceTest CPU test run, with as I said a slight break between each of the listed tests (thus allowing the CPU to cool), this time it actually hit 90c (!) with the new CPU Cooler, albeit at 4.9Ghz compared to 4.8Ghz before. You will also note the TMPIN2 reading of 76c;

CPU score was 21091, which is the highest I have ever seen it, even when it was on 5Ghz from memory (suggesting throttling?).

Here is the last run I did with the old Eisbaer cooler for comparison;

I should note the RAM has changed to 64GB of DDR4 @ 3000Mhz, compared to either 16GB or 32GB of 3000Mhz for the last run above (I ordered two lots of 32GB and fitted them separately, can't remember whether I did the above run with 32 or 16), albeit I do not think it would make a difference to CPU score regardless.

timmymagic07 · 2 Oct 2020 at 21:49

I am assuming that the jump to 90c from around 82c is due to installing another couple of RAM sticks perhaps. Regardless the new CPU cooler does not seem to be doing much of a job of keeping the thing cool during heavy loads. I wonder if I simply lost the silicone lottery.