Intel stock cooler.

Rebuilt my DAW over the winter with an I7 4700K an ASUS Z87-K and 16GB Kingston HyperX Genesis.
 
Everything at stock settings.
It worked OK well the weather was cool but, on reflection, started getting flaky as the temperature rose.
 
I was concentrating more on my live work at the time so wasn't needing to use the studio and didn't get around to troubleshooting the problem.
 
I got into the studio last week wanting to do some stuff and the thing has become intolerable with random freezes, BSODs, shut downs etc etc!
 
So, not putting 2 and 2 together, I started troubleshooting. I ran memtest for several hours with no errors, updated all the drivers including the graphics, reverted to a disk image with minimal programs installed, all to no avail.
 
I finally got to cooling. I'm thinking it's only a stock cooler but I'm not overclocking or running heavy loads so it should be OK?
 
I purchased Aida64 Extreme on recommendation of a friend and started checking things out.
 
The CPU was idling at around 60-65 Celsius! At full load it was up to around 95-97 with spikes of 100!!
 
So I went out and got a Coolermaster TX3 Evo (wanted to stick with push pins to avoid removing the motherboard to fit a backplate).
 
On removing the stock cooler, which felt securely fixed, I was shocked to see that the pre applied thermal compound was only melted over about 50% of the copper disc on the heatsink with the stripes still untouched on the rest, revealing that it had not been in full contact with the cpu.
 
I've now installed the CM TX3 and it's idling at 28-32C and up to around 65-70 at full load.
 
Now I'm worried that I've fried my cpu?!
 
Been building my own PC systems for about 20 years now and never had this problem before!

Mesh
 
Why did you use the stock cooler to begin with? (from everything I've read on the subject, the majority of builders always discourage using stock). Just curious....

Seemed a good idea at the time due to the case being a bit tight for space, and the fact that I don't tend to stress my system too much with only using small track counts with minimal plugins.
 
The thing is with the stock cooler, the thermal paste is ready applied to the heatsink.
Didn't think that Intel could get something like that so wrong!
 
The older I get the more I learn!

SvenArne
Stock cooler = heave it away with great force! 

Normally do! Lesson learnt.
 
While I've got it apart I've decided to swap out the 3 old HDDs I carried over from my old system with a Samsung 840 Evo system drive and a new Seagate 1tb sample storage HDD to go alongside the existing 750gb Seagate for recording.
 
While I'm at it I may even have a go at a modest overclock!

SvenArne
Stock cooler = heave it away with great force! Noisy and poor performance. I wonder why they keep including it if any self-respecting rig builder will throw it in the trash anyway?

We've thrown away truck loads of stock coolers.
Probably should look into recycling the metal.   
Never use them...
 

Jim Roseberry

SvenArne
Stock cooler = heave it away with great force! Noisy and poor performance. I wonder why they keep including it if any self-respecting rig builder will throw it in the trash anyway?

We've thrown away truck loads of stock coolers.
Probably should look into recycling the metal.   
Never use them...
 

last run was $275.  I have a press just for punching out the copper cores
take the bums (err employees) to lunch with it!

jcschild

Jim Roseberry

SvenArne
Stock cooler = heave it away with great force! Noisy and poor performance. I wonder why they keep including it if any self-respecting rig builder will throw it in the trash anyway?

We've thrown away truck loads of stock coolers.
Probably should look into recycling the metal.   
Never use them...
 

last run was $275.  I have a press just for punching out the copper cores
take the bums (err employees) to lunch with it!

That's some good lunch money.
Better than gig money! (Unless you're the sound guy)   LOL

I tried the stock Intel coolers.  No good, fan is noisy and doesn't really cool well.  I've tried other vendor's finned type coolers and not a fan of those either.  I'm now using liquid coolers and no more temperature or noise problems.  I did try a Corsair H80 and it adequately cooled but the stock fans are noisy.  I'm now using Thermatake Water 3.0 Pro coolers in my two desktops.  The i7 and i5 idle under 30 C and I've never seen them up over about 40/41 C and, the stock fans are not noisy.

There are advantages to both air and water cooling.
Newer water-coolers are self-contained (no maintenance)... and that's a lot different (simpler) than old-style units.
That said, with a water-cooler, you have both a pump and fan/s.
With air cooling, you just have fans.
Don't assume that a water-cooler will be quieter.
 

Kev999
The supplied fan/cooler with my Intel i7-950 turned out to be quieter than expected and doesn't really contribute much to the overall noise level.  

If that is the case, dare I humbly suggest you may have an overall noise problem? Old HDDs or PSU fan, perhaps?
 
My Arctic Freeze 14 mm CPU cooler is much much (MUCH) quieter than the stock one and it's still definitely my noisiest component...

I kept the stock cooler. I know lots of builders replace them, but it's working well. CPU stays around 38 C. I've seen over 41 C. Is it the quietest? I'm sure it isn't but it is quiet enough for me. The PC is very quiet overall. Now if I were building systems for resale, you can be sure I'd replace the stock cooler.
 
That said, no matter what we have for a cooling system, it does need to be seated right. Even though everything seems OK, I keep an eye on the temp. Until I see temps I don't like - If it ain't broke, don't fix it