Cooling Mods

[Terry Rock]

I finally decided to build a new computer from the parts I purchased on Black Friday.
While looking at my existing CPU cooling fan, I started looking for ways I could possibly make what is already an excellent budget fan better.
I retrieved the old 'trusty' CoolerMaster H212+....purchase an AM4 bracket...give it a good clean and get to work.
I figure if I can get as close to 100% of the airflow through from front to back without 'spilling' out the sides, I can vastly improve the efficiency.
The next dilemma is what ever I use, has to be able to take lots of heat...be metallic for conduction and absolutely cannot come loose for fear of shorting.
I settle on a roll of 500 mph speed tape, which has been sitting in my tool box from since I last worked on airplanes in 2013.
I then use a wrap of Polyken 556 simply as a 'finishing' cover.
Since the adhesive would promote dust build-up, I have to use adhesive-to-adhesive for the first/contact layer, which runs vertically down the fins.
It is then tucked under to adhere to the top and bottom of the upper and lower fins.
Trimming is done at the fan retention vertical attach supports to allow the barbed locking tangs to sit in their normal fan cut-outs. This acts to also 'pinch' and seal the airflow.
A second fan is used in a pull configuration and to seal the 'blanket'.
The results; in a 68 degree room yesterday, I saw a reduction of 8 degrees C on my new Ryzen 5 2600X after a 22 minute test of Prime 95 small FFT testing.
The best budget cooler just got better.
I'll call it the Hyper 212 E for enclosed

 

[BP]

Interesting...my big question is why isn't this done from the factory? Keep wondering if there is something dangerous about closing off the sides long term.

I'm air-cooling as well...using an 8700K so it runs hot but not too hot, about mid 70's max in the most demanding games but usually only in spikes. I bought a delid tool and everything, but haven't taken the jump yet...your mod looks intriguing but my cooler is so close to my GPU I'd rather not tempt fate if anything comes loose.

 

[Terry Rock]

That CM H212+ has always been a great budget cooler.
I actually purchased a Deep Cool Gammaxx 400 this week for comparison.
I was Immediately drawn back to the H212+...despite the GM400 having a wider overall dimension.
The fin density was far superior in the 212. (see photo)
At the time when I bought mine...IMSMC in 2012, it was just the CM Hyper212+...not EVO.
I bought it for $28 and it immediately impressed me on the I7-3820 I was building at that time.
There were guys spending upward of $70-80 on coolers, which couldn't 'touch' the performance.
This mod just takes it to a whole other level.

 

[alexSchmurtz]

Keep wondering if there is something dangerous about closing off the sides long term.

I'm a real noob when it comes to PC build... but open sides allow the heat to still disappear once you switch off the PC and the fan stops, no?

 

[Terry Rock]

I'm a real noob when it comes to PC build... but open sides allow the heat to still disappear once you switch off the PC and the fan stops, no?

Not really.
Once the fan stops, any latent heat will be dissipated whether the fins are closed or not.
Directing all the hot air over the most surface area is where the gains in temperature reduction seem to be coming from
The additional blanket material Will also absorb heat and create more surface area.

 

[Turk]

Interesting...my big question is why isn't this done from the factory? Keep wondering if there is something dangerous about closing off the sides long term.

They likely don't do it because it would add cost. More material, extra step in production, little things can add significant cost to a product.

I don't think closing in the sides would be an issue. Not unless you run it really hot for a while then turn it off immediately stopping the fan.

 

[Terry Rock]

Just put the Ryzen on a 'crunch 'n munch' encoding 25 replay files...totaling 87 Gigs of video.
The cooler maxed out at 79 degrees...even after all that time, with all cores stressed at mostly 98-100 percent.

 

[Bob Gnarley]

The AMD recommended max temp for 2nd gen Ryzen is 75c above which degradation can be expected. While 79c isn't way over or likely to do any damage short term, for the longer term it would be better to get it lower.

I don't know what case or fan set up you have but that's where i'd look next. Again not sure what mobo/bios you have but go into the bios's monitor settings and set a curve for the case fans to ramp up with cpu temps. After that add an intake fan if needed or see if you can improve the intake to the case itself. Different case designs can have a huge impact on temperatures.

 

[Nick Gregory]

Did you do testing before doing that with the same room temperature?

 

[Terry Rock]

The AMD recommended max temp for 2nd gen Ryzen is 75c above which degradation can be expected. While 79c isn't way over or likely to do any damage short term, for the longer term it would be better to get it lower.
I don't know what case or fan set up you have but that's where i'd look next. Again not sure what mobo/bios you have but go into the bios's monitor settings and set a curve for the case fans to ramp up with cpu temps. After that add an intake fan if needed or see if you can improve the intake to the case itself. Different case designs can have a huge impact on temperatures.

Your points are all valid on cooling...Thanks.
While it would be great to get to 75 degrees fully loaded...most folks won't get close to that.
The maximum operating temps for an AMD Ryzen 2nd Gen R5-2600X like mine, is 95 degrees.
You'd be hard-pressed to find anybody on air-cooling...without spending an 'un-Godly' amount of money on something like a Noctua NH-D15, running below 79 degrees with all six cores fully loaded.
At 79 degrees in the most hostile of job task, the modded cooler is doing way better than stock and even better than I'd ever expected.
The room temperature during the encode was 71 degrees (F).
The case is a modded Antec 300.

 

[Terry Rock]

Did you do testing before doing that with the same room temperature?

Yes I did.
The results are on average eight degrees cooler for the same task between the non-modded and modded fan in stress test.
I use a one hour cool down period between test to make sure latent heat is not influencing like test.
The test temps are kept at a room constant of 70 degrees.

 

[Bob Gnarley]

"The maximum operating temps for an AMD Ryzen 2nd Gen R5-2600X like mine, is 95 degrees."

This is the cpu's TJmax, the point at it which throttles to protect itself from immediate damage. AMD's (not mine) recommended max to avoid long term degradation is 75c. Those high temperatures are ok occasionally, but hit them regularly and you risk your clocks becoming unstable over the long term.

If you are hitting 79c at only 71f ambient, what will it be like during those rare summer heatwaves...

 

[Terry Rock]

"The maximum operating temps for an AMD Ryzen 2nd Gen R5-2600X like mine, is 95 degrees."

This is the cpu's TJmax, the point at it which throttles to protect itself from immediate damage. AMD's (not mine) recommended max to avoid long term degradation is 75c. Those high temperatures are ok occasionally, but hit them regularly and you risk your clocks becoming unstable over the long term.
If you are hitting 79c at only 71f ambient, what will it be like during those rare summer heatwaves...

That 79 degree temperature is the absolutely worst case scenario...with all six cores 'crunching' away at 100 percent continuous for quite some time encoding 25 videos equaling 89 Gigabytes of data.
It was an absolute stress test and not likely to ever happen again in normal day-to-day use.
I run the 3DMark Fire Strike stress test and the system barely goes past 61 degrees...even after 20 passes of the test.
How often does all six cores get loaded to the max in gaming?...Never.
Most modern games use one...maybe two cores at most and at way less than 100 percent.
The thing is idling at 36 degrees. I'm not worried.
That's an absolute worst case scenario.

 

[RasmusP]

Edit: apparently I should've done some better research!

 

[Bob Gnarley]

Ryzen doesn't take abuse as well as Intel. I would explain more but hey...

 

[RasmusP]

Ryzen doesn't take abuse as well as Intel. I would explain more but hey...

I'd like to hear that explanation
Always great to learn new things. I just wanted to give some different input since I've read basically the same reasoning for the Intels but if you say there really is a difference between modern AMDs and Intels I'd like to listen to you!

 

[Bob Gnarley]

Not much point. I would say spend a couple of years over on the AMD forums over at OCN but you obviously don't need to...

And of course manufacturers guidelines are meaningless and degradation is a fairytale that I just made up off the top of my fruitbowl.

Great advice by the way. "Your system is a little hot but my mate's Intel goes all the way to 90c. You are sweet". lol

Won't be wasting any more time in this cliquey little forum. Back to quietly leaching mods. Have a pleasant one.

Edit: My apologies to all and especially Rasmus for the above post, I can be a right mardy git! I haven't deleted for the sake of being open. Cheers all. Bob.

 

[RasmusP]

Not much point. I would say spend a couple of years over on the AMD forums over at OCN but you obviously don't need to...

And of course manufacturers guidelines are meaningless and degradation is a fairytale that I just made up off the top of my fruitbowl.

Great advice by the way. "Your system is a little hot but my mate's Intel goes all the way to 90c. You are sweet". lol

Won't be wasting any more time in this cliquey little forum. Back to quietly leaching mods. Have a pleasant one.

If you'd give me some reasonable summary/explanation I probably would've edited my post.
Edit: done Started on the wrong foot there!

 

[Nick Gregory]

The thing is idling at 36 degrees. I'm not worried.

My 1800X idles is idles at 28 C, and I only have a Cryorig H7 Quad Lumi. Room temperature however is 72 F.

 

[Terry Rock]

My 1800X idles is idles at 28 C, and I only have a Cryorig H7 Quad Lumi. Room temperature however is 72 F.

Those are very good temps but that's also currently a $65 fan on Amazon, so I'd expect to see no less for cooling.
The mod uses as its base a $28 Hyper 212+