Maximum PC CPU cooling RSS Feed

BSOD of Duty

The Maximum PC Staff — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:30:34 -0500

Over the last four months, I have noticed a drastic drop in my computer’s ability to run games. I have Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty: World at War, both of which ran perfectly at 1400x900 with all settings at max or medium. But when I go to play them now, I experience momentary freezes, which I can “fix” with Ctrl-Alt-Del and then hitting Cancel (32-bit Vista Ultimate). But eventually, while playing the game, there will come a point where it just freezes the entire computer and blue screens. There are also many artifacts within the game, as well as other rendering problems. Now I have to play the games on the absolute lowest settings to delay the inevitable crash, which helps a little. Once rebooted, Vista will report either a fault from my graphics card—an Nvidia 7900 GT—or an unknown error. I have updated all my drivers, defragmented my hard drives, and re-installed the game. What’s going on here?

—Brian White

Brian, it sounds like you’re overheating. Either your GPU isn’t getting sufficient cooling or your PSU isn’t giving you the voltage you require. It wouldn’t hurt to power down and unplug your computer, then open it up, and make sure it’s free of dust and that the fans are unobstructed. Fresh, cool airflow through your case is essential. To clean your case, use short bursts of compressed air from a can held upright. Don’t let the fan blades spin while you’re cleaning, that can damage them. Be sure to monitor the temperature of your GPU using either the Nvidia Control Panel or a third-party app like SpeedFan (www.almico.com). If temps stay high, consider adding more cooling to your case or swapping out the stock GPU cooler for an aftermarket one. If your temps aren’t unreasonable (say, 50 C at full load), your PSU might be failing. You can get a power supply tester for less than $20 online.

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First, grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has fizzled, email the doctor at doctor@maximumpc.com for advice on how to solve your technological woes.

CoolIT Domino A.L.C.

Nathan Edwards — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:00:19 -0500

Entry-level water-cooling at a competitive price

CoolIT is somewhat notorious for enormous but effective closed water-cooling systems: its Boreas and Freezone Elite kick the pants off of conventional air coolers and are much more user-friendly than piecemeal water-cooling setups. Now CoolIT wants to bring self-contained water-cooling to the masses with the Domino Advanced Liquid Cooling.

The Domino eschews both the large heatsinks and the Peltier thermoelectric coolers of its predecessors in favor of a radiator and single 12cm fan, which gives the Domino less oomph than the Boreas or Freezone Elite, but confers several advantages to the water-cooling newb.

First, the Domino costs a cool $80, compared to $600-plus for the Boreas and $350 for the Freezone Elite. Second, the Domino is much smaller and easier to install; CoolIT boasts that an amateur with no CPU-cooling experience can install it in 10 minutes.

The CoolIT Domino A.L.C. can't match the power of its bigger siblings, but its size and price make it a perfect first step into water cooling.

Installation is refreshingly simple, though it does require a backplate for LGA 775/1366. Once the backplate is installed, you simply screw the CPU heat exchanger mount into the backplate and mount the radiator module in your case’s rear 12cm fan mount. The included rubber fan mounts make it an easy and screw-less affair.

The Domino’s fan module includes an LED that displays fan and pump speeds, coolant temperatures, and system alerts, as well as a button that lets you toggle between three fan speeds: Quiet, Performance, and Full. Quiet keeps fan speeds low and noise minimal, while Full roars up to 3,000rpm for maximum cooling power. In Performance mode, the fan speed varies between 1,100rpm and 2,500rpm, depending on the CPU temperature. Unfortunately, to switch speeds, you’ll need to open your case’s side panel, or leave it off.

In Quiet mode, the Domino matched our stock cooler’s idle temps, while at Full it was cooler by 13 C. In both Performance and Full modes, the Domino outperformed our favorite air cooler, the Zalman CNPS 9900, by two and six degrees, respectively. But the Zalman still reigns at idle, and in Full mode the Domino is louder than the Zalman.

The CoolIT Domino is an excellent first water-cooling kit for beginners, and though performance can’t match that of its bigger brothers, the Domino makes up for that in price and ease of installation. And its cooling easily matches the best air coolers we’ve tested.

This review originally appeared in the June 2009 issue of Maximum PC Magazine.

Cooler Master V10

Nathan Edwards — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:02:56 -0500

Huge, mediocre, and difficult to install is no way to go through life, son

The Cooler Master V10 is a monster. It weighs two pounds, 10 ounces, stands 6.3x9.3x5.1 inches, and contains one thermoelectric cooler, two fans, and two heatsinks: one on the CPU and one on the TEC. The TEC, which needs to be powered by a 4-pin Molex on a dedicated power lead, activates only when needed.

The Cooler Master V10 is two and a half pounds of frustration.

The V10’s installation is the worst we’ve ever experienced. Two retention clips attach to the cooler, which you then attach to a bracket you mount on the back side of the motherboard. This means removing your motherboard and balancing the cooler on your lap while you screw it in. Unfortunately, the V10 is so huge that it blocks the motherboard’s top three ATX screws, making it difficult to mount the motherboard in even the roomiest cases. And the V10’s bulk made it difficult to connect both the 8-pin and the 24-pin motherboard power cables on our test system’s motherboard—impressive, since they’re on opposite sides of the motherboard.

The V10’s RAM fan means you have to remove the cooler to remount your memory, and DIMMs with cooling vanes, like Corsair’s Dominators, are likely to be bumped by the V10’s overhanging radiator. Indeed, the first few times we tried to install the V10, our machine wouldn’t POST due to RAM seating issues. It wasn’t until we replaced our tall DIMMs with shorter sticks, and removed the optional backplane bracket to mount the cooler (which can warp the motherboard), that we could even get our system to start.

Ultimately, the V10 offers nothing to recommend itself. It’s a nightmare to install in most machines—the only exceptions are cases with motherboard tray cutouts behind the CPU. Plus, its performance is merely mediocre: Our favorite air cooler, the Zalman CNPS9900, outcools it easily in both idle and full burn (by three and five degrees, respectively). The Zalman cooler is also smaller, $60 cheaper, easier to install, and requires less power.