Asus Z71V stuttering in WoW

[Zjonni]

Heya folks.

Well, the parts arrived today and I did an assembly of my Z71V. 2.26 Ghz Pentium M 780, 2 Gb of Corsair RAM, 80 Gb 5400 Western Digital Scorpio HDD.

Everything seems to run like a champ, until I get into World of Warcraft. Then, it looks screaming gorgeous, but even when I reduce all graphic settings and run it in a window at 1024x768, I get little stutters ever five-ten seconds.

I loaded up speedfan and checked things out, and my GPU was hitting the high nineties in WoW!!! Under normal use, all other temperatures were in low-mid 50s and the GPU was running in the mid 70s. It would skyrocket as soon as I started WoW. I didn't use anything but the conducting pad that comes with the heatsink, so I will be looking into heat reduction.

Still, I have trouble believing that heat alone is causing this. I'm downloading the 82.10 drivers and inf file currently, and will fiddle around with those, but I was curious to know if you more established folks might have some thoughts on this matter.

[infinitevalence]

sounds like its just really bad thermal contact. Lets hope some decent TIM will reduce that some.

[sbohdan]

Still, I have trouble believing that heat alone is causing this. I'm downloading the 82.10 drivers and inf file currently, and will fiddle around with those, but I was curious to know if you more established folks might have some thoughts on this matter.

heat is the biggest enemy of your computer parts. cut the heat and see no problems. BTW, you forgot to mention if it's fahrenheit or celsius?

[Apoptosis]

A number of people, me included, have found that the ASUS Z71V doesn't make good contact on the GPU heatsink. I highly suggest removing the thermal pad and installing a quality thermal compound and temperature monitoring program!

http://forums.legitreviews.com/viewtopic.php?t=2713

[Zjonni]

Heh. Aptosis, I already had that page bookmarked as my next stop, and I'm going to do that. Am also going to see about getting some silver-solder and fixing up the CPU's heatpipe contact points properly.

Uhm...Do you consider SpeedFan >Not< a "quality...temperature monitoring program."? That's what I was using last night and what was showing me temperatures of almost 100C (To answer Sbohdan's question).

I am going to make a run to the shop today to get some thermal compound. I'll also see about gapping the GPU heatsink (which I am SURE having looked at it now was NOT contacting the GPU) and finding some copper shim.

[Apoptosis]

I use Centrino Hardware Control 1.9 Beta 3 to monitor my notebook.

I also didn't need a copper shim on my notebook. Something that I was thinking about today is why not "shim" up the video card a bit with a thin nylon washers. The downside is that it will be angled some, but when you screw the PCI Express card I believe it is at an angle anywy going the other direction. It's easier putting a shim under the top of the card lifting the card up than milling a piece of copper to go inbetween.

[Zjonni]

I installed CHC but it didn't seem to show the GPU speed, just the HD0 and the CPU. Perhaps I'm missing some setting somewhere but in the meantime I have SpeedFan running.

Well, VERY VERY clearly my GPU is NOT contacting the heat sink above it. Yesterday, before taking out the thermal tape, I was getting GPU heat in the 99-100 realm when running WoW after 5-10 minutes.

Today, after cleaning and putting Arctic Silver Alumina Ceramic paste on I got a temp of 115 within a minute or two of loading WoW!!!

Scary.

The tape FELL OUT when I lifted off the GPU heatsink/fan channel, it wasn't melted to either side. It's just not contacting. The thin layer of thermal paste isn't contacting, either.

I either need to shim the card higher, or add a copper shim between the GPU and the heatsink.

I noticed mention elsewhere of someone working on connecting the GPU RAM to the heatsink as well. Couldn't hurt, but one thing at a time...

[Apoptosis]

[quote="Zjonni"]The tape FELL OUT when I lifted off the GPU heatsink/fan channel, it wasn't melted to either side. It's just not contacting. The thin layer of thermal paste isn't contacting, either.[quote]

I didn't use a thin layer on mine... just gober it on there and make sure you don't use a paste with metal in it as it might short something on on the PCB!

[Zjonni]

Okay, I always understood that glopping thermal paste on in thick layers to make up for bad heat-sink contact was BAD(tm).

Here's the latest update:

I went out today and tried to find copper sheet stock. Not much luck. All I could find was .25 mm thick. I also bought Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive Epoxy.

I cut two squares of the .25mm thick copper sheet, polished them a bit, then glued them together with the thermal epoxy.

I then used the thermal epoxy to glue these two squares to the underside of the aluminum heat-trough that wasn't contacting the GPU. :6

I then put Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste on the surface of the copper sheet that would be contacting the GPU, and on the GPU. And hey, what do you know...It touched.

Woot.

BUT...

I am still having issues.

PREVIOUS TO ADDING SHIMS(this is at Idle!!!):
CPU 58C
Local 51C
Remote2 93C
HD0 35C
Temp1 56C

IDLE after adding shims and after about an hour of messing with WoW:
CPU 59C
Local 51C
Remote2 74C
HD0 42C
Temp1 56C

Nice. Lost almost 20C on the GPU. Let's hear it for conductivity. I blame the increased HD temp on the hour of WoW prior to checking idle speed.

However, when playing WoW I got the following readings:
In Ironforge (Lots of graphics and movement and objects and the CPU was almost always maxed at 100%)
CPU 73C
Local 51C
Remote2 85C
HD0 42C
Temp1 56C

But when I go outside and run around in the open I get:
CPU 74C
Local 57C
Remote2 94-98C
HD0 42C
Temp1 56C

That's still pretty high. I'm still getting stuttering now and then but it is less frequent and seems to always occur when the CPU is at 100%.

Also, I should mention almost all of the settings are at rock-bottom except that I was going in-window, fullscreen (1650x1050).

So clearly there is room for improvement on reducing the GPU temperature.

Probably starting with finding thicker copper stock to reduce that extra layer of goop in the middle of the sandwich. I also ahve some ideas about putting a LOT of thinwalled copper tubes jammed against each other inside the GPU cooling 'trough' that the fan blows through, to act as radiator fins.


Thoughts?

[Zjonni]

Update: More WoWing around...

CPU 74C
Local 57C
Remote2 98-103C (Ouch)
HD0 42C
Temp1 57C

Still getting the occasional 'skip' in graphics, most often when it seems about to load in a new object. CPU running full out. I'm concerned because I don't want to burn out my GPU.