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H100 Occasionally Grounding Out On CPU


PXAbstraction

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Hey all. I've been using an H100 cooler for about a year with no problems until now. My current one is very frustrating and I'm hoping someone has an easy solution. I replaced my mainboard with a new one the other day (same socket and CPU). When I removed the H100 from the CPU, the gray square of thermal compound it came with had largely dissolved, not uncommon. I applied Arctic Silver 5 cooling compound using their recommended procedure (including tinting the H100 heat sink) before putting thing on my new board. However, now I'm occasionally getting what I'm 99% sure is the CPU grounding out on the heat sink, causing a full system hard lock.

 

The reason I believe this to be the case is that it happens infrequently and usually after long periods of system inactivity or more commonly, when the system has been under high load (and thus, higher temperatures) and then that load is suddenly removed, bringing the temperature down and causing contraction of the heat sink. I do a lot of video stuff so I can usually reproduce it that way. I can play a high-end game like Battlefield 4 without freezing for hours or run 3DMark on loop all night without an issue but often the system will freeze once those tasks are stopped. Not always but often enough.

 

In addition, when installing the H100 on my new board, I can't screw it down tightly as the system won't even POST when I do that. The mainboard hangs with a CPU initialization BIOS code. If I loosen the screws a bit so that the cooler isn't super tight but still tight enough to adequately cool the CPU, the system posts but this occasional hard lock is observed. This is why I'm reasonably confident it's not the board that's at fault. I completely cleaned off both the CPU and heat sink and regooped them both and this is still happening.

 

Is anyone aware of the best procedure for overcoming this? I can't keep having my system be unstable like this and I've dealt with issues like this in the past and usually regooping the CPU is all that's needed but it's not fully resolving the issue here. I can't justify replacing the H100 simply because the factory thermal compound wore off it. Should I just use an extra generous helping of Arctic Silver or it there a better way? Thanks all!

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It's impossible for the Cooler to ground out your CPU. You could put it directly on your CPU without paste and it still wouldn't ground it out.

 

I would pull your CPU from the socket and inspect for bent pins. The types of issues your seeing have never been reported before.

 

If anything it sounds more like a GPU issue than anything to me.

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It's impossible for the Cooler to ground out your CPU. You could put it directly on your CPU without paste and it still wouldn't ground it out.

 

I would pull your CPU from the socket and inspect for bent pins. The types of issues your seeing have never been reported before.

 

If anything it sounds more like a GPU issue than anything to me.

 

While I can't attest to the H100 specifically, I can say 100% that yes, you CAN ground out the CPU on a cooler. I have seen this happen on other systems where a cooler was attached to the CPU with no thermal compound and the system refused to start until thermal compound was applied. Rare? Absolutely (I've only seen it about 3 times in my career as an on-site tech) but it can happen and the symptoms here are eerily familiar.

 

If there are bent pins in the CPU socket, wouldn't that just prevent the system from ever working? If the H100 is not tightly screwed down, the system generally works fine except for these occasional freezes. But if pins were bent and not properly contacting the CPU, nothing would ever work would it? I can certainly check for bent pins and will do so but that strikes me as more of an "it works all the time or not at all" kind of situation. This GPU also worked fine in my old board so I don't believe it's that, especially since the system is fine when under 100% load and only acts up either after releasing load or when it's been idle for a while.

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you may have jostled the block and have some air trapped in the block when you had it off,these units arent completely full to allow for expansion.

you can try laying your case on its side for a few hours and see if this helps.

i would tend to think the m/b may be getting bent if it fails to post,least thats just my guess,is the m/b thinner than normal?

 

Nope, the Z77A-GD65 is a standard size ATX board. It's also in a Corsair 650D case which are generally pretty good at keeping things straight. For all the problems my old crappy EVGA mainboard had, bending wasn't one of them. :) Interesting thought about putting the system sideways, though that still doesn't explain why I can't tighten down the block. I will double check for bent pins and try that anyway though, can't hurt. :)

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The paste is there to transfer heat. Without it your temps will rise dramatically within a second or two and cause a no boot situation. But electrically grounding out isn't gonna happen. If it does then you defiantly have problems other than a cooler.

 

If there are bent pins in the CPU socket, wouldn't that just prevent the system from ever working?

Nope, a single bent pin can wreak havoc on a system. From untraceable instabilities , memory mis-detection issues, and so on. But otherwise still function normally.

 

If the H100 is not tightly screwed down, the system generally works fine except for these occasional freezes. But if pins were bent and not properly contacting the CPU, nothing would ever work would it? I can certainly check for bent pins and will do so but that strikes me as more of an "it works all the time or not at all" kind of situation.

You can request an RMA for a new set of mounting hardware and see if that helps. You could also try adding a set of rubber or nylon washer to the backplate. But no, it's not always a no work or not situation.

 

 

This GPU also worked fine in my old board so I don't believe it's that, especially since the system is fine when under 100% load and only acts up either after releasing load or when it's been idle for a while.

Working then and working now could be two different things. I'm not saying it is, but it's possible. You might also want to check your PSU voltages in your BIOS and see where the three main rails are sitting. Low 3.3 or 5v will cause lockups, crashes and such too.

Interesting thought about putting the system sideways, though that still doesn't explain why I can't tighten down the block. I will double check for bent pins and try that anyway though, can't hurt. :)

Air bubbles are not the problem.
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this sounds like your motherboard is flexing when you have the 4 screws holding the pump onto the cpu too tight which causes the cpu contacts to have unstable connection to the board pins and is causing hard locks of your system. this type of issue has been known for some time now and is even posted on the ASUS motherboard forums. try what peanutz suggested with rubber or nylon washers to the pump mounting hardware, or just ask Corsair for a new mounting hardware kit.
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Nope, the Z77A-GD65 is a standard size ATX board. It's also in a Corsair 650D case which are generally pretty good at keeping things straight. For all the problems my old crappy EVGA mainboard had, bending wasn't one of them. :) Interesting thought about putting the system sideways, though that still doesn't explain why I can't tighten down the block. I will double check for bent pins and try that anyway though, can't hurt. :)

 

somehow i misinterpreted your grounding issue with grinding in your post,i apologize

probably in part i must have read your post too quickly and that your problem is the first ive seen on here with this type of problem.

hope you get things worked out.

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Hey all. First, thank you all for your help, it's much appreciated. So I spent a very long time going over my CPU pins with a fine tooth comb and I'm not convinced that's the issue. There was one pin that was the tiniest bit out of alignment but it was extremely minor and I did manage to correct it using a sewing needle. My old board has two pins further out of whack than this one and I never had freezing issues with it. No improvement. If I screw down the H100 tightly, the system won't POST, if I loosen it, I get random freezes still. To say that I'm frustrated is an understatement because this didn't happen with my old mainboard.

 

The suggestion about getting an upgraded hardware kit is a good one, though it's distressing to me that this is now the third Corsair product I've had that's needed an "update" of some sort. One thing though, are those rubber grommets for the backplate or for the mainboard side? I'm looking at the bracket right now and there aren't rubber grommets on it. I presume these would go over the screw holes on the bracket and make the four round pieces flush against the mainboard? I might be able to find something like this at a local hardware store, just want to make sure what I'm looking for.

 

Thanks again for the help all.

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So I spent a very long time going over my CPU pins with a fine tooth comb and I'm not convinced that's the issue. There was one pin that was the tiniest bit out of alignment but it was extremely minor and I did manage to correct it using a sewing needle. My old board has two pins further out of whack than this one and I never had freezing issues with it.

It's going to depend on which one is bent and what part of the CPU it goes to. If it's touching correctly or not. Just a lot of variables so you really can't compare it to your other board.

If I screw down the H100 tightly, the system won't POST, if I loosen it, I get random freezes still. To say that I'm frustrated is an understatement because this didn't happen with my old mainboard.

 

The suggestion about getting an upgraded hardware kit is a good one, though it's distressing to me that this is now the third Corsair product I've had that's needed an "update" of some sort. One thing though, are those rubber grommets for the backplate or for the mainboard side? I'm looking at the bracket right now and there aren't rubber grommets on it. I presume these would go over the screw holes on the bracket and make the four round pieces flush against the mainboard? I might be able to find something like this at a local hardware store, just want to make sure what I'm looking for.

The washers go on the back plate between the bracket and the MB. Those are only needed if you need additional pressure on the CPU socket. Thats something that really you shouldn't need. At this point I think that board is just bad. If you happen to have your old board handy it might be worth swapping everything back over to see what happens.If it boots right up you have your answer. Or try another cooler of some sort.

 

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showpost.php?p=671101&postcount=28

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I'm really having a hard time believing a defective mainboard is to blame when it only seems to act up when this cooler is screwed down but you may be right. I just don't want to go through the process of RMAing this board to MSI and being without a PC for weeks (they don't do cross-ship in Canada), only to find out the new board has the same problem. My old board did boot up before this replacement but I guess I can assemble it again and see what happens. I'm pretty sure my 2600K was one of the retail ones that came with Intel's crappy fan cooler so maybe I can find that and try it for process of elimination as well. We'll see I guess. Thanks.
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Alright, I don't seem to have my Intel cooler any more but a friend of mine does still have his and he has the same CPU. He's going to lend it to me to try it out. On the chance that the system does work fine with the Intel cooler installed, any idea what my course of action would be from there?
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Not really. The new cooler will have a new set of hardware, that would be my first choice. After that I couldn't tell you. You are literally the first we have seen here with this issue. To be honest I would be really surprised if it does work with the Intel cooler.
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Not really. The new cooler will have a new set of hardware, that would be my first choice. After that I couldn't tell you. You are literally the first we have seen here with this issue. To be honest I would be really surprised if it does work with the Intel cooler.

 

Honestly, I hope it doesn't work with the Intel cooler, simply because that will give me a clear indication of where the fault lies and then I can work on getting MSI to replace the board. If it does work with it then yeah, I have no idea.

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Alright guys, I sadly don't bring good news. I put my friend's stock Intel cooler on the CPU and everything's fine. System boots up normally. Now the post-boot freezing happened after random periods of time so I can't say 100% that everything's fine that way but as soon as I put the H100 back on and tightened it down, the system failed to POST again. Pretty conclusive if you ask me.

 

However, I want to ask a couple of things about that "update kit" that includes the rubber washers. It was mentioned upthread that I shouldn't need it with this board but I think I might because when the screws that attach through the mainboard to the backplate are fully tightened down, you can still move them up and down a little bit by pulling on them. I read elsewhere that this is what the rubber washers were added to fix and apparently, some newer boards have slightly thinner PCBs which is what causes this and why Corsair includes the washers in the box with newer kits. Given that my old board is from 2011, that sounds pretty convincing to me. Would you guys agree this is worth trying?

 

Secondly, will Corsair send me this kit for free if I ask them for it? The cooling kit is probably either close to a year old or a little over but I really don't want to have to pay for something that's pretty clearly an update that kind of should have always been there. In theory, I could find the washers locally too but I'd rather do it the "official" way. I don't care if I have to run with the Intel fan and just disable my overclock until the update kit arrives. I just figured I'd ask here before going through the process of opening an RMA ticket.

 

Thanks all!

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users thought there were issues with the backplate being a tad loose before mounting the block but its supposed to be like this to aid in mounting.

i feel like corsair will do whatever possible to help with your issue,submit a rma and in the comment section,post this thread along with other particulars.

i must tho this is a first that honestly defies logic :confused:

if your interested in having no movement in the backplate,nylon washers work much better than rubber but neither should be necessary.

when you say it fails to post,are you getting an error such as no cpu fan detected?

im still concerned tho about your random issue,keep us posted...

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The error I'm getting from the mainboard when it fails to POST is code 55 which on this board means memory initialization error. That's with the cooler's screws tightened down fully. If I loosen the screws to the cooler, the system boots up and will run normally for a random period of time (sometimes minutes, sometimes an hour or more) and then hard lock. When it does this, it's usually when the machine is under low load or has just come off a high load (i.e. I can reproduce it most of the time by encoding a video, it will lock shortly after the encoding finishes.) With the stock Intel cooler installed, the system thus far operates completely normally. I did check the backplate and screws on my old EVGA board and there is no movement when they're tightened down, which leads me to believe that the theory about newer boards being slightly thinner could be the issue. Maybe the screws not fitting tightly is grounding out on the case. All I know is that Corsair is now apparently including the rubber washers in the box with the H100 kit whereas they didn't before so that must have seen some kind of need for it. I really hope they can sort this cause yeah, I'm certainly not prepared to buy a new H100i to resolve this. :)
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what memory do you have,size and number of chips?,while im farrrr from an expert,,i dont see how anything related to the cpu area that can cause a memory fault.

im sure the washers were included when they started producing a couple m/b's that were thinner,also you wouldnt need to buy another cooler so long as your the initial owner as they have a 5 yr. warranty

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I use Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB DDR2133. From what I've read, an improper ground or bent CPU pin can cause an error 55 on this board. I checked and none of the CPU socket pins are bent to a significant degree. Even if they were, things wouldn't be fine with the Intel cooler. I agree this is incredibly weird but after testing with the Intel cooler, there's pretty much no doubt that the H100 is the cause of this issue in some way. :( I submitted a ticket and asked if it's possible to get the updated mounting kit or if it uses standard size rubber washers, if they could give me the exact dimensions so I can attempt to source them locally. We'll see what happens.
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just out of the ballpark here but if your clocking the memory,have you tried clock speed or using just one chip.

from what you say it happens when the computer is working hard too.

sometimes the obvious is hardest to find,,least for me it seems:D:

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The memory is being run in XMP profile (which sets the timings Corsair says my memory can handle) but I am not pushing it beyond that. I actually had a lot of problems with this memory on my old EVGA board but it's fine on this one. I've now been running with the stock Intel cooler for almost 48 hours (without overclock of course) and the system's rock solid. I even did 45 minutes of video transcoding last night (which brought the CPU up to almost 95 degrees with this cooler which kinda' freaked me out) and it didn't miss a beat. But again, if the H100 is installed on this board, it's unstable, whether I have an overclock or not. I'm still waiting for Corsair to respond to my ticket about the updated mounting kit. I really hope they're able to just tell me the dimensions of those rubber washers cause there's two places in my city that might have something like them I can just go buy for like $0.50.
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I really hope they're able to just tell me the dimensions of those rubber washers cause there's two places in my city that might have something like them I can just go buy for like $0.50.

There is no "updated mounting kit" They are not included in the mounting kits. You need to source them yourself. Just choose a size that fits over the mounting posts. all it needs to do is shim the cooling head. Something 2-3mm think is all you need. Take the backplate with you and if they fit over the little raised parts where the screws attach your good. It doesn't even need to be a washer , some people have used O rings and I have even seen someone use cardboard...but i wouldn't advise that move.

 

I suggested orderig a replacement mounting kit because i was suspect of the one you have because in your original post you said something about not being able to tighten the brackets enough.

 

There has to be something wrong with the mounts is all i can suggest. It's not an electrical grounding issue but it's definitely doing something weird to that board..which again we have never seen this before.

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Oh, I was under the impression that the newer mounting kits has the rubber o-rings. I thought I saw a photo of the kits coming with the new H100i that did have those. Well, there's a hardware store not too far from my house that's one of those places that has all kinds of oddball sizes and bits of stuff so I'll check with them. Hopefully the o-rings help cause yeah, having to replace my cooler for no good reason, not a pleasing thought. :) I'll let people know what happens.
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