Is the X58 Pro motherboard a Lemon? The x58 cooling solution on the board is inadequate by far. Very soon, MSI will introduce a replacement board called the X58 Pro-E which has a different heat sync on the Dr. MOS and X58 chipset. They will no doubt ignore all of us with the Lemon. Which is totally unacceptable and enough to make me not want buy any MSI products ever in the future!
The only solution to cooling your IOH on the X58 Pro is to replace the useless MSI heat sync or run a small fast fan on to them.
Here are the possibilities;
1) with stock cooler IOH is 72C at idle
2) Running a 40mm 4000RPM fan ($12.00) directly onto the chips set from above the chipset, the IOH drops to 55C.
3) Replacing the sock solution with 2 Thermalright HR-05-IFX (23.00 each) the IOH drops to 38C*
*note: In my Antec Sonata case the HR-05-IFX are directly in the path of the 120mm fan exhaust that is mounted to the hard drive cage. This fan, draws air through the bottom of the case, over the hard drives and out over the motherboard. This is a Noctuna 120M fan that is running at 900 RMP (Ultra Quiet Mode). This fan blows directly onto the HR-05-IFX and helps dissipate the heat build up on the fins of the HR-05-IFX. With this fan turned off, the IOH temp starts out at 39C but quickly climbs into the 45C range with heavy use.
Using the 3rd solution, I can go up to a 190 MHz base CPU clock rate which makes the 2.6GHz i970 a 3.8Ghz CPU. The max I can go with memory is 1500MHz using OCZ Gold 6GB (3 x 2GB) rated at 1600 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK). Anything above that the board is not stable. At a base clock of 210 MHz, the board hangs-up in boot. It goes through the BIOS POS T and the screen says "WAIT..." and nothing happens.
I'm using BIOS 7.3. see https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=126768.0
by the way, be careful when you remove the stock IOH cooler. Mine was pretty much stuck to the board. I had to yank it off with a set of pliers. Upon taking it off, part of the problem was clearly apparent. There was enough silicon grease (or should I say hardened cement) to drown an elephant. The grease must be the cheapest kind you can find because it had caked up into a thick layer of plastic and I had to scrape off heavy scabs. I wish I had taken a picture.
Once you do this upgrade, all of us should send the $50 bill to MSI. They should give all of us MSI X58 Pro uses a $50 rebate for selling us a Lemon.
The only solution to cooling your IOH on the X58 Pro is to replace the useless MSI heat sync or run a small fast fan on to them.
Here are the possibilities;
1) with stock cooler IOH is 72C at idle
2) Running a 40mm 4000RPM fan ($12.00) directly onto the chips set from above the chipset, the IOH drops to 55C.
3) Replacing the sock solution with 2 Thermalright HR-05-IFX (23.00 each) the IOH drops to 38C*
*note: In my Antec Sonata case the HR-05-IFX are directly in the path of the 120mm fan exhaust that is mounted to the hard drive cage. This fan, draws air through the bottom of the case, over the hard drives and out over the motherboard. This is a Noctuna 120M fan that is running at 900 RMP (Ultra Quiet Mode). This fan blows directly onto the HR-05-IFX and helps dissipate the heat build up on the fins of the HR-05-IFX. With this fan turned off, the IOH temp starts out at 39C but quickly climbs into the 45C range with heavy use.
Using the 3rd solution, I can go up to a 190 MHz base CPU clock rate which makes the 2.6GHz i970 a 3.8Ghz CPU. The max I can go with memory is 1500MHz using OCZ Gold 6GB (3 x 2GB) rated at 1600 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK). Anything above that the board is not stable. At a base clock of 210 MHz, the board hangs-up in boot. It goes through the BIOS POS T and the screen says "WAIT..." and nothing happens.
I'm using BIOS 7.3. see https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=126768.0
by the way, be careful when you remove the stock IOH cooler. Mine was pretty much stuck to the board. I had to yank it off with a set of pliers. Upon taking it off, part of the problem was clearly apparent. There was enough silicon grease (or should I say hardened cement) to drown an elephant. The grease must be the cheapest kind you can find because it had caked up into a thick layer of plastic and I had to scrape off heavy scabs. I wish I had taken a picture.
Once you do this upgrade, all of us should send the $50 bill to MSI. They should give all of us MSI X58 Pro uses a $50 rebate for selling us a Lemon.
