Predator Orion 3000 PO3-630 - CPU Cooler Upgrade Problem

Hey all, I have recently purchased the PO3-630 machine with specs including the i7 11700f, RTX 3070 & 16gb ram. I am very happy with the general & gaming performance that the PC is giving me but I am a little bit concerned about the CPU temps that I am reading, with idle temps hovering between 50-70c and gaming sessions seeing temps of around 80-90, with Warzone for instance seeing temps going up to 98c.

After a little bit of research I just decided that this is normal with a stock cooler and that I would go for a 92mm Noctua NH-D9L CPU cooler. However, upon attempting to install this cooler I found that the mounting kit would not fit around the many capacitors.

I'm a bit inexperienced when it comes to this so perhaps I have missed something, but I could not see a way that would allow me to mount this fan with this motherboard as there just did not look to be any available space to install the mounting bracket. There's plenty of space for the cooler itself.

I have seen people with PO3-620 models get the NH-D9L installed so I (perhaps wrongly) assumed that I'd be able to achieve the same here...

Accepted answers

GotBanned

Not right? You are right in saying that U9S might be better, but claiming D9L being not right is bit much. Both will do a lot better job at cooling the CPU than what there is originally. The reason I used D9L was that it was immediately available at a local store.

And as in the pic Frank so kindly posted, are you sure you used those thick plastic "washers?" There should be enough clearance if you did.

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oanderson94

I thought I would also leave a comment as a side note to this - unsure what is 'normal' here, but when my CPU is hitting temps above 90c I am noticing that my CPU fan speed is only at around 750rpm, I would expect this to be higher? Predator sense doesn't have any setting to affect the CPU fan, only front and back fans.

frankøww

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StevenGen

oanderson94 said:

Hey all, I have recently purchased the PO3-630 machine with specs including the i7 11700f, RTX 3070 & 16gb ram. I am very happy with the general & gaming performance that the PC is giving me but I am a little bit concerned about the CPU temps that I am reading, with idle temps hovering between 50-70c and gaming sessions seeing temps of around 80-90, with Warzone for instance seeing temps going up to 98c.

After a little bit of research I just decided that this is normal with a stock cooler and that I would go for a 92mm Noctua NH-D9L CPU cooler. However, upon attempting to install this cooler I found that the mounting kit would not fit around the many capacitors.

I'm a bit inexperienced when it comes to this so perhaps I have missed something, but I could not see a way that would allow me to mount this fan with this motherboard as there just did not look to be any available space to install the mounting bracket. There's plenty of space for the cooler itself.

I have seen people with PO3-620 models get the NH-D9L installed so I (perhaps wrongly) assumed that I'd be able to achieve the same here...

The Noctua NH-D9L is not the right CPU fan/cooler for your Predator PO3-620, send it back and swap it for the "Noctua NH-U9S” fan (see caption below) as this fan/cooler is much better and its been fitted and has been proven that it fits into the the Predator PO3-620 motherboard space by another community member "MassiveMonkey66" see his post here "The P03-620 upgrades I've made" that will tell you all the mods that he has done to his PO3-620.

Also only use a high grade CPU paste like the "Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme" paste (that I've used and its excellent) and apply this paste with the "Pea Dot Method" only, this is to put just enough paste so that the CPU cooler can efficiently be shielded to make contact with the CPU and the cooling fan and its heatsink so that it can work at its most efficient way. Don’t ever use liquid metal pastes as they are very dangerous if they leak and get onto the motherboard circuities and components as allot of users just pile these thermal pastes onto the CPU and GPU processors hence and with liquid metal pates they cause circuitry shortages and ruin motherboards.

With the fan speeds and after you install the new Noctua NH-U9S uninstall the "Predator Sense" completely and reinstall it and see if it registers the correct fan speed. Good luck and hope this helps you out.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/u9/jqq9me7vyin5.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/d7/j3ty2p7y36zb.jpg

GotBanned

Not right? You are right in saying that U9S might be better, but claiming D9L being not right is bit much. Both will do a lot better job at cooling the CPU than what there is originally. The reason I used D9L was that it was immediately available at a local store.

And as in the pic Frank so kindly posted, are you sure you used those thick plastic "washers?" There should be enough clearance if you did.

oanderson94

Hey, update here. So I was not using the washers. I did need to head out and find some particular screws to fit through them but once that was resolved it was clean sailing. Feel a bit stupid for not realising what those black plastic things were for in the first place

But, the cooler is now set up and installed and straight off the bat I can see that it has reduced my temps down by around 20c in all settings. Happy days!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/aa/bi2rmploqznq.jpg

DukeNukem1

How many rpm does that stock rear fan spin now that you've changed your cooler (in load)? With stock cooler my rear fan spins at ~2000rpm while front only 1000rpm.

JunkBondTrader

The Noctua NH-D9L is not the right CPU fan/cooler for your Predator PO3-620, send it back and swap it for the "Noctua NH-U9S”

This is bad advice. The NH-D9L fits on the p03-630, and also, upon research I found someone who compared both fans, in what seemed like a pretty controlled experiment, and the NH-D9L preforms quite a bit better, and is a fair bit cheaper. Your advice would have wasted buddies time, money, and computer performance.

Cottiba

oanderson94 said:

Hey, update here. So I was not using the washers. I did need to head out and find some particular screws to fit through them but once that was resolved it was clean sailing. Feel a bit stupid for not realising what those black plastic things were for in the first place

But, the cooler is now set up and installed and straight off the bat I can see that it has reduced my temps down by around 20c in all settings. Happy days!

I have a similar config. But the vga overheats the processor. do you not have such a problem?

GotBanned

Hi there!

What kind of temps do you get now and before you swapped the cooler? How do you know it is the GPU that causes the CPU to overheat?

I'd double check that the contact between the CPU and cooler is good. But before doing that, run some tests that stresses only CPU (ie. IntelBurnTest). If the temps shoot up while the GPU is doing nothing, then there might be something wrong with the CPU installation.

If you do not use HDD shelf in front of the power supply, you might want to remove it altogether for a little bit better airflow. The shelf is attached by few screws and two(?) rivets hidden under the front rubber foot. Oh, and using metal side panel helps to lower the temps as well.

Roelssss

I just did this upgrade aswell. Noctua D9L on PO3-630 (11400f with RTX 3060). Used M3 x 10mm screws from a hardware store. Right after swapping cooler idle temp was 35 degrees Celcius, where with the stock cooler i got around 50. Pretty nice!

SovietDoGGo

what about Noctua NH-U12A would it fit into ACER Predator Orion 3000 PO3-630 i5-11400F with 3060 Ti?

GotBanned

I would have to say no because the cooler is that much bigger. I know that some have installed it into a 5000 series, but 3000s are considerably smaller. You might be able to install it (if GPU doesn't get in the way) but you wouldn't be able to close the side panel anymore.

Those smaller Noctuas will keep your CPU cooler and quieter than the original one you have now.

SovietDoGGo

so i should go with Noctua NH-U9S?
oh and any case coolers you would recommend as upgrade?

ZeDan

https://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-s12a-pwm-chromax-black-swap/specification

I’ve heard great things about these case fans for the Acer Predator. I’m curious to know myself whether the case fans are worth upgrading alongside the cpu fan.

GotBanned

I had PO3-620 and swapped the original cooler with NH-D9L. I must be one of the few since most on this forum went for U9S. Both will do just fine. The other one is a bit heavier, which usually means that it has a better cooling capacity.

As for case fans, as far as I know all 3000 series use 92mm fans. One in the back of the case (exhaust) and one in the front (intake). I replaced those original loud case fans with 92mm Noctuas and not only the temps went down but the PC didn't sound like a jet plane anymore.