High temps & crashes despite great cooling?

[DJLTY]

Hey everyone, I hope you can help me figure out why my system is acting the way it is - I love my Rampage 6E, but the amount of overheating, instability & bugs is really driving me to switch to a completely different platform. Maybe you can help me make heads or tails of this?

I'll try to keep this as brief as possible (full system specs are in my profile). I have a delided i9 7940 with liquid metal, a RockitCool full copper IHS, an EK monoblock, 3 360mm rads, an EK Revo 140 D5 pump/res, & more. Zero reason for this thing to run as hot as it does with all the cooling it has. At first it idled in the low 20s (near ambient), but after about 6 months or so, it started getting warmer & leveled off in mid/high 30s at idle. In stress tests, it hits mid 70s. It's on completely stock settings, stock BIOS, clocks, etc (3.1ghz base, 3.8ghz turbo all core). I've never seen it boost past 3.8ghz on it's own, even though it says it has a max turbo frequency of 4.3ghz.

It simply REFUSES to overclock at all as well. I can barely get 4.0ghz all core without 1.23 or 1.24 vcore, and even then, the temps are pushing 100c or more on multiple cores. I've checked the entire loop multiple times, there's no obstruction in the radiators, hoses, reservoir or pump. No leaks, all the fittings are fine. The pump is running at full speed. I've made sure the monoblock is seated correctly, and makes good contact with the cpu. At first, I thought it just wasn't making contact with the replacement IHS, but I triple checked contact was good, and thermal paste was spreading well. As a last ditch idea, last night I cleaned off the liquid metal and replaced it with Cryonaut, a standard high performance paste. After that, temps were a little higher (+5c ish) than the liquid metal - about 40c idle, high 70s low 80s on stress test.

I've made sure the correct thermal pads are on the monoblock for the VRMs & the temps for those look ok in AIDA64 and BIOS, so I don't think that's causing anything. I've ran my head in circles and literally dissected this computer multiple times with no success at all. I really want to keep this machine, but at the same time I'm tired of it under performing like crazy and crashing all the time. I'm so close to scrapping it and going AMD, with a new motherboard & other bits & pieces, but I don't want to sell the gear I have now for a massive loss if it is in fact fixable.

Would be happy to give more info if you have any questions.

Any ideas?

[RedSector73]

Buddy, I know your pain, sounds like what i went through with my old i7-980x.

Then I jumped ship 1800x which was like 2xbetter, I have 2700x and see my current spec which you would love. Come to the Red side - we have cookies !

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Depending on what fluid you use maybe ek cryocrap the mono block could be clogged along with maybe gpu water block
I've had many issues with navy blue and acid green ek fluids

But aside from that mono blocks really just look cool but even a delid 7940x would do a lot better temp wise
I would suggest using bios flash back to 1705 and see how that goes no need to be on the newest.

Delids do fall off
I had one delid by silicon lottery it only lasted 7-8 months before I had to redo it.
When you delidded did you remove all Intel sealant ?
Silicon lottery leaves it on and says if removed can effect the height of the chip which will effect mono block contact,

But a separate vrm and cpu block will always perform better.

But yes my 9940x is running pretty warm it's an rma replacement though and the first was pretty good it just up and died though.