Advice on overclocking and cooling a QX6700

jamesd

jamesd

jamesd

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20 Aug 2010
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I have a QX6700 clocked at 3.2 and the temps displayed in HWmonitor are 40-50 degrees C when idling and can hit 96 degrees C when doing an intelburn stability test. While gaming the temperature usually hits about 85 degrees C max. Are these temps too high? I am using a Scythe ninja plus CPU cooler and have 2x 12cm fans in my case, one as an intake on the front and one as an exhaust at the rear. I also have a 9cm fan on the side window of the case which is blowing air in, should I change this so it takes air out instead? I have already taken the CPU cooler off and re-seated it and applied fresh thermal compound. Is there anything else I can do to try and lower the temps.

On the overclocking side I have increased the multiplier to get the CPU from 2.66 to 3.2 however I stopped there as the temperatures worried me. If I can lower the temperatures would it be safe to overclock this CPU further?

My system specs are:

CPU - Intel QX6700 with Scythe ninja plus cooler

Main board - Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6

Memory - 6GB corsair dominator DDR2 800

Graphics – EVGA GTX550 TI 1GB

Power supply – Thermaltake purepower 680 watt

Case – Thermaltake Tsunami dream
 
what voltage is the processor currently running with ?

those load/gaming temp are way to high, try checking coretemp for temp monitoring as well.

whats the temperature in the room, as this will affect case temps etc.

try the side case fan exhausting and see if changes the idle temps, make sure to check it as intake and exhaust at the same sort of time, rather than days apart as the room temps etc might be different and affect the temps you get.
 
Thanks for the reply. I haven’t altered any of the voltage settings in the bios and have left them on auto. So they should be the default but I shall check what the voltage reads in HWmonitor and report back. The room temperature is usually around 20 degrees C. My motherboard has some massive heat pipe contraption on it which keeps the case temps quite high. I have thought about removing it but would prefer not to.
 
when you next have the computer on, watch the temps for a few minutes, then once they've settled take the side panel off the case and see if the temp drops.

if its only 1-2 degrees then it looks like the case airflow is ok, if it drops 5+ degrees then the case airflow could be better.

is the cabling etc in the case fairly tidy ?

default voltage for the processor is 1.35 so see if setting that manually in bios affects the idle temps.

might be a daft question but have you got the fan on the cpu cooler so its pushing the air through the cooler out to the exhaust fan at the back ?
 
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Thanks! I shall get the voltage readings and test with the cover off tonight when I finish work and post up the results.

It’s not a daft question at all and.... erm no I haven’t got it pushing air through the cooler towards the exhaust. That is the way I wanted to install the cooler and fan but the layout of my motherboard and case only allows me to put it in one position. The position it’s in blows the air through the cooler towards the power supply rather than towards the exhaust fan. I have tried to tidy the cabling but after looking at come case insides on the forum mine doesn’t look that tidy anymore. I shall take pictures of it tonight to let you see the cabling and the CPU cooler fan in relation to the exhaust fan.

Thanks for your help
 
It does run at similar temps at stock speeds, it drops down a tad but not much. Its idles at 40C and during intelburn test it hits 90C max and 80C while gaming.
 
Ok I have run the PC with and without the cover this evening and the idle temps dropped by 2 degrees C without the cover. I have also changed the direction of the side window fan which has made little difference. The side case fan is actually right over the CPU cooler so probably isn’t doing much good.

The CPU voltage in HWmonitor is 1.23 should I try setting it manually in the bios to 1.35?

Here are a couple pictures to show the layout of the CPU cooler and the cables in the case:

DSC01230.jpg


DSC01232.jpg


DSC01235.jpg


The side panel fan is right above the CPU cooler so that’s probably not doing a lot of good, I know the cabling isn't the best but hopefully it isn't causing air flow issues?
 
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I have installed core temp to check what the CPU temperature’s read with a different program. At idle the temps with core temp are 40C and under load with Intel burn they read 80C and hit 85C after 10 continuous runs. I also installed the monitoring tool that came with my motherboard and according to the motherboard the CPU temp on idle is 35C and 76C under load with intel burn. Seems to be quite a variation between the different programs but even still the temperatures still seem to high. I tried putting two smaller fans on my CPU cooler in a push pull configuration and pointing the flow towards the case exhaust fan this made the temps drop by about 5C at most so I have just gone back to having the single larger fan as in the pictures. Does anybody have any suggestions what I can do to lower the temps? I also put the CPU back to stock settings to perform these tests so it wasn’t overclocked at all.
 
tbh the cabling isn't to bad, you have the intake fan by the hard drive so if its pushing air in it should be supplying some decent cooler air to the cpu.

if that is the desk behind the pc where its normally put are you leaving space for the exhaust air to clear out the back, only needs to be about 6-7 inches.

just out of interest what bios is the mobo running, checked the site and noticed:

F4 2007/05/21

Update CPU ID (Support Intel Kentsfield G0 Stepping CPU)
**** Modify Current CPU Temperature

when you've reseated the cooler have you made sure not to put to much thermal paste on it ?
 
Yeah that is the desk behind it, I usually have the case sticking out past the desk a little to make sure I get enough room for the exhaust. For the last few tests the PC has been out from the desk in the middle of the floor to see if that helped, but it didn't make much difference. I may have used too much thermal paste. I read a guide on it and it said to use an amount the size of a grain of rice and then spread it out. The other thing I have noticed is that the bottom fin of the CPU cooler rests on the heat pipe fins for the motherboard and I am wondering if the cooler isn’t seating properly. It’s the push style clips that hold it on and they all clicked when I fitted it. Maybe I shall take the motherboard out the case and reseat the CPU cooler and check its clearances on the heat pipe. Having said that the caps on the heat pipes in the CPU cooler get hot to the touch and the fins on the CPU cooler get hot while it’s running at 90C. I’m pretty sure I have the latest F6B bios installed however I shall recheck it tonight. If it’s not the F6B then it’s likely to be the F5 bios. I was looking at the corsair hydro coolers and was considering one of those but I believe they need to be mounted where the exhaust fan is and would convert that into an intake fan instead? So I don’t think that is a good idea because I would have more intake fans than exhaust fans and I don’t have any spaces for more fans.
Thanks for all your suggestions and your help I really appreciate it.
 
ahh the push clips can be a bit of a **** to get seated properly.

wouldn't think about a new cooler just yet, as it will be better to make sure this one is seating properly first.

if you can't get it seated then we can figure out the way to go, could go with the hyrdo coolers if clearance around the cpu socket seems to be an issue, also worth a look at the OcUK H²Flo/antec ones.

as for the cooler using the space of the rear exhaust fan, we could always switch round the side /front fans to balance things out.
 
Well I have had the CPU cooler off again, I took out the ram to give me better access. I checked the clearances on the CPU cooler and the motherboard heat pipes and they are very close to touching but don’t touch. I am pretty sure I am getting the cooler to seat properly. All 4 push clips click when I press down on them and they are all pushed through the motherboard as they should be. I also touched one of the heat pipes on the cooler when the CPU temps were hitting 90C odd and it was rather hot to the touch. If I held my finger on it for any length of time it was uncomfortable so I think it is making good enough contact and transferring the heat as it should. While removing the heat sink I remembered why I had gotten a push clip style cooler in the first place, and that’s because the heat pipe on my motherboard has a plate over the bottom of the CPU socket on the back of the board. This means the mounting brackets for other coolers will not fit.
After checking all of this the temps are still at 60C on idle :( I'm not too sure what else to check now. I would have thought the scythe cooler would have been adiquite enough to cool the Qx6700
 
for those sort of temps the only things i can think of are:

1) room is that hot that the air going into the case isn't helping cooling
2) airflow is poor (but the temp only dropped 1-2 degrees when we had the side of the case off so imo thats ruled out)
3) cooler isn't seated properly (ruled out by your double checking it)
4) to much thermal paste on the processor (did you remember to put a VERY thin layer on ?)
5) to many volts through the processor.(but software says not)

really at a loss to think of anything else it can be.

did u check the bios version ?
 
Thanks for the reply. I'm stuck too I am debating whether or not I should remove the motherboard from the case and fit the CPU cooler and then refit the motherboard to make sure the cooler is defiantly seated properly. I don't know if this will make much difference and seems like a lot of hassle and I am pretty sure the cooler is seated properly. The room temperature is 20C according to a digital thermometer. I think I have applied the thermal paste correctly although in places it might be a bit thin will that make a difference? The BIOS is the Q6 beta version I was wondering if flashing it to the Q5 which isn’t a beta version might help. The other thing is there is quite a lot of difference in the temps reported by HWmonitor and Core temp. Core temp reports that the CPU idles at 40 to 50C and hits 80 t0 85C under load with Intel burn.
Do you think a different CPU cooler would help or should the scythe cooler be adequate?
 
despite the temp difference on hw/core temp for the processor running at default speed etc 80-85 is still way to high :(.

would be worth taking the mobo out just to check that the pins lock into place properly, are they currently locked tight, ie if you lightly try to turn them theres no movement ?.

thermal paste thinner is better, all your trying to do is even out the surface on the processer to mate up to the cooler as flat as possible to allow for the best heat transfer.

the scythe cooler should be fine.
 
I have a QX6700 and I could never get the temps down until I lapped it. The heat sink on the chip was convex so coolers never fitted properly.

Now I've flattened it stays nice and cool at 3.2 with 1.3v (wouldn't over clock with less)

Now it's on an H50 and usually stays between 35 & 60 even when I use it for 3D rendering. It used to be 40-90 at stock on a Zalman CPNS 9500 & a Freezer pro 7 and I forget what else before.

I'd have a check yours is flat, I went through a few coolers before realised it was the chip.
 
flippant said:
I have a QX6700 and I could never get the temps down until I lapped it. The heat sink on the chip was convex so coolers never fitted properly.
Click to expand...

OP, to check it best to get the processor out of the mobo, then get a flat surface (razor blade ?) and put it on top of the processor and see if you can spot much light underneath the blade.

start the blade at the furthest point of the processor from you and move it towards you and see how things go.
 
Many thanks for the replies. I have removed the motherboard from the case and re-seated the cooler and checked that it was clamped properly. The cooler seemed to be clamped properly. I have also cleared off the thermal paste and re applied. When I first put the PC back together and fired it up core temp reported the idle temps as 25C and HWmonitor reported 39C which seemed to be a big improvement. I then ran Intel burn and watched the temps in core temp and HW monitor in core temp it hit 81C and HWmonitor it hit 96C which still seems a bit high. It only hit those high temps for a few seconds and averaged at around 60C during the Intel burn. After running Intel burn the idle temp has increased to 33C in core temp and 44C in HWmonitor. I also checked the CPU and heat sink with a steel rule both seem to be fairly flat so I don’t think they require lapping. Are these new temps still a bit too high? I’m really stuck now I was hoping removing the board and refitting was going to solve the problem :(
 
yeah the load temps are still to high for my liking.

has the system ever run at normalish temps (60ish degrees under load) ?

make sure you have coretemp and HW loaded in the background then use the system as normal and see what temps you get.
 
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