AMD 939 3700+ temperature question

[Pho]

Recently I thought about overclocking my processor (single-core), so I decided to check out what temperature my system was running at only to find it much higher than I thought it was.

I'm using the stock AMD cooler on an Asus A8N-E, with 3 case fans - a 120mm at the front blowing in, and two 92mm fans at the rear, one blowing in, one out. I did have both rear fans blowing out but I reversed one which has dropped the CPU temperature a bit.

Here's the reading from Everest - the reading is similar in the BIOS and other monitoring software.

    Sensor Properties:
      Sensor Type         ITE IT8712F  (ISA 290h)
      GPU Sensor Type     National LM63  (ATI-I2C 4Ch)
      Motherboard Name    Asus A8N-E / A8N-SLI Series

    Temperatures:
      Motherboard         33 °C  (91 °F)
      CPU                 51 °C  (124 °F)
      CPU Diode           52 °C  (126 °F)
      GPU                 45 °C  (113 °F)
      GPU Ambient         43 °C  (109 °F)
      Maxtor 6B200P0      38 °C  (100 °F)
      WDC WD3200JS-00PDB0 37 °C  (99 °F)

    Cooling Fans:
      CPU                 3750 RPM
      Chipset             4116 RPM

    Voltage Values:
      CPU Core            1.42 V
      +3.3 V              3.22 V
      +5 V                5.05 V
      +12 V               11.58 V
      +5 V Standby        4.89 V
      VBAT Battery        3.12 V
      Debug Info F        2D FF 29
      Debug Info T        51 33 39
      Debug Info V        59 00 C9 BC B5 BD 00 (F7)

This is the idle temperature - at full load it goes up to about 65'c, which seems far too hot? From what I've read other peoples run at around 35'c with the stock cooler.

Does any one have any ideas? I took out the CPU and heatsink and cleaned all the old paste off with an alcohol cleaner, but it hasn't made any difference.

Thanks .

 

[Pho]

first of all you should download pc-probe fron the asus site to monitor temps. I wouldnt like to exceed 65c (mines about 54c under 100%load). I found that the biggest drop in temperatures i got was from a better case although im not suggesting you buy a new case just for that! If you just go for a moderate overclock its usually the vcore that pushes the temp up more than the clockspeed itself. You should be able to get some oc out of it with stock volts but i would be checking the temp at every stage.

PC Probe gives the same temperatures as Everest unfortunately. My case was only a budget one though, would it be worth cutting a hole or two in the side of it for extra fans? I have several 120mm fans spare, I could mount one on the side over the CPU and one at the top near the PSU maybe?

 

[Pho]

I have to be Completely honest here (as always )
Asus temp monitoring sucks Donkey ***** through a straw coated in running ****.
I love my Asus board & the one before it, Superb boards the pair of them but as far as temps then the above applies. Every single monitoring software/prog reads a different temp it drives me Insane in the membrane
So what do i do then, Well i just clocked the bejesus out of it gradually until it throttled then tweaked back. Ridiculous a but i don't give two flying ***** as once clocked the boards are super stable & play my games Superbly.

If you are a big Girly you can get a Probe, whip the case off & use that as this is the Only sure fire way of knowing what temps you are really operating under.
My A64 3500+ Never goes higher that 49c & that's after a 3 hour Thrash of BF2 rage. In my messing around i found they are completely fine up to around 55c & then they start throttling slightly, get them up around the 65-70 mark & the brakes are on.

I was hoping that Asus' probes were rubbish . I may try clocking it and seeing what happens, if it runs too hot hopefully it will cut off before setting fire.

I might try sticking the food thermometer in the case and see what reading it gets, I'm sure it'll be accurate enough .

 

[Pho]

Personally i think side mounted fans mess up the airflow.
I always go for two 80's at the front with one 120 exhausting it out the back. This creates the flow you want over & Out of your components/case.
I also have a Freezer on my chip & upgraded GFX cooling.

Ahh ok. I may give your fan idea a try - is two 80s at the front better than one 120? My case has mountings for four 80mm fans at the front but I only have two of them at the moment.

Just check what temp the thermal shut off kicks in at first, 65-70c max

Good point, I think it's on 75'c at the moment.

 

[Pho]

str, I think you may have solved my problem . I moved my 3rd hard disk down to the bottom of the case, leaving a bigger gap for air from the front fan to get through, as well as re-cabling all of my components in an attempt to tidy it up. Here's the readings now:

Temperatures:
Motherboard         25 °C  (77 °F)
CPU                 42 °C  (108 °F)
CPU Diode           42 °C  (108 °F)
GPU                 36 °C  (97 °F)
GPU Ambient         35 °C  (95 °F)
Maxtor 6B200P0      29 °C  (84 °F)
WDC WD3200JS-00PDB0 27 °C  (81 °F)

Now.. do I invest in a better heat-sink too? I fitted a freezer-64 to a friends machine I built a few weeks ago, it seemed very good.

 

[Pho]

The Freezer 64 Pro will likely drop the idle CPU temp by 5-10c and it should cope well enough at load although if you have to increase vcore too much it might end up being heat saturated as it looks like you have a hot running CPU (not a bad thing as usually they overclock very well).

So I'd say it's worth it if you want to overclock a fair bit and it's cooling performance will depend a lot on how hot your CPU actually runs especially when overclocked. I've used a few single-core CPUs with the Freezer 64 Pro and it always performed very well in the past although at around 1.5v or higher it can begin to struggle due to heat saturation.

I'm not too bothered about overclocking to silly speeds. However after reading this - http://www.bleedinedge.com/reviews/processor_reviews/3700sd/3700_San-Diego_03.html - they got it to ~2800mhz with the stock cooler (i don't somehow think mine would reach that ).

Would you recommend another cooler instead? I'm not looking to spend lots

Was difficult at first to see what you had added to what I wrote earlier.

The Maxtor 6B200P0 was running at 38c and it's a 200GB DiamondMax 10 so not that old.

They're both pretty new drives. I have an older 80gb drive in there too, I'd hate to think what that's running at .

 

[Pho]

Ah ok then, I think I'll go and buy one. I know when I tried to fit one to a friends PC it took about half an hour to get the thing locked into the bracket though. Stupid design.

Thanks again .

 

[Pho]

That sounds much better than the way I did it, I'll bookmark it, cheers .