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Do I have a dodgy cpu?

Bergkamp

Bergkamp

Bergkamp

Associate
Joined
16 Jul 2009
Posts
491
Ok, this is a new attempt to get this answered.

I built myself a new i5 system a couple of weeks back and now I'm getting worried about my cpu temps at full load. I'm using an Alpenfoehn Brocken cooler and the cpu is at stock speed but with all cores at 100% it reaches a disturbing 84C!

I've made sure the heatsink is seated properly and I used the thermal paste that came with the cooler (possibly too much?) so what else could be giving me such high temps? My idle temps are 29-31C, and the heat dissipates within a few seconds after load dropping back down to the low 40s.

I am worried about this so any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
I think airflow is fine. I have an Antec 300 and the cpu fan blows thru the heatsink and out the rear case fan. Case temps are reading 30C +/- a degree or two. I suppose there might be some minor obstruction to the cpu fan with the cables from my optical drives but I don't know if it'd be enough to hugely impact performance... I'll see if I can get a picture up.
 
But this is meant to be a pretty good cooler. I really don't want to be replacing it after 2 weeks when it should be more than capable of doing the job.
 
Those temps are high for stock speeds! Or is the ASUS AI suite you mentioned providing automatic overclocking? Are you using RealTemp or CoreTemp to read cpu temps?

My i860 gets to 49-52C under load at stock speeds on a cheapy coolermaster 212plus.

First check the fan on the cooler...
What speed is your CPU fan going at while under full load?
Is the motherboard controlling the fan speed as load increases or is it just set at a constant speed?

If thats ok Id check the cooler is seated OK.
 
Right, might be more of an issue here than I thought as both real temp and core temp are reporting idle temperatures of 50C while the Asus program at the same time is showing 35C.

Fan is working fine as far as I can tell, and it scales up its speed as temperature rises, and at 100% it's at 1430rpm.

How much impact can too much thermal paste have? Can't see it throwing temperatures up a good 30C
 
84c sounds wayyy to high for stock if it was overclocked than fine

personally I would have the cooler off, and reapply the thermal paste (replace or re do) than reseat the heatsink, it may look fine but its not, I used to have a OCZ vennetta on annoying push pins.
make sure its on properly, not sure how you put a i5 one on, as I m on the older platform which i5 replaces
 
Those fan speeds sounds ok to me.
Best take the cooler off and check the imprint of paste left on it. Maybe throw up a pic here?
Then check the flatness of the cooler where it lies on the cpu. Lie a flat edge of say a metal ruler across it in multiple directions to see if it is truly flat or not. A small amount of convexity is usually ok, concavity not ok..
 
Ok, cool. I'm off tomorrow so I'll remove it, check the flatness and re-apply the paste.

Am I right in assuming that for intel chips the paste is best applied pea sized and in the centre allowing the heatsink to spread it? Also, what's the best way of removing the residual old paste?
 
Hey setter, is there a common name for that stuff? You know how us norn arn folk like renaming things. I'm just down the road in Ballymoney by the way.
 
I'd agree with checking the cooler.

20 mins of Prime95 right now with my stock intel cooler and my 750 ramped up to 3.6ghz by EPU-6 isn't budging it from 73-75 degrees @ 1.256V.

It was idling at 38-40 degrees at 1.4ghz before that @ 1.106V.


*edit: various programs were playing silly beggars and didn't allow the voltage to drop for 1.4ghz for a bit, showed 1.206v for a while. Does actually drop to 1.106V.
 
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I think everything is working normally now, other than Asus AI suite misreporting cpu temperatures.

I checked everything with the heatsink and it looked fine, gave everything a good clean and put fresh thermal paste on and now, using coretemp to monitor during the intel burn test the hottest any of the cores hit was 54C.

I suppose there might have been air pockets between the heatsink and cpu or something but you just can't tell by looking after you've taken it off.

By the way, is there any reason that the AI suite would be giving such way out temperatures? It tells me I idle at 21C now and coretemp tells me its ~30C?
 
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