High idle temps with original i7 920?

somewhatdamaged · 13 Sep 2009 at 23:58

Hi,

i currently have one of the original Core i7 920 CPUs, with a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme CPU cooler (push/pull setup), Arctic Silver 5 compound, and a Coolermaster Stacker 832 case, all fans populated with Noctua NF-P12's.

My idle temps at stock speeds (auto settings in BIOS) are
49, 47, 47, 48 using Coretemp. If i run small FFTs using Prime95, i am getting 75 degrees on all cores. This seems pretty high for stock speeds?

I have put the paste on very thin and the contact with the heatsink seems solid. If i overclock to 3.2Ghz, my Prime95 temps jump up to 83 degrees on small FFTs and the PC is guaranteed to BSOD with the 124 error code.

Ram is OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8, manually set to 1600Mhz (or as close as it allows)

Anyone have any ideas what i am doing wrong?
Motherboard is an Asus P6T Deluxe, i'm not going over 1.35 vcore in the bios when overclocking

thanks

somewhatdamaged · 14 Sep 2009 at 08:51

Hi,

I'll describe the fans for you, as i'm not sure how to upload a photo!

Top fan blow out
Front fan blows in
rear fan blows out
two side fans blow against both GPUS
Both CPU fans are on a push/pull, both blowing towards the back of the case

i was worried i had a bad chip, as the cooling in the case should be very good, as it's a top end case and a decent heatsink as well

somewhatdamaged · 14 Sep 2009 at 10:50

morning guys,

Perhaps i need to take off the heatsink and reapply the thermal paste.

The cable management is quite tidy, even though the case has a lot in it.

I'll let you know how i get on. I'm wondering if i put the thermal paste on the wrong way around, as i bought the i7 on release day and arctic silver didn't have instructions for the i7 then.

thanks for the advice.

If anyone has the P6T Deluxe and has managed a good solid overclock, i would be grateful for any bios settings you used?

somewhatdamaged · 14 Sep 2009 at 11:26

Thanks for the advice chaps, ill give it a go. I didn't realise the Stacker 832 was supposed to be a bad case, perhaps i need to get a different one then

I was also considering the following for the CPU

"Coolit Systems Domino A.L.C Watercooling System"

I don't know much about it, but i am assuming being a watercooler it should give me lower temps than the TRUE

What do you think?

somewhatdamaged · 15 Sep 2009 at 08:38

Thanks to all your help, i re applied the TIM to the CPU and managed to get my PC 8 hours prime stable @ 3.8Ghz using 1.35 volts

Core temp said the temps were 80,74,75,75 which leads me to believe the TIM wasn't applied very evenly! I might re do it if i buy some more arctic silver.

Might try for 4Ghz but if i can't get it i am still happy

many thanks