i5 2500K overheating

Doxy · 20 May 2012 at 13:19

I'm a beginner when it comes to hardware, I recently bought the parts for my rig and built it myself, but ever since have been stressing out about the temps of my rig (CPU on my old pre-built rig burnt out). Can anyone guide me through how I could lower my temps during games. There is space on my case for 1 additional 140mm fan and 3 120mm fans.

According to CoreTemp: Idle temps are a comfortable 30 - 35 C but during battlefield bc2 it shoots up to 67-71 C.
volatge is 1.251v

not overclocking! (I don't dare with these temps)

I have an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 CPU Cooler (fan pointing over RAM, heatsink towards case rear)
200mm Case fan mounted on top (air flow out of case)
Z77 MB
HD Sapphire 7850
8 GB Gskill
XFX 550W
HAF 912 Case (Currently have the side off and same temps are reached)

jamesfreddie · 20 May 2012 at 13:21

Have you tried reseating the heatsink?

Do you have any more thermal compound?

Krono5 · 20 May 2012 at 13:28

Isn't 1.251v a little high at stock?

kilohawk · 20 May 2012 at 13:34

Mine reaches around 64 on bf3 multiplayer, and i would suspect mine naturally runs hotter than your's.
They run at 1,25 on auto voltages

Needs reseating, or you have very poor airflow

OR that 200mm fan may be sucking the air out before that small low power fan gets a look in...

Doxy · 20 May 2012 at 16:07

Cheers guys.

So do I reseat it in the same position or try with the heatsink facing up towards the 200mm fan?

Also if I'm going to reseat, how do I clean up the cpu and heatsink of thermal paste before applying fresh stuff?

I found an article Which says 75-85 under load is fine... is this trustworthy? I don't want to shorten the life of my cpu and doesn't the efficiency drop with temp too?

Would a 120mm fan maybe on the front of the case blowing out improve airflow?

Or a 120mm on the rear of the case blowing in?

CEUOTC · 20 May 2012 at 18:12

Doxy said:
Cheers guys.

So do I reseat it in the same position or try with the heatsink facing up towards the 200mm fan?

Also if I'm going to reseat, how do I clean up the cpu and heatsink of thermal paste before applying fresh stuff?

I found an article Which says 75-85 under load is fine... is this trustworthy? I don't want to shorten the life of my cpu and doesn't the efficiency drop with temp too?

Would a 120mm fan maybe on the front of the case blowing out improve airflow?

Or a 120mm on the rear of the case blowing in?

1. Any type of cleaning agent IPA or Anti-static aircraft display wipes will do.
2. Don't have the rear 120mm blowing in, it will disrupt the airflow causing dead spots.
3. Try for 1 to 2 120mm or 140mm fans blowing in from the front.
4. Aim to expel the air to the rear and top with either 120/140/200mm fans.
5. Try cable management to clean up the airflow inside the case.
6. Ensure the Case has ample air around it and not locked away.
7. HSF orientation is pretty much fan to the front blowing to the rear (same idea if push/pull) and if going for the down to up approach, fan drawing air from the bottom to the top of the case.
8. Depending on what you do the top fan can either exhaust or bring air in.
9. YouTube Computer Airflow and Air Pressure.

Regards.

C.

itchy · 24 May 2012 at 23:38

Yer something wrong mate, I hit 68c at 4.8/1.33v with kuhler 620.

Remount your cooler take side off case and run, check air flow put you hands, face, lighter to check air flow. Lighters are good as the flame should blow out towards the back of the case. If it stays lit you got bad air flow, if it blows out to the front of the case, bad air flow.

So open the case get a small lighter low flame and stick it in there see which way it blows out.

Barry1987 · 25 May 2012 at 10:00

Doxy said:
Cheers guys.

So do I reseat it in the same position or try with the heatsink facing up towards the 200mm fan?

Also if I'm going to reseat, how do I clean up the cpu and heatsink of thermal paste before applying fresh stuff?

I found an article Which says 75-85 under load is fine... is this trustworthy? I don't want to shorten the life of my cpu and doesn't the efficiency drop with temp too?

Would a 120mm fan maybe on the front of the case blowing out improve airflow?

Or a 120mm on the rear of the case blowing in?

I use AKASA TIM cleaner to remove the thermal compound. It's really effective.

If I were you I would also lower the vcore to 1.050-1.100v. My i7 3820 @ stock is at 1.050v and runs much cooler than when the default 1.200v. Never had any problems with this low voltage (over 2 months now).

The orientation of the heatsink shouldn't matter too much as long as you have exhaust fans on either the top or back of the case or both.

75-85 under load should only really be with stress test programs such as Prime95 and even that's very high. I personally didn't go over 55 with Prime95 running at default settings (no idea what the settings do) for 20 minutes. That was yesterday. Idle temperatures are generally between 30-33. In games I don't usually go over 45 degrees so something is definitely wrong with your load temperatures.

You're in the UK, right? Keep in mind with this weather you are likely to have higher temperatures than usual unless you have good air conditioning in the room.

So my suggestions in a nutshell (in order):

* Remove the compound with TIM cleaner
* re-apply the compound (just put a small pea size in the centre of the cpu) and place the heatsink on top (try and place it heatsink equally over the cpu on each side)
* Use the cable management method like CEUOTC suggested. Place as many cables as you can at the back of the case.
* Correct airflow if it's not optimal: Intake - front, side, bottom fans. Exhaust - back and top
* Make the vcore lower

One more thing. Is this an Ivybridge or Sandybridge CPU? The Ivy is known to have overheating issues (especially when overclocking).