New Q9550 - temp issues

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I bought a new Q9550 to upgrade my E6600 (was running at 3.1Ghz). The Q9550 was installed with the current cooler (Arctic Freezer Pro). I was not happy with the idle temps and reading some OCUK reviews I bought a Zalman CNPS9500 AT cooler. The system is all on auto so no overclocking.

When installed with the included thermal paste I got the following temps:

Core 0 - 42, Core 1 - 39, Core 2 - 31, Core 3 - 39

Redid the HSF with MX-2 using a thin line application and got the following:

Core 0 - 42, Core 1 - 38, Core 2 - 29, Core 3 - 39

The point of me buying the Zalman was to reduce idle temps but there was little difference between the Zalman and Arctic Cooler (although I suspect the Zalman would be better under load).

Using Real Temp Core 3 never goes below 39 and says 0 movement for the sensor. Core 0 never goes below 42 but has movement.

Running the intel burn in test the hottest the CPU gets on any core is 64 (coldest is 56). Is a stuck sensor a fault on the CPU and therefore should be RMA'ed?

Are these normal temps (high + low)? Why such a spread of temps? Is this anything to worry about?

MB is an Asus P5K Pro with 4GB RAM running Vista 64.

Thanks
 
Thanks for the responses.

Could it be auto settings causing heat issues or do I have a duff CPU?

Nice temps on the setup Derek!
 
have you tried re-seating?

Also, you might be correct, the mobo might be giving the processor too much voltage.

download Coretemp, and check what the VID of your processor is, then go into you BIOS and check what the reported core voltage of you cpu is. Set you vcore to whatever the VID is.

Also! Make sure all power saving features are not active when checking VID. Best way to do this is open up programs when looking at coretemp, VID will be up and down. Whateve the highest value is, that's your VID.
 
have you tried re-seating?

Also, you might be correct, the mobo might be giving the processor too much voltage.

download Coretemp, and check what the VID of your processor is, then go into you BIOS and check what the reported core voltage of you cpu is. Set you vcore to whatever the VID is.

Also! Make sure all power saving features are not active when checking VID. Best way to do this is open up programs when looking at coretemp, VID will be up and down. Whateve the highest value is, that's your VID.

I have reseated 5 times now using 2 HSF's and 3 different thermal pastes with the same results. The final way (Zalman with thin line of MX-2) dropped 1 degree on core 1 and 2).

The VID (from memory as I am now at work) I think is 1.25 but I will check the bios when I get home.

Cheers
 
My Q9550 is a bit like that, although not quite as large a difference between the cores. I've got one that is about 6-7C cooler than the rest.

It also idles around 40ish, and that's watercooled, but it's the full load temps that really matter.

These Q9550 I think might be that way inclined.
 
Yeah my Q9550 idles with one core just over 40 and the rest are high 30's with one always being about 7 degrees less than the highest.

At load they sit at about 60 degrees with the difference between cores levelling out to about 5 degrees max.
 
My Q9550 is a bit like that, although not quite as large a difference between the cores. I've got one that is about 6-7C cooler than the rest.

It also idles around 40ish, and that's watercooled, but it's the full load temps that really matter.

These Q9550 I think might be that way inclined.

I hope that is the case regarding these and that I do not have a duff CPU.
 
Just out of interesty does anyone know what the core layout of this CPU is?

If I am looking at the CPU and reading the text from left to right is core 0 top left and core 1 top right?
 
lol shudnt really have your CPU anywhere near 90c. Would start to get worried at anything above 70c imo.

Intel recommendations for 70C are quite conservative. For example i have a q6600 3.2 and gets 63C idle and 87C load(prime 95) for more than a year:cool:

So dangerous temperatures for a cpu is above 90-100C. End of thread.
 
Intel recommendations for 70C are quite conservative. For example i have a q6600 3.2 and gets 63C idle and 87C load(prime 95) for more than a year:cool:

So dangerous temperatures for a cpu is above 90-100C. End of thread.

I would expect a 45nm chip to be running cooler than 42 degrees on one core with decent cooling.
 
Water cooled but idles at 28-29 on 3 cores and 33-34 on other one but levels out under load when it gets to 38ish then all are together till it drops back.
But with the zalman cooling if room temp. is up after several hours it won't come back under 28 till cool down overnight.
 
Have a Q9550 which idle sits at 32 30 30 30, all top at at 59 when using intelburn test but with prime95 can be 6-7 difference between between them 55 48 55 49.. Am using a nocuta cooler +fan and the paste supplied with it in an Antec 900 case... Have also read that the temp sensors can be a bit iffy on the Q9550 so I'm not worrying about it myself as long as the one reading the highest isn't getting too high, like around 70..
 
I have overclocked the cpu to 3.4 and it passes the intel burn in test. The max temp hits 67 (67, 67, 62, 61) degrees in a warm room but the system is stable.

My case is ancient though so airflow could be better. Antec 300 maybe?
 
I have left my q9550 stock for the time being as just upgraded from a 0 airflow case to the haf 932 :) so not began playing yet.

Under full load (prime95) cores highs have hit 58 53 57 56, while on idle i get 36 33 36 36 respectively - ambient was 20c. The heatsink+fan combo is thermalright hr-01 plus + noctua nf-p12 running at 12v. Update to this test, same ambient and using intel burn test with error detection and full test x 5 hit 68 63 63 68, so a full 10c hotter than prime95 could manage.

My vid is running below 1.25 and the processor drops down mhz when idle, ie multiplier goes from 8.5 to 6 (cannot remember which bios setting stop this :confused:)
 
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