Q6600 weird temps skyrocket

[MURDEROUS G]

Hi all,

I recently built a rig with a Q6600 and Gigabyte DS3P in a Coolermaster 330 case. The Q6600 proved to be unstable and I had to RMA it. Prior to sending it back, I took a screenshot of its idle temps, OC'd to 3GHz, which follows:

I just received the replacement processor and have put it in the rig, started everything up at stock, and all seems to be well, except for one thing:

Wtf? It's running .6GHz slower with less volts through it and it's ten degrees hotter than the old one? I don't get what can possibly be causing this. The new Q6600 has gone into the exact same rig as the old one. I've applied the same amount of the same thermal paste, and I'm using the same HSF (Arctic 7 Pro). The rig is in the same room with the same airflow at the same ambient temperature. I understand that VID and 'natural' idle temp can vary from processor to processor, but if I remember rightly, the previous Q6600, at stock, idled at ~33°C compared to this one's >50°C. This can't be within the expected spread of variance... right? Something has to be afoot?

I've reseated the HSF about four times and it hasn't made a difference, and just to be doubly sure, I've stood over the case pressing down hard on the four corner pins of the 7 Pro while watching the temperature in CoreTemp and it doesn't budge even a degree. I've also crosschecked the temps in SpeedFan to make sure CoreTemp wasn't misreporting them, and it isn't. Other circumstantial evidence: the metal cooling block of the 7 Pro is markedly hotter to the touch now than it was with the old Q6600 in there.

What gives? Am I being a dumbass (like I suspect) and have missed something really obvious?

 

[MURDEROUS G]

Hi Huddy,

Thanks for your reply.

Stupid question but are you sure the fan is spinning, blowing air into the fins?

Yeah, both the cooler fan and the rear case fan are spinning and shifting the air out the back of the case.

Another point is to make sure the CPU fan isn't in contention with another nearby fan. These are just initial thoughts.

It isn't, AFAIK, and if it were I would have thought I'd have seen the same temps from the old processor? The rig's just been sitting there since I RMA'd the old Q6600 and hasn't been touched, so conditions are exactly the same for the new processor as they were for the old one.

How much thermal paste do you apply?

A friend told me an amount half the size of a grain of rice is about right. I tend to aim for roughly that much, applied such that there's just a very fine layer covering the processor.

You also need to make sure that the CPU and HSF are making good contact. Just apply some fresh paste as normal making sure it's smooth as a babies bum then fit the HSF as you would then remove immediately. Check the paste to see if it's been disturbed. Any remaining "Smooth" areas means the HSF isn't contacting correctly.

I will have another couple of goes at reapplying the thermal paste and reseating the HSF / checking the contact, and see what develops. Thanks for posting the picture, I see what you're getting at there.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

Surface of the new CPU is different to the old... causing worse contact would be my guess...

That might be a contributory factor, but a 17°C jump in temps? I don't see how the surface of the new CPU could cause such a huge change unless it was, like, spherical or something.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

Thanks for all the responses.

what voltage have you got running through the chip in the bios?

Uhm, whatever the BIOS defaults to with everything on Auto. Haven't changed anything yet, just put it in, turned the machine on, thought "Jesus those idle temps are high" and ran to post on OcUK. Looking at CPUZ, the 'Core Voltage' readout hovers in the 1.10 to 1.15 range, which strikes me as very low. I'll set the volts manually in the BIOS anyhow just to be certain.

Have you tried it under load to see what happens

Not really (like w/ Prime95 or anything), I'm concerned about melting it. I did have a tinker with some processor-intensive work applications but the temp rapidly approached 70°C and I shut them down worriedly.

what thermal gunk are you using? Did you clean off the HSF before remounting? If so what did you use to clean it?

Arctic MX-2; yes; a soft cloth.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

sigh

OK, so I take the whole rig apart, remove the HSF, clean off the thermal paste, re-apply as per the instructions in the .pdf linked above, re-seat the HSF, put everything back together and start up again. CoreTemp reports idle temps of.... 35°C!!!! Great, fantastic, brilliant. Victory at last. I guess it had to be a badly seated HSF after all? I potter around for a while browsing, checking CPUZ and SpeedFan and such. 35°C the whole time.

I run a Prime95 test just for a few minutes to see what the load temp is, very roughly. It looks to be about 55°C. Wonderful. I stop Prime95 and wait for the temps to return to normal. They drop back to 48°C...

...

...

...and stay there.

Following is a graph of shortly before, during, and after the P95 test. Note the idle temp of 35°C before load, and then after load, the baseline idle temp has inexplicably risen 13°C to 48°C. It absolutely will not drop below this temp now.

What

the

****.

I've given it another 20 minutes and they haven't shifted. 48°C. 0% load. In fact, in the time I've given them to cool off, the temps have actually crept back up to the ubiquitous 50°C.

Somebody put me out of my misery here. What the hell is going on?

 

[MURDEROUS G]

What hs/f is it? it looks like its struggling tbh or there isnt enough airflow getting through the case

It's an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro. How can it be anything to do with airflow...? As I said above, my last Q6600 was installed in this exact same case with these exact same components, same placement of the wiring within the case etc., ergo same airflow, same ambient temps, same everything, and I didn't have any of these issues. If it was airflow or the HSF being unable to handle the heat a Q6600 produces then I would have had the same thing with the last processor, but I didn't.

The fan on the hs isnt temp controlled is it?

Right now it's on its default profile which I think is a flat 1.2k rpm. [edit] In other words no, I don't think it adapts reactively to temps atm.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

Your first Q6600 wasn't running hot ?

Nope. 33°C idle at stock.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

Have had a feel around the base of the HSF, is it warm or hot?

It's pretty hot, but not significantly more so than any other part of it. What am I looking for here?

 

[MURDEROUS G]

No 2 components are ever the same though so dont expect the same temps.
Airflow can easily affect temps (not saying it is but a possibility) as without it the warm air just hangs around pushing the case ambient higher.

Yup, as I said before, I appreciate that temps vary by component, it's just that 17°C is a bit much! Wrt airflow again, I'm just saying that I doubt it is the cause, because all I have done is taken one processor out of the machine and put another one in. If there is an airflow problem now, then logically there would've been one before, because nothing about the physical configuration of the rig (or the stuff around it on the desk even) has changed.

When you removed the hs/f, how well spread was the paste? my quad was quite badly concaved even though temps were near the same core to core

It was spread evenly across the processor, and the whole surface of it had that kind of 'blistered' look - as in Huddy's pic further up - that indicates contact with the heatsink. To my (admittedly untrained) eye, it didn't seem like any part of it had been out of contact.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

Very strange, only thing i can think of is the hs is either struggling (which it shouldnt) or its not sitting right. The only other possible cause is ambient temp (which you say is the same) or even a concave ihs but the core temps seem to be close enough to suggest it isn't.

There the only things that can cause this looking at the speedfan graph as it cant seem to shift the temps back down ounce its been under load.

It actually doesn't seem to be only if it's been under load, either... I just switched it off, gave it ten minutes to cool down, switched it back on, and idle temp was initially 42°C, but again gradually crept back up to 50°C over the next few minutes. God knows what's going on here.

Out of interest, is it a retail cpu? (may be worth trying the stock hs to rule some causes out?)

It's OEM, sadly, but I have a second rig with an E2180 with stock Intel cooler. I guess I'll switch them around and see what happens, that's a good idea.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

My take on it could be that after prime the chip is heating up and raising case ambient temps, somehow your case isn't shifting the hot air out therefore the cpu idle isn't falling back in line.

I doubt it is this because mostly the chip idles at 50°C from the word go. It doesn't just reach >50°C after being put under stress and then fail to cool down again. Most of the time as soon as I start the machine the CPU idles at 50°C straight out of the gate despite not having been put under any load, at all, at any point.

Re. the airflow thing, as I've said earlier in the thread, I really do not think there's an airflow issue because if there is a problem with the airflow right now, then I would have seen the same problems with the last processor, as the entire rig save the new Q6600 is identical.

Have you checked to see if any of your case fans are running lower than their rated rpm? Also have you tried it with the case side off?

IIRC the case fan is running at the same rpm as always; and the case sides have been off the whole time (as I'm messing about with the insides of the rig at five minute intervals it didn't seem worthwhile putting them on).

Either that and more likely is your hsf is damaged and not dissipating heat after the prime load.

This is the same HSF I was using with the previous Q6600 a few days ago and it seemed to be fine then. I'm not ruling out that the HSF is damaged but it certainly seems unlikely. Again, the issue isn't that the machine simply is "not dissipating heat after the prime load". The processor generally idles at 50°C on startup.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

Some people seem to forget that these are only warranted to run at 2.4GHz any more is beyond specs.

As long as the processor runs, doesnt overheat and shutdown or cause errors at stock then its done what it says on the box and RMA'ing is plain wrong.

jesus christ

I RMA'd it because straight out of the box it was unstable under load. At any speed, including stock, even underclocked down to 1.6GHz.

Two thumbs up for blundering into the thread and ranting that sending it back because it wouldn't do 87GHz on air is "plain wrong"

 

[MURDEROUS G]

Probably a concave IHS on the new chip. You need to recheck to see that youve put enough thermal paste. If its concaave, it might not be making contact everywhere and hence need more paste to fill the gap.

When I last reseated the HSF, I checked as directed in a previous post to see if it looked like it was making contact with the whole of the processor, and it did appear to be. I'll have another go at it though and put more paste on there, see if that makes a difference.

Itl unlikely youll achieve the same temps as the first chip though, since more paste is needed. But still you should see an improvement. Consider lapping if you want to improve it further.

I'll have a read up about lapping, thanks for the suggestion.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

My stock Q6600 idles at 50c and has done since I've had it. Nearly a year now. On load it hit 65c easy. I guess some are WAY better than others.

Is that with stock HSF? Given that my last one idled at 33°C, I just can't believe that 50°C can possibly be normal idle temp for my new one. It just seems like waaaay too much of a jump.

Edit: also the fact that it seems to start up at ~35°C and very gradually creep up to 50°C over the course of about 10-15 minutes makes me think that somehow I must have busted my HSF at some point inbetween RMA'ing the last processor and receiving this one.

Otherwise, your problem is quite puzzling.

It certainly is that, isn't it?

 

[MURDEROUS G]

I'll ask what may be a stupid question...

Some mainboards have fan speed control in the BIOS or software where you set a target CPU temperature. Are you sure you don't have this enabled somewhere. 50C just seems to consistant, it should vary from a hot to cold room if it's an installation error or damaged HSF.

I was puzzled a couple of years back, I'd disabled the fans contol in the BIOS but the MSI core utility had it active an it started up by default when windows loaded. I'd had the chip out a few times before I twigged.

AD

The CPU fan is set to 100% speed all of the time, regardless of load or temp. This isn't default obv, I've just configured it as such to see if I could get a more reasonable temp out of the CPU with all the fans going at full whack. Alas the answer is no.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

Is this issue specific to all CPUs or just the quads/Q6600 I'm upgrading in the next week or so and this thread's got me worried.

Well, my personal experience with them so far has been pretty poor, as I'm 0 for 2 in terms of Q6600s that actually work, but a lot of my friends have them and think they're great, so don't let my troubles colour your perception too greatly.

 

[MURDEROUS G]

Hi mate, you bought a really cheap and under-powered heatsink to go with your Quad-Core. You may have save a few £££ but look at all the agro and headscratching its caused you!

Get yourself a better heatsink and you may find your overheating troubles go away!

Did you read the part where the last Q6600 I had in exactly the same rig idled at 17°C less than the current one?

Unless you're saying that's the 7 Pro's fault I don't see what point you're trying to make.

edit: sorry for being a bit acid again but come on, Q6600 #1 idles at 33°C, Q6600 #2 idles at 50°C, how do you reach the conclusion that the cause of this is LOLOL CHEAP HEATSINK

 

[MURDEROUS G]

1. The heatsink isn't that good to start with.

Should be more than enough to keep a Q6600 below 50C at stock.

2. Don't make an assumption that all CPUs are or will be the same.

I never did. In fact I acknowledged this very point in the first post of the thread, if you take a closer look.

3. Your first Q6600 may have a flat base, that made very good contact with your heatsink, resulting in cool temperatures.
4. Your new Q6600 may have a slightly concave or convex base, therefore it won't be making good contact with the heatsink, resulting in poor heat dissipation and causing high temperatures.

Both these points have already been addressed.

yet you seem to think if first Q6600 was cool, then all others must be!

Oh please. This is nonsense. I've said (many times I think!) that I am well aware that natural temps vary from CPU to CPU, so you've just made this up. That aside, I think everyone can agree 50C idle / >70C under load at stock speed and volts is ridiculous, surely you aren't taking issue with that?

 

[MURDEROUS G]

answer is either:

a) IHS is not flat.. would take out the CPU get a razor blade and have a check

I don't have a razor blade to hand, but I'll check as soon as I get a hold of something suitable.

b) and this will really be an arse you have poor contact between the CPU Cores and the IHS in which case there is nothing that can be done..

Ugh ;-( If this is true I guess I could RMA it again. After all, it's exceeding the recommended safe maximum temperature under load right now at stock settings, I should think that's reasonable grounds for return.

1. Have you updated the BIOS at all?
2. Sorry I have only breifly read the thread so if this has been asked before... I take it you have tried re-seated the heatsink?
3. Have you applied the AS correctly? are you using AS or have you changed thermal pastes?

1. Yes, to ver. F11 I think, the most recent
2. Heh, about a hundred times now. I've also tried other heatsinks, same deal with them
3. Yes, I think so. I've both manually spread a half-grain-of-rice-size amount, and also tried putting considerably more on, not spreading it, and just sitting the HSF down on top of it, as detailed in a .pdf someone kindly linked for me. I'm using Arctic MX-2.