i5-4690k running hot at stock with NH-D14

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Hakuromatsu

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Jul 1, 2014
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- i5-4690k at stock (3.5 GHz)
- NH-D14 with default fans at ~1250 RPM under load, installed with a pea-sized dab of Noctua's paste
- Fractal Design Define R4 with Fractal's two included fans; intake in front with a clear shot to my graphics card and exhaust in back
- EDIT: MB is Asus Z97-A with up-to-date BIOS (1205)
- An ambient temp of ~25°C

My idle core temps are low-to-mid 30s -- fine. But with Prime95 Blend at stock my cores are hitting 85°C and averaging low 70s.

That's seems beyond normal "reseat the heatsink and try again" advice. What could be going on here?
 
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volcanoscout
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oczdude8

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not really, that's exactly what happens in bad heatsink installations.

One thing you can try before you do that, is check your cpu voltage. It may be your mobo's "dynamic" voltage control is just increasing the voltage on the CPU since it sees it has thermal headroom. If your voltage is more then stock voltage, then go and manually set the voltage in the BIOS
 
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Hakuromatsu

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Hm, okay. Any installation advice, then?

The only problem I can think of off the top of my head is not tightening the two screws enough turns.



I'll take a look when I get home today.

Thanks!
 
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volcanoscout

volcanoscout

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I agree with oczdude8. I have an almost identical build, but with a 4670K. I usually keep my 4670K (which runs hotter than the 4690K) at 4.2GHz for daily driving, and when I Prime95 it, it rarely goes over low 60s. I would repaste it and make sure that the D14 is screwed down tight. Not grrr'ed, but tight.
 
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Rookie_MIB

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A quick question - is your CPU throttling? Many times on the tech sites when they do an overclock they track the temps vs speed and quite often I see them on their stress testing hitting 90c temps without worrying. If your CPU is throttling, then it's getting too hot. If it's happily humming along at 70c or so under load with all four cores (ie: 20 degrees under what people say is ok for overclocking) then I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Remember, the Haswell series processors are very compact/dense, they don't move heat very well since they have such a small die area and there is also a great deal of variation in how efficient they are even if they're binned in a similar performance envelope.

Heck, I have an AMD E350 setup which hasn't been touched and it idles at 55c (which is normal I guess for this processor).
 
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Hakuromatsu

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Huh, should've checked the voltage after the first few minutes. Apparently Asus thought I needed an extra 0.125v to run at stock. Thanks?

Anyway, that same voltage (1.175v) is enough to get the CPU to 4.2 GHz stably, so with that and a reseat (using the vertical stripe method instead) that dropped me ~9°C I have a stable overclock I'm happy with. Not amazing, but better.



What's your ambient temp, and what exactly is "rarely" over low 60s? Does a core peak above 65°C at all?
 
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volcanoscout

volcanoscout

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I did a couple of fresh runs of small FFT because I can't find my notes from previous tests. The first run I let the software run the fans which kept the CPU fans at 40% and case fans at 60%, ambient is @ 21C, voltage is 1.20V, mobo starting temp 28C, CPU package 30C:
Max temps at 10 minutes: Core 0: 65 / Core 1: 67 / Core 2: 64 / Core 3: 64 / Package: 67
Max temps at 20 minutes: Core 0: 68 / Core 1: 70 / Core 2: 66 / Core 3: 64 / Package: 70

After that, I gave a minute to cool and started a fresh run with CPU start temp 32C and all fans maxed:
Max temps at 10 minutes: Core 0: 59 / Core 1: 62 / Core 2: 59 / Core 3: 57 / Package: 62

If you want, I can do additional runs at higher clocks.
 
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Hakuromatsu

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Okay, thanks for the data. Your ambient temp is about 20% of our max core temp difference, the rest is...I don't know.

I'm mildly disappointed with how how the cooling has worked out, but tbh I'm not entirely unhappy. I don't even really need as much as 4.2 GHz, and the real-world heavy CPU usage I've tested (Europa Universalis IV on speed 5 and Metroid Prime in Dolphin) is averaging mid 40s and peaking mid 50s. Fine by me. I'll try out a game that uses all four cores more heavily but it shouldn't be that much worse, and I only video edit very occasionally.

Thanks to both of you! I guess I'll go with volcanoscout as the solution for the testing.
 
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volcanoscout

volcanoscout

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I guess I got lucky on the silicon lottery with my 4670K chip then, considering my temps. Of course that was only at 4.2GHz, although they weren't a lot higher at 4.6. If I remember correctly, my package temp max was 70C, don't remember the core specifics. Couldn't get it Prime95 stable above that.

I got my 4790K and Hero VII yesterday - I'll post my temps with 28.4 or the lastest release, and with 26.6.
 
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