How do i get accurate cpu temps?

McGamer

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Jan 24, 2014
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For some reason my cpu temps seem to be all over the place. Aida64 says one temp, HWmonitor says something different, Asus AI suite says something else which is closer to Aida, bios has a different temp. Temps are ranging from 30c in Aida and AI suite, to 65c in HWmonitor on IDLE! Whats weird about HWmonitor is that a slight change in cpu speed increase the temps dramatically. For example HWmonitor will be at 48c on idle(???) when cpu is at 2ghz then as soon as it hits the 3ghz it goes to 60's and drops back down. However in all the other programs temps well change maybe by 3-6 degrees(This is all on idle btw). When on constant load cpu temps in HWmontior show 70-80c(fluctuation from 60's) and in all the other programs its usually around 50-60c. Am i just worrying for no reason?? I ran prime95 for about 20 minutes and HWmonitor said cpu temps were at 80 the whole time. Not sure if they actually were or not. I would appreciate any helpful tips or experiences you guys have had cause this is stressing me out.

Specs:
AMD Athlon X4 860K, 4000 MHz
Hyper 212 Evo (previously was a hyper TX3, didn't really have a big affect on temps)
Radeon HD 7770 1gb
Asus A88X-Pro Motherboard
8gb 1600 Ram

 
Solution
HWmonitor sucks and is largely inaccurate for the majority of sensors on a lot of systems. If you want to monitor temps you should be using either HWinfo or Core Temp. You may also be seeing sensor reading in those different programs that are basing cpu temps off of entirely different sensors. One app may use the package temps while another uses Core0 or the motherboard sensor. Use Hwinfo and run "sensors only". Or use Core temp, then report back if you're still seeing crazy temps.

HWinfo: http://www.hwinfo.com/download.php


Core Temp: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/


If you have a Core temp over 35°C at idle with no applications running, there is an issue and it needs to be addressed. Most likely poor mounting pressure or an...
HWmonitor sucks and is largely inaccurate for the majority of sensors on a lot of systems. If you want to monitor temps you should be using either HWinfo or Core Temp. You may also be seeing sensor reading in those different programs that are basing cpu temps off of entirely different sensors. One app may use the package temps while another uses Core0 or the motherboard sensor. Use Hwinfo and run "sensors only". Or use Core temp, then report back if you're still seeing crazy temps.

HWinfo: http://www.hwinfo.com/download.php


Core Temp: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/


If you have a Core temp over 35°C at idle with no applications running, there is an issue and it needs to be addressed. Most likely poor mounting pressure or an incorrect paste job, but there are other possibilities as well.
 
Solution

McGamer

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Jan 24, 2014
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What i find amusing about HWmonitor is that as soon as i open google chrome or any program for that matter, it says the temperature increased by 8c
 
The AMD FX and newer Athlon series chips get there temps from an equation that uses the power consumed and load on the cores to tell the "CPU" temp thus is very inaccurate especially at low temps. This is why standard programs no longer show accurate AMD temps. For AMD CPU's it is best to use AMD Overdrive and reat the thermal margin. This temp tells you how close you are to throttling causing a loss in performance. This is not a "CPU" temp reading but as long as you keep the thermal margin in the green you will not be over heating. This is also very useful when OCing these CPU's due to knowing how much more room you have to go with temp.
 

McGamer

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Jan 24, 2014
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I just got Amd overdrive and tried to find temps, all i found was a thermal margin which says 70c. What does that mean?
 
Having used Overdrive extensively previously, AND using HWinfo and Core Temp, I've not seen any disparaging results that would indicate Overdrive was more accurate using it's thermal margin readings than Core Temp's calculations are (And you can also switch the view to thermal margin in Core Temps settings) or HWinfo's reported core temps when compared to the cpu specs. Manually calculating my distance from the temps reported in those two programs to what the given chip model initiates throttling at has consistently shown to be equal to the thermal margin values shown in Overdrive or the thermal margin value given in Core Temp.

So it's not any more accurate, it's just a more generally accepted method of measuring AMD processor temps. I'll grant you that the AMD sensors are nowhere near accurate at the low end of the scale, but that's not generally where you'd be focusing your attention anyhow. As long as you're operating within a temperature range that doesn't incur any core throttling or engage the thermal protection shut down, who cares.

HWmonitor on the other hand, has consistently been shown, to myself and a lot of others, to have issues with any resembling accuracy on both thermal and voltage sensor values.
 
That, again, depends. Many BIOS have faulty temperature tables, thus the BIOS updates that correct those tables we see in many cases. Which also leads to the fact that if there is a BIOS update available for your board, I'd recommend you install it. The last couple of updates for that board deal with stability regarding the X4 860k as well.

http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/A88XPRO/HelpDesk_Download/
 
to the OP, i had some overheating issues with an intel cpu on an asus mobo - asus's AI Suite III never showed temps higher than 67C - found when i downloaded RealTemp and intel's utilities that my cpu was actually at 99-100C

when i've un-installed AI Suite III, temps came down some, just from that un-installation. Few days ago i was urged to re-install the AI Suite III and it showed the same max temp of 67C under 100% load (while RealTemp was showing 82C), and my core temps at idle jumped up 8-10C no matter what monitoring utility i used. I left it installed for 2 days to see if it "settled in" and nothing changed. I un-installed it again and used the recommended AI Suite "cleaner" utility and all is back to normal. The AI suite apparently conflicts with other aspects of the BIOS and also conflicts with other monitoring utilities. I like ASUS boards, i've just come to the conclusion the AI utilities are best left on the CD

fwiw
 
I dislike ALL the OEM utitilies (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ASRock) except some of the GPU tweaking utilities. They all make manipulations to bios settings behind the scenes, sometimes in direct conflict with manual settings you may have configured, and in my experience cause issues more often than not. The same goes for the AMD Overdrive utility. I've seen numerous systems that had to have the OS reinstalled to remove registry settings that completely bypassed manual bios settings regardless if you reflashed or not.