Temperatures and thermal paste with dual core

o29

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I recently installed a 3800+ X2 (socket 939) into my DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D. I used Arctic Silver 5 and the stock HSF for the processor, but I have a 250mm intake case fan on the side and two 80mm's and one 120mm exhausts in the back which should provide decent cooling.

I idle around 40C most of the time. I know that's really not that bad. My old CPU (Athlon 64 3400+ socket 754) idles around 28C, but again, no big deal because I'd assume dual cores in general would put off more heat. However, sometimes my temperature goes down as low as 24C. This seems to be a random idle temperature, as I've left my computer idle for 2 days with no use at all and come back and it was at 40C, and I've left it idle overnight to come back to it at 26C. I don't leave processes running in the background other than the obligatory windows ones, and the CPU never goes above 2% anyway while idling regardless of which temperature it seems to end up at.

And yes Cool'n'Quiet is disabled.

I've been thinking. I was always idling at around 40C at first, so I decided to reapply the AS5, and when I did that and turned it on, I was getting temperatures around 30C. I assumed that fixed the problem and went on my way, only to find that after about an hour the CPU shot up to idling at 40C. Whenever I idle at 30C and load something which causes the CPU to work hard and get up to around 50C, it never seems to cool down past 40C again until whenever it will randomly drop back to 30C.

My best guess is that it has something do with the way I applied the AS5. I put some in the middle of the CPU and let the pressure of the HSF spread it out.

What do you guys think? Thermal paste application? I'm hesitant to reapply AS5 because I'm sure some of you know how it can be a pain in the ass to remove the 939 X2 heatsinks (assuming they're all the same) so I'm hoping someone will have an idea of something else to try first.

Thanks guys.
 

Grimmy

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I'd say you applied AS5 correctly.

Hard to say if you gave it enough time to burn in.

After the burn in, it will take another 200 hours to cure.

I wouldn't worry too much with those temps.

The only other question I would ask is your room temps. It does look like your 30-40C temps are affected by time of day.
 

o29

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My room temperature is about 23C so I'm not sure that really has any relevance. Maybe I should Prime95 for a few hours and see if that helps.
 

NaDa

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I think 40C idle is fine for stock cooler. Those stock coolers are really shit. But its nothing to worry about, only if you are ocing!
If you arent ocing then turn on Cool'n'Quiet it's really a nice feature. It will lover your ilde temps considerably.
 

Grimmy

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Thought those AMD stock coolers were pretty good, from what I read. Unless it was the other design AMD was using with the heat pipes.

Yes, I'd agree to be sure you have the most updated bios, if there were temp adjustments fixes that may not be present in an older version.
 

NaDa

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I have a x2 3800 and NewCastle 3500 and that newcastle is 40C idle with stock amd cooler the aluminum one without heatpipes.

I have oced my x2 3800 2.45@1.4v and it's 43C full load with BigTyphoon. 28C idle.
I have almost same temps with the newcastle oced to 2.4@1.5v (stock voltage) on my bigtyphoon so they are probably putting out about same amount of heat.
 

jimw428

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You didn't say, but did you remove the thermal paste from the AMD HSF before you applied the AS5?

If not, you should remove the paste and clean the HSF base and CPU with isopropyl alcohol. The AS5 needs to be spread over the entire CPU heat spreader. Using your finger inside a small plastic sandwich bag works well.