DS3 and E6400 Temp Problems - HELP!?!?!

[MAK-Daddy32]

Using CoreTemp and Everest my temps are 41 C at idle and jump to 63 C at full load (5 or 10 minutes of dual instances of Prime95).

I've tried re-seating the HSF... removed HSF (stock) and cleaned off the stock Thermal Paste with alcohol added AS5 in a line per the AS websight and re-seated the fan.

CPU is running at stock speeds and voltage.

I know these temps are high - is a 20 C delta between idle and load normal?

Is it just me or do there seem to be a lot more instances of C2Ds running hot on this board than others?

Has anyone not been able to fix temp issues by re-seating the HSF?



SPECS
e6400 at stock speeds
Gigabyte p965-DS3
GeForce 6800
system hdd 74 GB raptor
storage hdd 160 Maxtor
case = Lien Li 7b pluss 2 (2 120 mm fans one in front one in back + 80mm blow hole fan.
Antec TruePower 550W
1 GB (2x512) Nanya RAM @ 533Mhz

 

[MAK-Daddy32]

Any thoughts would be appreciated...

 

[rushfan]

That's actually not so bad. The AS5 takes 200 hours to cure and should drop temps by a few degees.

Core Temp reads the temperature from a digital sensor embedded in the processor instead of a diode on the motherboard. The temperature reported by Core Temp is usually 6 - 10C higher than the temperature recorded by utilities like Speedfan and EasyTune, which read from the diode.

Use EasyTune to check the temps - they're probably a lot lower and well within spec for the E6400. I'm getting the impression that Intel's stated 61C limit is the external temperature, not the internal.

 

[MAK-Daddy32]

Thanks for the response. There sure is a lot of conflicting information out right now regarding C2Ds and tempatures. Was thinking of trying some mild overclocking but not if temps were already high.

 

[rushfan]

It's really hard to get a straight answer about the temperatures.

My theory is that the 61C limit is the external temperature as read by 99% of the motherboard sensors out there. Otherwise, there would be a lot of people feeling good about their CPUs hitting 55C during heavy gameplay, as reported by say, EasyTune - when in reality they were cruising at 63C and operating outside of the CPUs limits. At least, I hope that I am right!

The E6400 is an amazing overclocker - at least mine is, and those of many people who have posted in this forum. Even so-so E6400s hit 3.0 GHz which is still a pretty good number, in my opinion. Everybody agrees that better cooling is required for moderate to extreme overclocking. There are better coolers for the money than the Zalman 9500 (though it's still an OK solution), and water cooling isn't the great expense that it once was. My Zalman was never intended for the Socket 775 processors that I have owned - I bought it to use with my Athlon64 3000+ for which it was more than a match. I'm going to have to pony up the dough for a water cooling rig sooner than later.

 

[MAK-Daddy32]

Do you mind if I ask what voltages you're running to his 3.4? Any idea what I can get on stock HSF?

 

[rushfan]

Do you mind if I ask what voltages you're running to his 3.4? Any idea what I can get on stock HSF?

It takes 1.3625 to maintain stability at that speed. Otherwise, I get errors when using Prime95 to torture test the CPU.

I never tried the stock fan but you could probably get to 2.66 GHz (333 front side bus) without having to change the fan or increase the voltage. Press Ctrl+F1 when in the BIOS to view the advanced options.

There's a sticky in the CPU section for Core 2 Duo overclocking. If you haven't looked at it already, it's a good read.

Happy overclocking!