I have a QX6700 with eVGA 680i and am surprised about the idle and load temperatures with the (currently installed) Intel stock cooler (60C@idle and 81C@load when the case is closed).

I haven't started overclocking or upgrading the heatsink yet because I had quite a few bios related stability issues with the 680i and want to make sure I have a normal baseline at this point.

Setup:

QX6700
EVGA 680i
case well ventilated -- 3 x 120mm case fans
ASUS 8800 GTX
Thermaltake Toughpower 700 W
Corsair Dominator 8500C5

Measurements:

Im going to show output from several tools because they seem to differ.

Idle (case CLOSED):
CoreTemp 0.94b: 60C on all cores (+/- 2C per core)
SpeedFan 4.31: 50C CPU, 25C System
TAT 2.05: 62C CPU0, 65C CPU1

(60C on IDLE seems high to me, but the case is closed of course. Is this normal?!)

Idle (case OPEN):
CoreTemp 0.94b: 53C on all cores (+/- 2C per core)
SpeedFan 4.31: 43C CPU, 14C System
TAT 2.05: 54C CPU0, 56C CPU1

(Wow, opening the case gave me about 10C.)

Load with 2xOrthos, all cores @ 100% load (case CLOSED):
CoreTemp 0.94b: 81C on all cores (+/- 2C per core)
SpeedFan 4.31: 71C CPU, 59C System
TAT 2.05: 82C CPU0, 81C CPU1

(This seems HOT to me.)

Load with 2xOrthos, all cores @ 100% load (case OPEN):
CoreTemp 0.94b: 70C on all cores (+/- 2C per core)
SpeedFan 4.31: 61C CPU, 44C System
TAT 2.05: 71C CPU0, 71C CPU1

(Better, again 10C gain on opening case.)

I don't see much info around on open vs. closed cases when temperatures are reported. What do people commonly report?. Finally, different tools report different temperatures, and I wonder which one I should trust. Speedfan seems off by quite a bit.

The amount of thermal compound on the Intel heatsink was quite small. Maybe I have a bad thermal connection between the sink and the CPU?

WAY TO HOT

there have been many problems with the factory intel heatsink. you really have to put some serious pressure on these for them to lock into place effectively.

pull it off
clean the heatsink surface
reapply thermal compound
reinstall heastink. make sure those locks pop into place securely. it is damn near scary how much pressure you have to use.

Buy a decent aftermarket heatsink and fan.

I just checked if the seating is ok. It seems to be locked in place, so it must be the compound.

What temps should I be getting with at idle/load with closed case?

aint that the truth? Putting the heatsink on my 6700 was pretty freaky.

But ya, that sounds like either its not on fully or you might be needing a better heatsink/fan. And as you said, the thermal connection could be too small as well, but it doesn't take much.

I've checked around as many sites as possible and the consensus is around 40's C at idle

This is a very common issue with the stock intel cooler. I am very certain it is the seating of the heat sink that is the issue. Just look through the history of this forum. There are probably 20 posts in the past month about high temps with the intel stock cooler. Almost all were solved with re-seating the heat sink. I believe one person actually had it mounted the wrong direction???

A grain of rice is the appropriate amount of thermal compound.

I would seriously suggest ditching the stock cooler for a screw in/back plate designed heat sink.

I have a q6700 also, but it is cooled by the Coolit Freezone. Idle at low to mid 30's C, 40-45 under sustained load and overclocked. Although the temps you sight are high, they arent high enough to damage your cpu. Still, I would invest in another air cooler at the least, and would consider more exotic cooling like the Freezone to protect your expensive CPU.

As far as you bios issues, I have a 680i Evga(whole new system which I got a week ago). Had one hell of a time with a wide variety of problems with the system, drives, os,.... you name it. Flashed the bios with new bios upgrade, now it is rock solid. Look into this issue as it is most likely your problem!!!

I'm probably going to invest in a Zalman 9700 for my setup. Looking at the replies above and other posts, I'm quite convinced and hopeful that my high temps are from the crappy Intel heatsink / seating issues.

Thanks for the input.

Similar story here. The bios update (P23 beta) did *most* of the job for me. I had other issues though. One of them was that nvTune had a habbit of throwing away all my bios settings (didn't even use it). I was very close to returning the board before I found that uninstalling nvtune would solve my remaining bios issues. So far I'm still not impressed with the board, but I'm currently shifting the blame over to the Intel heatsink (see above...).

http://supremelaw.org/systems/heatsinks/warning.htm


Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
http://www.supremelaw.org/
All Rights Reserved without Prejudice

Nothing personal but what were you thinking when you drop four figures on a CPU that you intend to OC and stick the stock HSF on it? There's great air HSFs out there for around $60 which is about 5% of what you spent on the CPU. This is kinda like the people who buy a 10 Megapixel camera and keep the 256MB SD in it!

... or worse, plunking 2 grand into a new computer
and then plugging it directly into the wall socket.

Battery back-ups from APC can be had retail
at Office Depot for under $100 now.

The best ones run $150 to $200 -- very cheap
insurance that will surely prolong the life
of your sophisticated electronics.


With so much information now readily available
on the Internet, people really have no excuse
for such outright negligence.


Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
http://www.supremelaw.org/
All Rights Reserved without Prejudice

I've got a good one for ya. Knew a guy who plugged his brand new multi-thousand dollar PC into the Onan genny in his trailer. Not even through a spike stick! Poof!

POOF! is RIGHT!!

I often ask other people these simple questions:

Did you ever SEE a severe voltage spike?

And, even if you could SEE it coming,
do you think you could act fast enough
to prevent it, moving as it does at
the speed of light?

In other words, by the time one detects that
something is wrong with the computer,
the damages (plural) are already done.


Another thing that bothers me a LOT is that
computer manufacturers generally do NOT
enclose WARNINGS with their equipment --
informing customers of the crucial importance
of a good battery backup unit.

Perhaps these manufacturers are counting
on repair revenues: however, I regard
that omission as pure negligence.

If I were the CEO of such a company,
I would bank on the future revenues
that a company earns with good will,
NOT repair revenues.

And, if one CEO starting doing this,
you can bet that every other one
would follow suit within a matter of
weeks.


Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
http://www.supremelaw.org/
All Rights Reserved without Prejudice

I was in the office of a guy in front of his PC in this fearsome Florida thunderstorm. Noticing he had no UPS, spike stick, or anything else, I asked him if he had considered unplugging his PC to keep it from getting fried. His reply: "If the lightning hits close, I'll unplug it."

Ok, so here it is. I installed a Zalman 9500 just now (with Arctiv Silver 5, so the temps might go down with time). All temps measured with TAT 2.05.

Idle (case OPEN):
43C CPU0, 45C CPU1 (was 54C CPU0, 56C CPU1 with stock HSF)

Load with 2xOrthos, all cores @ 100% load (case OPEN):
62C CPU0, 63C CPU1 (was 71C CPU0, 71C CPU1 with stock HSF)

Idle (case CLOSED):
49C CPU0, 49C CPU1 (was 62C CPU0, 65C CPU1 with stock HSF)

Load with 2xOrthos, all cores @ 100% load (case CLOSED):
69C CPU0, 69C CPU1 (was 82C CPU0, 81C CPU1 with stock HSF)

It appears I gained about 10C-13C with the new heatsink. Should I expect more?

Ok, so here it is. I installed a Zalman 9500 just now (with Arctiv Silver 5, so the temps might go down with time). All temps measured with TAT 2.05.

Idle (case OPEN):
43C CPU0, 45C CPU1 (was 54C CPU0, 56C CPU1 with stock HSF)

Load with 2xOrthos, all cores @ 100% load (case OPEN):
62C CPU0, 63C CPU1 (was 71C CPU0, 71C CPU1 with stock HSF)

Idle (case CLOSED):
49C CPU0, 49C CPU1 (was 62C CPU0, 65C CPU1 with stock HSF)

Load with 2xOrthos, all cores @ 100% load (case CLOSED):
69C CPU0, 69C CPU1 (was 82C CPU0, 81C CPU1 with stock HSF)

It appears I gained about 10C-13C with the new heatsink. Should I expect more?

Still looks hot to me. You're only gonna drop a couple of degrees once the Arctic Silver cures. Are you certain that TAT works with your motherboard? It's usually quite picky about what it works with and what it doesn't.

phew! disaster averted.

looks much MUCH better. once the arctic silver cures you will get a few degress lower as CaptRobertApril has mentioned.

seems to me that your case needs a serious upgrade to the cooling system. what case do you have?

When I was about eleven a thunderstorm was rolling through. We started unplugging everything in the house, and the last thing to be unplugged was the computer. A friend at the time was about three feet away from the outlet, and I was standing at the door. Just then a somewhat jagged line was connected from somewhere near the computer, straight through the window to outside.

Moral of the story: Bastard should have been a couple seconds quicker.

I have an Antec P180. It has four 120mm case fans. One ontop and one just in the path of the HSF (both blowing out). A third is taking care of the power supply and HDs in the (separate) bottom section and a fourth fan supplies air from the front (blowing in).

Any thoughts on that?