Noob needs help with C2D Temperatures

[pellegro]

Hi all - just finished my first build. Using an EVGA 680i, E6700 C2D, and then a bunch of other stuff that probably doesn't matter. Its all packed in an Antec P182 case.

Basic issue - I haven't installed an OS yet, but the BIOS CPU reading, at idle (since its only running BIOS) is 55 C. That seems really high.

I'm using the stock fan. I tried to remove the grease it came with and applied AS 5 instead (followed directions pretty well ... I thought).

Per the Guide posted here as a sticky this seems high. Is it? Have I done something wrong? Should I pull the CPU fan, clean it and the heatspread, and try again? I'm using alcohol (91% pure) for cleaning, and a lint free eyeglass towel.

I don't need the absolutely maximum OC for now - I just want to know that I've put everything together well and that its going to hold up with some simple OC'ing through the very nice automated OC options that this MOBO has. I'll go back later after I've explored the options of the BIOS (this is my first time to use non-Dell computer, first build, first everything) and work on getting everything *perfect*.

NB - I read the guide but honestly couldn't follow ...

Thanks.

 

[sn0b0ard]

55 degrees celsius is really high for idle, that should be your 100% load temp, not idle. Check to make sure your fan is operating properly on the heatsink. If its the stock heatsink, there shouldnt be an issue with the thermal compound because it is already applied on the heatsink. Also check your bios to make sure that it is not reducing the speed of the fan, c2d mobos typically have advanced thermal settings that reduce or increase the fan speeds depending on load, so you may want to disable those settings and have your fan run at 100% all the time. If all else fails, take the heatsink off, clean off the compound and replace with some good artic silver or whatever thermal compound you can find, it shouldnt matter too much for a stock heatsink. If you are going to overclock, I would definately recommend an aftermarket cpu cooling system. Zalman makes some pretty good cooling systems, although there are a ton of good cooling solutions to choose from.

 

[pellegro]

Well ... I tried to remove the heatsink and fan, cleaned up all the old AS5 with isopropyl alcohol (91%), then reapplied per instructions of Arctic Silver.

Reattached fan.

Rebooted.

Still getting temps over 50C at idle.

What do I do now? Should I RMA the processor and try again? Maybe its convex or concave? I'm not anywhere near comfortable lapping ...

Suggestions?

I appreciate it; thanks in advance.

Truly,
Concerned First-Time Builder

 

[sn0b0ard]

What RPM is your fan spinning at??

If it's between 1000-2000rpm then its working properly.

If not then there may be something wrong with the fan on the cpu cooler or there's a thermal setting that is slowing the fan down in the bios.

Maybe the mobo isn't reading the temps properly?? I know from experience that when I installed my e6420 in my GA-965P-DS3 mobo, the temps were really cool, like 27 degrees celcius reporting in the bios.

I checked in windows with TAT and my temps were in the mid 30 range, which is about right for C2D's.

I updated the bios to the latest version because the release notes said it supported my cpu and when I started back up, the temps reported in the bios were in the mid 30 degrees celcius range, which is what it should have been.

So maybe a bios update would help out a bit.

Also, try resetting the bios to fail safe defaults and see if that makes any difference in temperature. If it makes it a lot cooler, then tweak up the bios again to your liking and see if you can maintain temps in the 30-40 degree celcius range.

If not man, sounds like you may have received a damaged CPU.

Sucks this has not gone better for you cause the C2D's are really nice cpus.

 

[cb62fcni]

How tight is the HSF relative to the CPU? Can you wiggle it easily, or is it really tight? Sometimes the push-pin bracket can be screwy and not hold the HSF tight enough onto the CPU.

I would try flashing bios ASAP, bios temp readings can be highly flakey. Better yet, install an OS and get speedfan and TAT and take a look at your temps.

 

[pellegro]

What RPM is your fan spinning at??

If it's between 1000-2000rpm then its working properly.

If not then there may be something wrong with the fan on the cpu cooler or there's a thermal setting that is slowing the fan down in the bios.

Hmm, CPU fan is running around 800. Not sure what would be slowing it down? All settings are default. Any ideas?

So maybe a bios update would help out a bit.

That's my next step, I think. I guess I need to install an OS first. My WinXP should be here by the end of this week, so I'll give that a run ...

Also, try resetting the bios to fail safe defaults and see if that makes any difference in temperature. If it makes it a lot cooler, then tweak up the bios again to your liking and see if you can maintain temps in the 30-40 degree celcius range.

Sorry to be so dense, but what are fail safe defaults?

I'll try to reset the defaults one last time and see what happens, then I'll wait for XP, try to install that, and see where it goes from there ... I sure hope I don't have a bad chip, and I *really* hope that if I do, they will replace it!

ps - Thanks a ton for the suggestions and help!

 

[pellegro]

How tight is the HSF relative to the CPU? Can you wiggle it easily, or is it really tight? Sometimes the push-pin bracket can be screwy and not hold the HSF tight enough onto the CPU.

I would try flashing bios ASAP, bios temp readings can be highly flakey. Better yet, install an OS and get speedfan and TAT and take a look at your temps.

Yeah, that was the whole reason I had to redo the grease the first time, the fan wasn't seated properly. It clicked (or I thought it did) but when I got the bad readings first time, I checked fan, and one post was loose.

But since fixing that and trying to repaste, reseat, etc. twice, same issue ...

Once I get my OS I'm going to try to flash the BIOS to current version, see what happens, and check with speedfan and TAT.

Thanks!

 

[pellegro]

UPDATE:

I took a look at the CPU fan speed settings. Why on earth is the CPU fan, by default, not throttled to 100% unless the temperature gets over 70C?!? That's really hot!

I set the CPU fan to manual, 100%.

That at least brought the temp down from 55ish to 49-50.

But still seems too high.

Now I'll just wait until my WinXP arrives, load that up, and see what the 3rd party apps have to say.

 

[sn0b0ard]

The fail safe defaults are an option in the main page of your bios, to reset all the settings to a known good setting for diagnostic purposes. I am not familiar with your motherboard, so it may be named differently.

The fan only running at 100% when temp reaches 70c comes by default. I think the reason they do it is so your computer doesn't sound like a jet plane, however a stock cooler isn't loud at all.

Your temps still seem kinda high, however I have a feeling your bios isn't reading the temps correctly. When you get XP, load up TAT and see what temps you get from that and also use speedfan, some say that is more accurate for the chip.

Your temp on the CPU right now isn't going to damage it, anything over like 60c - 70c is too high IMO.

Let us know how it turns out after installing windows. Glad to hear you got 5 degrees off of the temp

 

[jonny_ftm]

I won't wonder until I install OS. Sometimes, bios temperatures aren't idle. Some bioses run some CPU power by faulty design maybe. I often encountred that situation with some mb. Once you boot OS, you will see real idle temps. Also, don't forget, at IDLE CPU decreases voltage and frequency, that's why temps can drop up to small above ambiant. If you lock voltage / frequency, they will increase a bit

 

[pellegro]

Thanks Sn0b0ard and Jonny -

As for "fail safe" settings, I think I've pretty much kept everything in pure default (and whenever I adjust something, I always reboot, check, then switch back to pre-loaded defaults).

The only thing I've really changed is to enable the SLI Memory thingey, so that it gets the right voltages and speed on my Crucial Ballistix memory (PC8500 IIRC). It seemed to detect them and put it right on target, with FSB at 1066mhz, voltage at 2.2 (IIRC), and timings like 5-5-5-12 (again, from my memory).

Anyway, my Dell 24 inch monitor arrived today so now I just need to wait for the WINXP disk. I'm tempted to take home my install disk from work to give it a whirl, but will resist .... lol

Thanks again - I'll keep you posted on what happens next.

BTW - Here's my system:

E6700
EVGA 680i SLI Mobo (TR1 version)
EVGA 8800 GTS (640 MB version)
4 GB Crucial Ballistix PC8500
Western Digital 150GB HD (10,000rpm)
Lite-On DVD/RW+- with lightscribe
Asus P182 (gun metal black) case
Dell 2407
Generic Keyboard
Mouse

 

[sn0b0ard]

Nice computer! That is going to make one hell of a gaming system.

 

[pellegro]

Well, here's update number 1 for those keeping score.

Got my Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro today. Slapped it on (didn't remove the grease pre-loaded on it, but had a strip of AS 5 on my heatsink already too so probably over-greased). CPU temp, per bios, dropped from 45C to 37C. Yay. If I get picky later I may clean the grease out and redo it with just the AS5.

In midst of an XP install at the moment. Will update once I'm all setup and can load in the various apps discussed above.

 

[BustedSony]

Well, here's update number 1 for those keeping score.

Got my Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro today. Slapped it on (didn't remove the grease pre-loaded on it, but had a strip of AS 5 on my heatsink already too so probably over-greased). CPU temp, per bios, dropped from 45C to 37C. Yay. If I get picky later I may clean the grease out and redo it with just the AS5.

In midst of an XP install at the moment. Will update once I'm all setup and can load in the various apps discussed above.

An important point that most responders here missed, the CPU is always running full throttle in Bios, MY E6400 (at 3.2 Ghz) shows 52 degrees with a Tuniq Tower! However once Windows loads, the system idles at 33 and runs a max of 56 degrees. You will ALWAYS get a high reading before Windows is installed/loaded! You were fine.

 

[pellegro]

An important point that most responders here missed, the CPU is always running full throttle in Bios, MY E6400 (at 3.2 Ghz) shows 52 degrees with a Tuniq Tower! However once Windows loads, the system idles at 33 and runs a max of 56 degrees. You will ALWAYS get a high reading before Windows is installed/loaded! You were fine.

That is extraordinarily important information.

UPDATE 2:

Loaded up speedfan. It reports, while computer is doing some stuff (mostly d/ling all the updates I need):
CPU - 38C
Core0 - 42C
Core1 - 43C

It also reports, curiosuly, -65C for system. If only!

 

[sn0b0ard]

Hey, it looks like your temps are fine. I would also run Intel TAT to see what that says about your core temps, as that may be more accurate.

 

[jonny_ftm]

An important point that most responders here missed, the CPU is always running full throttle in Bios, MY E6400 (at 3.2 Ghz) shows 52 degrees with a Tuniq Tower! However once Windows loads, the system idles at 33 and runs a max of 56 degrees. You will ALWAYS get a high reading before Windows is installed/loaded! You were fine.

That is extraordinarily important information.


That's just what I said some posts above. Bios temp is not idle, it is on some load (not 100% load)

 

[pellegro]

UPDATE 3

I downloaded Intel's TAT tool. Not sure its designed to work for C2D as it lists my processor as a Pentium-M (thats a laptop proc, right?).

Regardless, I hit the 100% buttons for each processor, but didn't hit the field below that (as I don't know what that does - something to do with throttle if I recall correctly).

Per TAT - at 100% load, CPU 0 got up to 64C, and CPU1 fluctuated between 64-66C, mostly hovering at 65C.

Those seem pretty AOK, right?

ps Ambient in my computer room (aka the basement) is pretty low - maybe 65F.

 

[jonny_ftm]

At 64F (17°C) ambiant, these load TAT temps look really high for a stock speed/vcore. I get same temps at load on high overclock and 1.52 vcore and ambiant of 25°C

I would reseat the HSF with applying enough compound (unlike non IHS previous CPUs, C2D with their IHS need more than the grain of rice in middle of CPU surface)

 

[HYST3R]

mid 60's on a non OC'd C2D is really unacceptable to me. i think the problem is your fan, unless you some how jsut got a bad chip (from the info i saw).

i know i saw a couple of people suggest to reseat the heatsink and fan, are you 100% sure those plastic clips are seated all the way? they can be a pain.
with that aside, you said you would like to put an easy OC on your chip. any thoughts of an after market Heatsink and fan?

how good is your cooling inside your case? how many case fans? whats your north bridge temps on idle and load?

 

[pellegro]

The fan is seated properly ... and yes, those clips are a pain. I switched from teh stock to the Artic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro.

Another update ...

First, I flashed my BIOS to P28. Thats got to explain alot of the big drops I'm seeing now ....

Now, my TAT and Speedfan readings under load (load applied by TAT) are 54-56 (TAT) and 55-57 (Speedfan).

Does that seem better?

As for my cooling, I'm using an Antec P182. It has 2 120mm exhaust fans (top/back) stock, plus a third 120mm in the separate PSU section. I additionally added a 4th 120mm to blow on the GPU (attached to back of upper HD cage). It may not be the *best*, but it should be adequate. (My wiring job sucks - first time; will fix it up later.)

I don't know how to check my Northbridge temps. Where would I get that reading? I am using EVGA 680i SLI, and I did install the optional fan on that as well (little ah heck on the passive heatsink).

Oh, and I'm using SLI enabled memory PC28500, which I guess technically is an OC of some sort? Memory runs at 1066 rather than 800.

 

[HYST3R]

yeah that seems better. still not great tho. with stock settings and that room temp you should be 100% at around 43-49*C tho.

i have an OC on my e6320 (see sig) and i top out around 49-53*C with the stock cooler on orthos. TAT works the cpu harder than orthos but your temps should be around mine or lower.

speedfan monitors the north bridge temperature, just figuring out which one it is, is fun.

 

[jonny_ftm]

Yep, at that room temperature, temps seem a bit high
Reseat that cooler, reapply the compound, check, do it again, and again...
Once you get the lowest temperature, the HSF/compound are out of equation.
Also verify your cpu fan speed in speedfan. You should disable in bios any Q-Fan feature so that the fans are at maxiumum speed. In Optimal/Silent fan settings, they will be running at lowest speed to tolerate these temperature favor to silence.

Once all that done, at that room temperature, you should get really lower temps:
TAT idle temperatures some 10-15°C above ambiant and Tcase max 3-5°C above ambiant

If not:
- the HSF is bad (My old XP120 stopped getting me good temperatures, it showed that a heatpipe was broken... rare, but it can happen). Also, as you changed the HSF and nothing better, it sounds like not a HSF issue
- Your CPU has a really, really concave surface: test as explained here in the forum with a razor and a light beam. If so, you're let with one solution: lapp it or remove the IHS
- You got a really bad chipset, maybe with too much compound between the chipset and the IHS: remove IHS or RMA it

Good luck