q6600 with Tuniq-120 idling a tad warm =/

[Valtiel]

Hi I've got a Q6600 (not sure on the stepping, I'll check it out tomorrow... I hope it's not B3 =/) and its got a tuniq tower-120 mounted on top of it and the BIOS is reporting it at 41-44C after about 15 minutes of boot up. It was originally idling at 70-ish but I remounted the HSF and it cooled down a bit.

The reason I'm posting such a temp is I would like to overclock (which is why I hope I got a G0 stepping, LOL!) and it seems a tad warm compared to what others seem to be getting with a Tuniq-120 and a q6600. The system temp also read pretty warm at ~48C so maybe my case is the problem (Antec P182)? it seems like a bunch of the PSU wires could be blocking airflow as the PSU is VERY close to the bottom intake fan, about 2-3 inches away.(I only have one intake =/)

Should the screws be tightened on the MB until I can no longer turn them?

 

[Kamrooz]

You mean about the tuniq tower mounts?...I have a tuniq tower 120 but on a pentium d 540 >_<...god I hate prescotts.

Do NOT turn the screws as far as they go. chances are it'll put a lot of pressure on the board and it will fail to boot. A lot of people have had this problem with these large heatsinks...They tighten the screws too much and the systems doesn't post because of the pressure being placed against the board/processor. Just tighten it enough to make good contact and weight support.

I don't have a C2D so not sure if those temps are fine..But considering you have 4 cores and your bios reports 41-44 c that is pretty good. Keep in mind when you're in the bios the temperature reading is basically with the cpu-s at 100% since there is no idle process....Try to get into windows and use some temperature software to get your idle as well.

Make sure you also nab cpu-z so we can find out if it's B3 or G0 stepping...

Also try not go go above 62 C when oc'ing a B3..I rememebr reading somewhere it's best to keep below 62C on a B3...While the G0 can go as high as 71C...Forgot where I was reading up on the thresholds but hopefully someone can toss you a link.

 

[Falken699]

My Opteron idles at 40-41C in a warm bedroom with stock HSF and a mild overclock, so I don't think you are doing too badly.

 

[Malodium]

Even with a Thermalright Ultima 90 my Q6600 B3 runs at around 50C on idle. No overclocking.

I cant figure out what these people are doing to get idle temps down into the 20s...

It makes me sad

 

[Valtiel]

Well I think it's getting good weight support.. but I don't know because I can still sort of lift the tower up but its still in contact with the heatsink when it is down. I would say gravity pushes it down about a fourth of an inch maybe less, I suck at guesstimating. Is this normal?

Edit: I'm going to reseat the heat sink AGAIN with AS5 this time and now I put in another tricool fan to help with air flow in my case (because I KNOW ~50C ambient is too high )

 

[Malodium]

You can actually lift the heatsink off the cpu??? Thats not good at all.... it should be tight enough that you can't lift it up at all. But maybe I misunderstood.

 

[Kamrooz]

For mine I tightened the top two screws a little tigether then the bottom two to compensate for the weight of the heatsink. It's kept my p4 540 pretty cool..During HOT summer days without the ac on (probably around 80 degrees in the house...it gets up to around 51 idle. On cold winter days it drops down to around 38C...During an average day with the ac on it'll stay around 41 or 42. Considering it's a prescott I think it does a damn good job.

 

[dldude]

I idle at about 48C in A/c rooms.... it's B3. I have a nice fan, should probably remount it though. If you're getting 41/42 you're in good shape

 

[fred-e]

I have a Q6600 G0 OC'd to 3.2Ghz, runs at around 50C, usually a bit less. System is at 23C. I do have a lot of room in my case and have a Zalman 9500 CPU heatsink (not as good as your's), 2x 80mm and 1x 120mm case fans, so lots of air blowing through this thing. Suggest you try to free up some space in your case, maybe tie back a few of those wires and let more air flow through.

 

[Valtiel]

Alright, I reseated again (this time with AS5) and added another intake fan... Core temp is reporting like this:

Core 0:48
Core 1:38
Core 2:36-37
Core 3:45

So I guess I'm alright, would you say ? this is of course at stock speed and volts (2.4Ghz and 1.275 Vcore). I guess I'll try OC'ing it a little maybe up to 3GHz or however far I can get on stock voltages in about a week (to give the thermal paste time to set). But anyway... thanks guys!

 

[richard3i]

Alright, I reseated again (this time with AS5) and added another intake fan... Core temp is reporting like this:

Core 0:48
Core 1:38
Core 2:36-37
Core 3:45

So I guess I'm alright, would you say ? this is of course at stock speed and volts (2.4Ghz and 1.275 Vcore). I guess I'll try OC'ing it a little maybe up to 3GHz or however far I can get on stock voltages in about a week (to give the thermal paste time to set). But anyway... thanks guys!

I have the exact same proc and heatsink/fan - Im idling at 32-36 all 4 cores... I used the tuniq included paste because my AS5 came too late and I ran outta patience...but what I wanted to say was, be sure to hand tighten so its VERY snug, but dont sit there and hand crank them to the max, a way to check is try unscrewing them, it should be VERY hard to unscrew because of the springs included.