Lacedaemon

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Feb 11, 2010
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Hi, I just upgraded from an E6250 (or whatever the 1.86 ghz, 4mb L2 was) to a Q9650 and am having some heat problems. I'm running at stock speeds until I sort this out. I get my temps from real temp, but core temp always reads within 1 degree for me on this machine.

When I first installed my quad, I looked in BIOS and it was running 95C at idle. Obviously, this was not acceptable. I knew that the stock heat sink on this chip was crap, so rather than try to sort that out, I got a Thermaltake V1 (it's what was available locally, I needed my computer to work). Since this heat sink has a manual speed control, I am running it at the max all the time. Once I installed that, I got the idle temps down to 45C. While this allowed me to use my computer, I was not satisfied with it overall since I would like to get to at least 3.6 ghz, which seems reasonable for this processor (if not, let me know). Also, real temp logged 94C after playing Mass Effect 2 for a couple of hours with this configuration. I have the cooler blowing from the top of the case down towards the graphics card.

I realized that I had grossly over applied the thermal paste, so I took the heatsink off, cleaned it with isopropyl alcohol, and applied a much thinner layer of thermal paste (a silver based Dynex not Arctic Silver, how much of a difference does that make?) Also, my 3 year old case fan would howl at anything above its minimum speed, so I replaced it with a Scythe Ultra Kaze on a fan controller. I also got an Antec slot cooler for a little more movement around the graphics card.

Idle temps are now 40C on all cores, with the ambient temps in the case at 26-27C (as measured by sensors connected to my fan controller). Where I think I might have a problem is that when I run prime 95 I can push the chip to 97C (or higher; I shut it off after about 20 min when I saw how hot it was running), but the ambients never got above 28C. This indicates to me that I have plenty of air flow and trouble in my heat sink, but I am completely at a loss over what to do about it. Do these chips just increase in temperature by 57C when loaded? That seems impossible.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Details on the System (tell me if I have left out something relevant):

Antec Sonata case (it's not an appropriate enthusiast case, I know - it's a long story).
Asus P5K
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650
Thermaltake V1
Scythe Ultra Kaze Case Fan
Scythe Kaze Server fan controller with 4 temp probes
Antec double slot fan
OCZ 700w power supply
4gb DDR2
Nvidia GTS 250 OC
 
I haven't gone over 64C (1 core, others less) on mine with Arctic Freezer Pro - overclocked and prime95 for 4 hours. I'm using Arctic Silver, applied following its instructions - you may still have too much thermal compound. You want what looks like a glaze, then the "rice" shaped drop, then install the heatsink.
 

Lacedaemon

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Feb 11, 2010
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18,510


What heat sink are you running? I have a hard time believing that thermal paste could make that much of a difference without a defect somewhere else in the system.
 
The Thermaltake V1 is not exactly state of the art.

Here are links to technical reviews from a few years ago:

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2292&page=1

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/ttv1/

Here is a link to a very good web site with a lot of useful information about cpu heatsinks that wll hep you make an informed decision:

http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm

You can use the Google embedded search feature at the web site to find more information about heatsinks for specific cpu sockets.
 

Lacedaemon

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Feb 11, 2010
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Problem fixed by a Tuniq 120 Extreme. Taking out the MB to install it was a PITA, but I'm 15C cooler at idle and a whopping 49C cooler at load.

Bottom line - if you're running a quad core, I would stay away from the V1.