Core I7 920 Temp Problem, NEED EXPERT'S OPINION!!!

I have a core i7 920 with a Zalman 9900 CPU Cooler and I am having some temperature issues right now. When I first built this machine I overclocked it to 3.6GHz using 1.28V. my temperature reading then was around 24-26C idle and 56-64C full load, it was similar to 3Dgameman's review of the cooler. however a nuke-n-pave and bios update later my temperature shot up to 42-48C idle and 68-74C full load. we tried everything... reseating the heatsink/CPU, backflashed the bios to what i originally had... none seems to work. oh and our ambient temp is 22C.... anyone got anything to say to this??????

My System:
Case: Raven RV01
CPU/Cooler: Intel Core I7 920 OCed@3.6 GHz / Zalman 9900 CPU Cooler
MotherBoard: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
PSU: Corsair HX1000W
GPU: EVGA GTX285 2GB FTW Edition
Memory: 6GB Corsair Dominator GT 1600mhz
HDD: Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black 7200rpm
Optics: LG DVD Burner/Reader

Message edited by slyphen on 04-13-2010 at 04:44:28 PM

------------------------------ Case:Raven RV01 - CPU/Cooler:Intel Core i7 920 OCed @ 3.6 GHz, Zalman 9900 CPU Cooler - Motherboard:ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 - GPU:EVGA GTX285 FTW 2GB - HDD: Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black - MEMORY:6GB Corsair Dominator - PSU:Corsair HX1000W
Reply to slyphen

Never heard the expression "nuke n pave" before but I think the problem could be with the bios flash.

This is more of an educated guess but I think the following:
1. The new bios version corrected a problem with it sensing the CPU temperature and it is now accurate.
2. The new bios change is a bit messed and isn't reporting the temperature properly.

Edit: Nvm you said you backflashed the bios to the previous version.

Double check the voltage settings. Maybe flashing the bios changed the voltage settings.

Message edited by enzo matrix on 04-13-2010 at 07:09:06 PM

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Reply to enzo matrix

by "nuke n pave" i mean erased the hard drive and reinstalled operating system. voltage is currently 1.225V and my temp is still around 43-48C idle, ambient temp is 24C. The reason i believe my previous temp are correct is because i read a few reviews about my cooler, including 3DGameman's video review, his temp OCed at 4.0GHz is around 24-26C with ambient at 23C.

------------------------------ Case:Raven RV01 - CPU/Cooler:Intel Core i7 920 OCed @ 3.6 GHz, Zalman 9900 CPU Cooler - Motherboard:ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 - GPU:EVGA GTX285 FTW 2GB - HDD: Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black - MEMORY:6GB Corsair Dominator - PSU:Corsair HX1000W
Reply to slyphen

Id check your voltages like enzo said. What may have detected as a default voltage before may have shot up with the old BIOS. Go down the list and see what changed, you may very well have to familiarize yourself with every option.

Reply to mcnuggetofdeath

1) Recheck your cpu cooler mount. A common mistake is to use too much thermal interface material, making it act as an insulator. It is very hard to use too little.
2) The Zalman 9900 is a great looking cooler, but It may not be one of the most efficient.
3) You have a very hot graphics card which may be contributing to your cpu cooling issues.
4) Is your case cooling the best? Try running with the side of the case removed and with a house fan directed at the innards. If your temperatures drop significantly, look into case cooling solutions.
5) How are the temperatures measured? There are several different ways, and all are approximate calculations. Try some different measuring tools and see if you can get any agreement.

Reply to geofelt

The CNPS 9900 is the best cooler you can buy. I have one and its incredible. HARDOCP came to the same conclusion with it beating out the TRUE by a notable margin.

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Reply to mcnuggetofdeath

One of the issues with the 9900 is that you must use the stock fan. On a review, I saw, it operated at about 27c above ambient, compared to a prolimatech magahalems at 22c above.
Here is the review: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index. [...] &Itemid=62

Still all the top coolers are decent, and the differences are only important to high overclockers.

Reply to geofelt

mcnuggetofdeath wrote :

The CNPS 9900 is the best cooler you can buy. I have one and its incredible. HARDOCP came to the same conclusion with it beating out the TRUE by a notable margin.

The CNPS 9900 is a mediocre cooler. In terms of price-for-performance, it is one of the worst coolers you can buy today.

It performed the worst out the reviewed coolers:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index. [...] itstart=16

On Newegg, it costs around $60-$70 today...whereas you can get a much better performing Mugen2, CM V8, Xigmatech Dark Knight, etc for cheaper.

To OP:
Considering better coolers would also reach the low 70s'C with an overclock to 3.6GHz, I am not surprised your i7 920 OCed to 3.6GHz is also hitting the 70s'C. But honestly, your full load temps are fine as long as you keep it under 80'C for general use.

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Reply to Bluescreendeath

Honestly those temps don't seem that bad for the OC you're running. I mean, they could be better (my i5 hits about 55C at load OCed to 3.6), but its still generally OK. like others have said- verify you don't have too much thermal paste in there.

------------------------------ ~MSI P55-GD80~Intel Core i5@3.6~Xigmatec HDT-S1283~4gb Patriot Viper II Sector V DDR3 1600~ATI Radeon HD5750+XFX 5750 XFire~500gb WD Caviar Black, 2x320gb Caviar Blue~CM RC-690~Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750~
Reply to flyinfinni

like i said before, my temp was around 24-26 before i did the whole crapshoot, theres no reason for it to jump by 20C. i use both speedfan and realtemp to monitor my temperature. if my temp was this high at the beginning i would not be so concerned, but it wasn't. my voltage reading from the bios is 1.225V now. but before when my temp was low my voltage was all the way at 1.28V, so it doesnt make any sense. im no computer amateur and I know my cooler isnt the best, but even at stock my temp are still in the low 40s at idle. my case cooling is fine, it dont change much when i have the side panel off. do any of you think the voltage reader is wrong and is actually putting more voltage into the CPU than the bio says?

------------------------------ Case:Raven RV01 - CPU/Cooler:Intel Core i7 920 OCed @ 3.6 GHz, Zalman 9900 CPU Cooler - Motherboard:ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 - GPU:EVGA GTX285 FTW 2GB - HDD: Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black - MEMORY:6GB Corsair Dominator - PSU:Corsair HX1000W
Reply to slyphen

Bluescreendeath wrote :

The CNPS 9900 is a mediocre cooler. In terms of price-for-performance, it is one of the worst coolers you can buy today.

It performed the worst out the reviewed coolers:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index. [...] itstart=16

On Newegg, it costs around $60-$70 today...whereas you can get a much better performing Mugen2, CM V8, Xigmatech Dark Knight, etc for cheaper.

To OP:
Considering better coolers would also reach the low 70s'C with an overclock to 3.6GHz, I am not surprised your i7 920 OCed to 3.6GHz is also hitting the 70s'C. But honestly, your full load temps are fine as long as you keep it under 80'C for general use.

I like the Mugen 2. Ill give you that, but it gets beaten. Plain and simple. I dont know what your review used to test but hardocp used a dremel to get a thermal sensor on the die, so it wouldnt rely on a tcase reading which can be wildly inaccurate as evidenced by the topic of the thread. http://www.hardocp.com/article/200 [...] r_review/5

$30-40 more is worth it when you get that big a difference with temperatures and when youre setup is worth more than a few hundred dollars.

Reply to mcnuggetofdeath

hmm, I see. Your hardocp link appears to have the CNPS9900 performing quite well.

In that case, you are correct in saying the 9900 is a good cooler.

I don't know why there's a huge disparity between the benchmarks.

Reply to Bluescreendeath

It is odd that it changed so much even after you flashed back to the previous BIOS. Have you used CPU-z to see what its reading for your voltages? That could at least help verify voltage levels. Also - I guess it could be possible that the BIOS flashes (even with rolling back) that its not reading something properly. Might be worth trying another version of the BIOS if you can.

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ ~MSI P55-GD80~Intel Core i5@3.6~Xigmatec HDT-S1283~4gb Patriot Viper II Sector V DDR3 1600~ATI Radeon HD5750+XFX 5750 XFire~500gb WD Caviar Black, 2x320gb Caviar Blue~CM RC-690~Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750~
Reply to flyinfinni

flyinfinni wrote :

It is odd that it changed so much even after you flashed back to the previous BIOS. Have you used CPU-z to see what its reading for your voltages? That could at least help verify voltage levels. Also - I guess it could be possible that the BIOS flashes (even with rolling back) that its not reading something properly. Might be worth trying another version of the BIOS if you can.

yah, i got suggestion on resetting cmos, maybe it'll work... we have tried 3 version of bios with no success. my CPU-Z reads 1.216 core voltage which is close to what i set on the bios 1.225

------------------------------ Case:Raven RV01 - CPU/Cooler:Intel Core i7 920 OCed @ 3.6 GHz, Zalman 9900 CPU Cooler - Motherboard:ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 - GPU:EVGA GTX285 FTW 2GB - HDD: Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black - MEMORY:6GB Corsair Dominator - PSU:Corsair HX1000W
Reply to slyphen

ok- your voltage should be fairly accurate then. Not sure where to tell you to turn next though- doesn't make sense unless somehow you "broke" the thermal sensor or something, or the old version of the BIOS you updated from was reading it wrong. Could be you've always been operating at that temp, and it was just reading lower.

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ ~MSI P55-GD80~Intel Core i5@3.6~Xigmatec HDT-S1283~4gb Patriot Viper II Sector V DDR3 1600~ATI Radeon HD5750+XFX 5750 XFire~500gb WD Caviar Black, 2x320gb Caviar Blue~CM RC-690~Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750~
Reply to flyinfinni

flyinfinni wrote :

ok- your voltage should be fairly accurate then. Not sure where to tell you to turn next though- doesn't make sense unless somehow you "broke" the thermal sensor or something, or the old version of the BIOS you updated from was reading it wrong. Could be you've always been operating at that temp, and it was just reading lower.

yah i thought about that, but if that is the case, then all the reviews i read about the cooler is wrong....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uIN_p7W2I0

I had temps similar to his...

i first used TX-3, then *** goes down i switched to AS5... dont fix the problem.....
(TX-3 worked fine aka i applied it correctly.... till we did the whole crapshoot)

------------------------------ Case:Raven RV01 - CPU/Cooler:Intel Core i7 920 OCed @ 3.6 GHz, Zalman 9900 CPU Cooler - Motherboard:ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 - GPU:EVGA GTX285 FTW 2GB - HDD: Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black - MEMORY:6GB Corsair Dominator - PSU:Corsair HX1000W
Reply to slyphen

Well- are you sure all of your case fans and everything are still working properly? Did the fan speeds of your CPU fan change? did your ambient temps go up a bunch? BIOS updates could have changed the fan settings for the CPU. Might be worth checking.

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ ~MSI P55-GD80~Intel Core i5@3.6~Xigmatec HDT-S1283~4gb Patriot Viper II Sector V DDR3 1600~ATI Radeon HD5750+XFX 5750 XFire~500gb WD Caviar Black, 2x320gb Caviar Blue~CM RC-690~Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750~
Reply to flyinfinni

flyinfinni wrote :

Well- are you sure all of your case fans and everything are still working properly? Did the fan speeds of your CPU fan change? did your ambient temps go up a bunch? BIOS updates could have changed the fan settings for the CPU. Might be worth checking.

yep checked all the fans too, everything is working, we check from the bios to confirm fan speed instead just looking at speed fan. ambient is still 24C. it sure is a weird problem..... i might lower the voltage a little tonight and see if the voltage sensor is broken or something... n im gonna try to clear my cmos... worst come to worst i'll flash the bios to see if its the bio's problem

really missing my old temp lol

------------------------------ Case:Raven RV01 - CPU/Cooler:Intel Core i7 920 OCed @ 3.6 GHz, Zalman 9900 CPU Cooler - Motherboard:ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 - GPU:EVGA GTX285 FTW 2GB - HDD: Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black - MEMORY:6GB Corsair Dominator - PSU:Corsair HX1000W
Reply to slyphen

yeah- I understand missing your old temps. Hope that flashing or lowering voltage or something works out. Good luck man, and let us know how things go.

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ ~MSI P55-GD80~Intel Core i5@3.6~Xigmatec HDT-S1283~4gb Patriot Viper II Sector V DDR3 1600~ATI Radeon HD5750+XFX 5750 XFire~500gb WD Caviar Black, 2x320gb Caviar Blue~CM RC-690~Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750~
Reply to flyinfinni

flyinfinni wrote :

yeah- I understand missing your old temps. Hope that flashing or lowering voltage or something works out. Good luck man, and let us know how things go.

i cleared the cmos.... didn't do much, maybe i should try again and remount the heatsink.....

------------------------------ Case:Raven RV01 - CPU/Cooler:Intel Core i7 920 OCed @ 3.6 GHz, Zalman 9900 CPU Cooler - Motherboard:ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 - GPU:EVGA GTX285 FTW 2GB - HDD: Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black - MEMORY:6GB Corsair Dominator - PSU:Corsair HX1000W
Reply to slyphen

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