High core i7 930 temperatures at stock speeds with stock heatsink

Whiskey8

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Hi, I recently had to upgrade my system to core i7 because my XFX 780i board died and I didn't fancy getting a non SLI board (as the site I got the board from originally no longer stocks any motherboards with nvidia chipsets, nor do I think they make them any more) so I upgraded to an Asus P6T (not the 16x 16x 8x of the 780i but I doubt I'll ever make it to three graphics cards on my budget anyway.)
On my previous board I was running an intel core2duo with a cheap aftermarket cooler (as I brought the CPU as an OEM product) which kept the CPU below 55 Celsius even after hours of folding @ Home (SMP client obviously) which for anyone who doesn't know [what it is], keeps both cores at 100% while it does the work unit.
I was prepared for my core i7 to run hotter than the core2duo as I had read on various places around the web that the core i7 runs hotter than core2quads. Idle temps are around 45 - 50 degrees Celsius, which I thought was high as that is virtually the same as my old CPU under load, but didn't think much of it until I began folding and the temperature sky rocketed to 85 C ! This is probably the fifth CPU I've ever installed (2 my own, 3 for other people) and I've never had a desktop CPU run so hot (have had about 80 C on my XPS laptop) and it concerned me because it was running hotter than the graphics card (a nvidia 8800GTX) which was 82 C while folding.
I of course began troubleshooting, did I botch up the installation of the heatsink somehow etc etc. The heatsink (stock intel btw) was firmly in place, I never touched the TIM that came with it, I never touched the surface of the CPU when installing it. I assumed that maybe the TIM needed some kind of "break-in" period which I'd read about with thermal solutions such as the Arctic silver 5 (which I do own some of, just didn't think it worth using on a stock cooler) so I left it running (folding) overnight and also left RealTemp to monitor the temperatures (before I was taking readings from Asus PC Probe - there is probably a 3 - 5 degree difference) and next morning, at some point in the night (I'm assuming after my air conditioning went off) it had peaked at 95 degrees Celsius. I know the stock intel cooler is known to be bad, but seriously...?
I contacted intel via the online live chat support system and asked what the safe running temperatures are, the response was " As long as the processor operates below 70C, there will be no problems at all." before telling me all the troubleshooting steps when I told the agent/support person about my temperatures.
Should I try reseating the heatsink, maybe using my Arctic Silver 5 compound? Or should I just try and RMA the processor?
I don't know if it's of any importance but the batch number is #3001B550
Thanks for any help [on my first post!]
 

Whiskey8

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I did make sure the four push pins are in place. I live in the UK, is that somehow relevant, did Intel ship bad processors to us, how rude!
 

Whiskey8

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Really? Fair enough, well I might have to invest in a better heatsink then... Joy of joys, more money thrown in the computer's direction
 

snowboy401

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Well I don't think that is normal I got my i7 930 a week ago and idle temp is 40c-42c and thats with the stock heatsink. It never goes over 50c when I play games.
 

keithblue2

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I built a couple i7-860 systems and found that the $30-$70 investment ($US) in a heatsink is well worth it, since it makes your $700-$1000 system run up to 40% faster -- safely. With modest overclocking needs (~3.5 GHz), I chose the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ ($30), but anything is better than the stock Intel cooler, which is recommended for, well, stock speeds.

I blogged about the whole process, including the build, at .

-- Keith
 

Whiskey8

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That's what shocked me most about the temperatures, I wasn't overclocking, it was all running at stock speeds and climbing to those mad temperatures when really under load. As for a cooler I don't know if I want one of those tall (tower) coolers, I always worry that the weight of them will put some kind of strain on the motherboard. I was considering the corsair hydro h50, but with that I'm not fond of switching the rear fan to stuck air in instead of blow it out, mostly because my case design won't allow to to alter the front fan (SilverStone KL03) because of the way the fan is designed, and while I do have a side fan (and space for another) I don't know how effective pulling air out of the side of the case would be for things like the chipset. Technical conundrum's, they're always fun.

But yeah, thanks for your advice, it seems that an aftermarket cooler is the way to go...
 

LePhuronn

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That's because gaming doesn't put 100% load on all 4 cores, folding can - go have a look at heatsink tests and see just how badly the stock cooler will perform when the CPU ramps up to maximum load.

In any case, I'd agree with a Coolermaster Hyper 212+ as an effective snd cheap cooler. Good little unit.
 

gerry410

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Before returning anything i would remove the fan and run a better cooling cpu fan. Watch your thermal grease to much is as bad as not enough maybe worst.
 

Whiskey8

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Thanks, that's what I am doing. I'm waiting until I have enough money to try a different cooler, possibly the corsair H50 or A70, not completely decided yet.
 

LePhuronn

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Unless you want near silence I personally wouldn't bother with the Corsair H50 - you can mess up the airflow in your case because the fan needs to be an intake and it doesn't really perform any better than good air cooling anyway - certainly not worth the extra money.

Some people love it, others have been disappointed. Some units have a really loud click to them as the pump operates which has been more annoying than a fan or two.

I'd be interested to see the A70 tested - competition is always good, but we've had our preferred picks of cooler at great prices on these forums for a while I don't see anything new coming along that could sway us (certainly not in the mainstream market place anyway).

If you are looking at air cooling you can't go wrong with the Coolermaster Hyper 212+
 

Whiskey8

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I very nearly responded that I couldn't find it on any of the sites I normally shop on, then I checked Scan.co.uk and there it is, assuming this is the right one: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/Coolermaster-Hyper-212-Plus-4-Heat-Pipes-LGA775-1156-1366-AM2-AM2plus-AM3

If so then that's great because that truly is a more attractive price, I know you said in a past post that it was something like $30 but it wouldn't be the first time I've heard something sound cheap in dollars that turns up in the UK more expensive *glares in Nvidia's direction* The reason the H50 was one of my main choices was because all the reviewers seemed to really like it, none ever mentioned a ticking noise from the pump [although one did mention the pump gets rather warm and was slightly concerned that heat could travel down onto the chip.]

Thanks again for the help :)
 

LePhuronn

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Yeah, that's the one.

Also available at:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-029-CM&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Cooling/CPUCoolers/RR-B10-212P-GP.html

and a good old Google Shopping search

http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl=en&q=hyper%20212%20plus&gs_upl=3212,1448,6,3,78,93,6&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf

Regarding the ticking noise, it read it a few times on forums talking about using the H50 in Mini-ITX systems - one guy went through 3 of them and had the same noise every time - Corsair were good enough to RMA it each time, so perhaps it's not supposed to happen and there was an iffy batch - the guy ended up living with it in the end.

Let me just clarify though that the H50 isn't a BAD cooler, far from it. It's actually pretty good. BUT for the money you pay for it it's nothing special - air cooling at the same price or cheaper performs the same, you have to make compromises in your system setup (intake not exhaust 120mm fan for instance), and for a tiny amount more you can get monster air coolers that perform better.
 

gerry410

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I think b4 you go out and spend a fortune on a new cpu fan reapply your grease. remember not to much. About the size of a small pearl thats all.