I7 930 Stock cooler running very hot

[G6ET1987]

Hi Everyone,

Have a i7 930 which is not overclocked or anything and just using the stock cooler however I had just noticed the other day that the temps at idle was stupidly high sitting at around the high 60's up to the 70 degree mark with the room temp being around 16 degrees, so I used Prime95 to put some load on it and found it jumped straight to the 100 degrees before i quickly killed the process.

Cannot see any reason for the temps to be so high, I checked that the heatsink was seated correctly and had enough paste but not too much and everything checks out fine, fans all seem to be running as normal as well. Jumped into Bios and reset to defaults just in case, and turned the turbo function off as well which made a little difference, temps now sitting at about 60ish idle which is still very high.

My case was a little dusty so also cleaned that out completed including filters, vid card, etc.

Specs:
i7 930
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
ATI 5870 (moved to bottom of the case)
Antec Nine Hundred Two V3 Case (clean filters)

I will be getting a new HS/Fan soon enough but was wondering if there were any known issues with the stock cooler, or just any other thoughts at all.

Cheers

 

[Supernova1138]

The stock cooler should provide sufficient cooling for stock clocks. Idle temps should be in the 30s or low 40s. Temps in Prime95 would be a bit hot though, but it should not hit 100 degrees instantly, the stock cooler isn't very good. Generally if the temps are this high, it means the cooler isn't seated properly. The only thing I can suggest is to remove your motherboard, remove the cooler, clean off both the heatsink and CPU and reapply the thermal paste, then reattach the cooler, making sure that all 4 push pins are down all the way by seeing if they all have gone through to the back of the board properly. Make sure it is a very tight fit, you should not be able to wobble the cooler at all if it is secured properly.

If that doesn't work, either the temperature sensors on your CPU are defective, or the cooler is defective, next thing to do would be to try a different cooler.

 

[G6ET1987]

Thanks for the quick reply, I did some monitoring while playing a game (Dead Island) and it appears to hit about 75 degrees as I'm only running at about 30% load. I think I will keep an eye on it but just put up with it for a few more weeks until I upgrade the rest of my system and buy another HS+Fan.

I might try what you mentioned above though just for some piece of mind, I have heard of people lightly sanding back their HS and CPU to ensure both surfaces are flat... not sure if I am keen on that though.

Cheers

 

[Supernova1138]

For 30% load that is way too hot. I wouldn't try running your system like this for a few weeks, that will likely significantly reduce the life of the processor or possibly damage it. Try reseating the heatsink, if that doesn't work, you really should consider getting another cooler immediately.

To clean off the heatsink and CPU, something like 90% isopropyl alcohol and a q-tip tend to work okay, you usually don't have to sand anything down, not unless it is some really old thermal paste that is really stuck on.

 

[G6ET1987]

Thanks for the advice, I will try a clean and reseat and see how that goes.

I would have thought that so long as the CPU doesn't hit over 80 degrees then it wont be damaging... I have my alerts set at 80 at the moment.

I found it highly strange to be running that hot considering the case, as far as I know it has pretty good circulation and should be keeping everything fairly cool.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Your room is 61F ?

The stock heat sink generally uses a thermal pad ...if ya yanked it off, it's not reusable.

Fins clean ?

 

[G6ET1987]

yeah 61F ish, live is Aus and still cold at the moment. Didn't have any heater on or anything.

I dont recall there being any thermal pad, i believe it just has paste.

Fins are spotless, checked all of that yesterday when i was reseating the HS.

 

[G6ET1987]

Not sure what the issue was with the stock cooler, but it got worse so I had no choice but to replace it. H80 is keeping it all cool now

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[G6ET1987]

Best answer selected by G6ET1987.

 

[i7930]

im having the same issue and seeing as its a long weekend from a public holiday I wont see my new cooler for almost a week is there anything I can do to override the fan control to make it spool up as I ran prime 95 smacked 99/100 on 3 out of 4 cores instantly and the 4th core after a few more secs ..... so i tried it again while monitoring the fan speed it didn't even reach 1000 rpm again killed it waited for it to cool off and came here