I7 3770K idles very cool but runs Handbrake very hot

[kpc180]

Hey, I've just built my first computer and was surprised with my success... until now - womp womp.
I installed an I7 3770K on an Asrock Extreme 4 mobo inside of an Antec Sonata iii 500 case. I even attached the optional case fan in the front. I ran the exhaust fan and the case fan on full blast just to see what my temps were. When I idle or just run a few non-stress programs my temps are around 27-32 C. Which I have read is quite good. However when I ran Handbrake to do some simple encodes it spiked to 97 C! (This is all according to the Asrock Extreme Tuner that came with the mobo). Now I have seen similar questions about hot CPUs and the advice is always to apply more paste or re-seat the cooler, but in all of those posts the idle temp was far higher than it should be- mine looks to be right on - plus all four pins are pushed in and the included paste is applied.

Also when I was running handbrake the exhaust air was still quite cool and the case itself was quite cool to the touch. I am not overclocking or anything everything should be stock settings.

So my question is - should I try the more paste route or is it something to do with the Handbrake program? I hope this isn't an old topic - I did search quite a bit, but couldn't find any posts that weren't talking about macs or ended up being the four pins were not pushed in correctly. Lots of people on the mac forums were saying it's totally normal to run your i7 at 90+ degrees, but every post I've seen for PC says that 80 is even too high.

Thanks!

 

[alvine]

Whomp- try using prime 95 to see if the load temps change. your idle looks good as you said...high load...I assume you're using the stock cooler rite? You won't feel much difference to the touch as your load temps depend on how efficient your cooler is in getting rid of the heat

i would suggest replaceing the thermal paste with arctic silver 5 for now, get a better cooler down the road. your load temps should never go over 80c for safety reason..including overclocking scenarios

 

[kpc180]

Thanks! I am running Prime95 now. I chose the Blend test to run on 8 threads. It took about 5 minutes to get up to 70 C and then it held steady peaking at 73 but mostly staying at 70 or 71 C for another 15 minutes. The readme says to run it for hours and hours is that what most people do? From what I have read in forums it seems most people stop after a half hour. This leads me to think that Handbrake encoding was the problem if a 20-30 minutes stress test can be trusted. If not I'll let it run longer and see if it heats up? What do you think?

 

[dannoddd]

More thermal paste isn't going to help, and too much thermal paste can cause problems by causing poor contact between the heatsink and the CPU heatspreader. The Ivy Bridge line of Intel CPUs use a thermal paste instead of solder between the CPU itself and the heatspreader (metal you see). This has caused very high load temperatures.

If you're on the stock heatsink, your solution is to buy a real heatsink.

The reason that Prime95 isn't causing the same problem is because it's a different program running different type of processes. Different programs behave differently and use different parts of the CPU's architecture. Chances are Handbrake is more fully utilizing the whole of the CPU, versus Prime95's synthetic nature.

 

[kpc180]

Thanks, I started looking at the Cooler Master Hyper 212 plus and that thing is a brick! But I think you are right the tiny stock heat sink probably just can't keep up with the super heavy CPU consuming programs.

 

[kpc180]

Best answer selected by kpc180.