68C Idle, 75C load, is this normal?

[KillaKilla]

I have a stock A64 at stock speed and (I think) stock voltage. I'll post my voltage on restart. I used OCZ ultra thermal compound, which seems to work fine on my brother's 2.6C at 3.0. the P4 runs at 45C idle, but my A64 runs 1t 68C idle, ~75C load. I RMAd my CPU because it was registering at 95C idle, and this one is saying it's at 75C load. I was wondering if this is normal for this MB CPU combo at stock speeds. Normally I would assume that this is way too high (all my other rigs, and other peoples rigs Ive seen run at, at most, even when OCed, at 55C)

I have an
Abit AV7
A64-2800+
512MB OCZ 3200
Geforce2 ULTRA 64MB

Yes, I do have decent airflow (1x front, 1x side, both intake, 2x back exhaust, all 80mm)

EDIT: CPU voltage is at 1.5
And yes, My CPU host is at 200, not stupid Abit's 204 default.

 

[SynthDude2001]

I don't have an Athlon 64 myself (although hopefully I will before too many more months pass...), but 75°C is way too high of a load temperature for any CPU as far as I know. If I were you I'd try reseating the heatsink again.

Alternately, it is possible that your motherboard is reporting temperatures much higher than they really are...but I'm not familiar with that particular motherboard, so you'd have to do a little research on that yourself.

 

[lenjack]

What he said. Definitely way high.

 

[simms]

I'd say you are already toking up...you're high.
Are you running a heatsink on this? What kind?

 

[SynthDude2001]

DP.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: simms
I'd say you are already toking up...you're high.
Are you running a heatsink on this? What kind?

Says in the summary he's using the stock cooler.

If you can safely reach it, is the heatsink hot to the touch? If the heatsink is seated and it's 75° C then it's going to be scalding hot and may melt your finger, so have a spatula handy. If it's cool or barely warm, then you have it seated poorly or the temp sensor is just wrong.

 

[KillaKilla]

Okay.. .this is bizzare. I flashed the BIOS with a FDD I 'borrowed' and now it's reading 36C. I was afraid to use AWD flash because, get this, it said it didn't support XP. So I flashed it via the built in AWDFlash (which requires a FDD, which I didn't have before. well, except the 5.25 inch one. but it can't hold all the files, so...) Problem solved.

BTW, does AWD flash work in XP?

 

[Aficionado]

It could be the mobo.

I have an Abit AV8 and it seems to determine the temperature by rolling dice. BIOS says that the cPU, after a cold boot, was running at close to 60 degrees C and rising, then in windows it was stable at 32 degrees C.

After a session of doom 3 (aborted, as the mobo started beeping) it read at close to 70 degrees C. I shut down and opened the case. The heatsink was only slightly warm to the touch.

From what I've read on the abit fora odd temperature readings are rather common with at least the AV8. Maybe its a common flaw with Abit mobos?

This is on the first system ive built and the weird temp ratings are really freaking me out. :Q

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: KillaKilla
Okay.. .this is bizzare. I flashed the BIOS with a FDD I 'borrowed' and now it's reading 36C. I was afraid to use AWD flash because, get this, it said it didn't support XP. So I flashed it via the built in AWDFlash (which requires a FDD, which I didn't have before. well, except the 5.25 inch one. but it can't hold all the files, so...) Problem solved.

BTW, does AWD flash work in XP?

AFAIK it only works in dos.

 

[ViRGE]

Abit boards giving off bad temp readings is a common and known problem; the KV8 was way out of whack until the last couple of BIOSs. Flash the latest BIOS, and then cruise on by the Abit forums and see if there are a lot of complaints, if there are, then there's likely a faulty reading. It's also worth noting that Abit, Asus, and several other companies have had Windows based flash utilities for a couple of years now, so there's no reason you should be needing to use the old DOS version.