Cooling question from first-time builder

[Sapphyric]

I just built my first system about a month ago and I've been struggling a bit with keeping the temps on my Q6600 (B3 revision, stock speed) reasonable. I'm using an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro fan with the thermal compound that came applied to it, fan speed set at 100%, and my core temperatures as read by Core Temp 0.97.1 range from 50-46c on cores 0-3 while idle, hovering just below 61-63c at load and I can't figure out why they're so high. The ambient temperature in the case is usually around 22-25c and the case (Thermaltake VA8003BWS) is plenty well ventilated. I know it's not the best heatsink/fan on the market but from what I've read it should be keeping it a fair bit cooler than that.

As far as I know the heatsink is mounted properly, but how would I know if it isn't? What else could potentially cause my CPU temps to be that high?

 

[BlueAcolyte]

There's a lot of things.

First of all, you may have too much thermal compound on the bottom of the heatsink. I could guess this because you have high idle but decent load temps.
Second, are you sure that you seated the thing right? Are all four pins even? If you press down, they shouldn't move at all.
Third, what's your graphics card?

Finally, does it matter? 60C at load is fine.

Oh, and congrats on your build.

 

[Sapphyric]

I'm pretty sure it's seated properly. The pins wouldn't push down any further when I initially installed it, but I'll have to double-check.

Graphics card is an nVidia e-GeForce 8800GT superclocked edition.

I was hoping to overclock the CPU to around 3-3.1ghz though, and the temps just seem to be a bit too high for me to safely attempt it.

And thanks.

Edit: Checked to make sure the pins are all the way down and they are. Heatsink barely moved when gently wiggled. Ran Prime95 (Small FFTs) for only a few minutes and temps got close to 70c. Not sure just how high they would've gone if I had let it go on longer. :\

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Triple check your BIOS settings. The pre-applied thermal paste is pretty decent stuff and though a little heavy, not significantly. sounds like the automatic voltage is setting too high. could be due to an out of date BIOS with your Q6600.

Welcome to AT by the way!

 

[BadOmen]

If you want to explore the issue a little more, the gentleman above (Darwen)gave me some invaluable tips about testing temps on this thread.

They are located mostly on the second half of the thread.

About the pushpins, sometimes they look awesome, but are not. Did they all click when you pressed them? If you look between the motherboard and the case backplate, do you see them all inserted to the same extent?

The ammount of thermal paste that comes with the AC7 is usually very well balanced. But the analogy high idle/normal load = too much paste sounds interesting and new to me. Makes me feel like giving it a try and removing some from the cpu in my rig (aka Hell's Kitchen's Stove Burner on a Heat Wave Day).

 

[Sapphyric]

I just checked my voltages in BIOS. The CPU voltage is at 1.24v, which to my understanding is what it should be. The FSB voltage is set to 1.4v. Does that sound a little too high for the FSB voltage at stock speeds?

About the pushpins, they all clicked in when I initially installed the AC7 and none of them clicked when I double-checked to make sure they were all in the other night. I don't know if they're all inserted the same distance, though. I'll have to check that before I try to reseat it.

Thanks for the welcome, Derwen.

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: Sapphyric
I just checked my voltages in BIOS. The CPU voltage is at 1.24v, which to my understanding is what it should be. The FSB voltage is set to 1.4v. Does that sound a little too high for the FSB voltage at stock speeds?

About the pushpins, they all clicked in when I initially installed the AC7 and none of them clicked when I double-checked to make sure they were all in the other night. I don't know if they're all inserted the same distance, though. I'll have to check that before I try to reseat it.

Thanks for the welcome, Derwen.

when i installed my stock cooler on my E8400 i thought i would break the mobo, but it took a bit to get it to click

Good luck

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: BadOmen
If you want to explore the issue a little more, the gentleman above (Darwen)g

Did you just call me a gentleman? Watch it there bub. I'm many things but, I don't know that a gentleman is any of them.

Back OT though. It seems that a LOT of people have been having problems with the push pins on the AC7 lately, I'm starting to wonder if it's an actual QC issue at this point.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Is your 8800GT fan speed locked @ 29% and dumping hot air into your case? Just a thought.

 

[Sapphyric]

Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
Is your 8800GT fan speed locked @ 29% and dumping hot air into your case? Just a thought.

Nope. I used RivaTuner to bump the fan speed up to 54%. Core temps are ~50c on the GPU. The CPU temps were unaffected.

 

[EarthwormJim]

Honestly, it's a B3 core 2 quad. They do run a bit hot.

I'd try remounting the heatsink with new thermal paste.

Clean the heatsink and processor with isopropyl alcohol and lint free cloths. Best thing for applying the paste is to do is a small line across the middle of the processor, going with the text written on the IHS.

With thermal paste, you really can't use your intuition. If you think you've put enough on, you've put too much on.

What's the VID of your processor by the way? Core Temp should say. Also what is CPUZ measuring the voltage on your processor as?

BIOS voltage settings aren't 100% accurate, so setting it for 1.2v may make it run at 1.185v, or 1.215v etc...

If remounting doesn't make a difference, I'd just leave it alone. 60c load is well within the safe range for that processor. Think about retail systems with core 2 quads (macs), I've heard of them running at 80c load.

 

[Sapphyric]

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
Honestly, it's a B3 core 2 quad. They do run a bit hot.

I'd try remounting the heatsink with new thermal paste.

Clean the heatsink and processor with isopropyl alcohol and lint free cloths. Best thing for applying the paste is to do is a small line across the middle of the processor, going with the text written on the IHS.

With thermal paste, you really can't use your intuition. If you think you've put enough on, you've put too much on.

What's the VID of your processor by the way? Core Temp should say. Also what is CPUZ measuring the voltage on your processor as?

BIOS voltage settings aren't 100% accurate, so setting it for 1.2v may make it run at 1.185v, or 1.215v etc...

If remounting doesn't make a difference, I'd just leave it alone. 60c load is well within the safe range for that processor. Think about retail systems with core 2 quads (macs), I've heard of them running at 80c load.

That's what my plan of action is right now. I ordered some ArctiClean and AS5 so when that gets in, the heatsink shall be remounted.

The VID read in Core Temp is 1.3000v. CPUZ measures the voltage at 1.224v.

My ~60c load figure isn't entirely accurate. Those temps occurred while running Prime95 on Blend. When I ran it on Small FFTs the cores hit around 72-73c.

Hopefully the remounting does the trick. And thanks for the tip on the thermal paste.

 

[DaQuteness]

Arctic Silver 5 applying instructions.

Hope it's useful, mostly for orientation, applying TIM in the wrong spot can mean a lot. Oh, and the Break-in thing with the AS is true, just be patient, in my case temps dropped from ~37 to ~33C, and i actually OC'd the CPU from 2.4 to 3.4 :laugh:

 

[EarthwormJim]

Originally posted by: Sapphyric

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
Honestly, it's a B3 core 2 quad. They do run a bit hot.

I'd try remounting the heatsink with new thermal paste.

Clean the heatsink and processor with isopropyl alcohol and lint free cloths. Best thing for applying the paste is to do is a small line across the middle of the processor, going with the text written on the IHS.

With thermal paste, you really can't use your intuition. If you think you've put enough on, you've put too much on.

What's the VID of your processor by the way? Core Temp should say. Also what is CPUZ measuring the voltage on your processor as?

BIOS voltage settings aren't 100% accurate, so setting it for 1.2v may make it run at 1.185v, or 1.215v etc...

If remounting doesn't make a difference, I'd just leave it alone. 60c load is well within the safe range for that processor. Think about retail systems with core 2 quads (macs), I've heard of them running at 80c load.

That's what my plan of action is right now. I ordered some ArctiClean and AS5 so when that gets in, the heatsink shall be remounted.

The VID read in Core Temp is 1.3000v. CPUZ measures the voltage at 1.224v.

My ~60c load figure isn't entirely accurate. Those temps occurred while running Prime95 on Blend. When I ran it on Small FFTs the cores hit around 72-73c.

Hopefully the remounting does the trick. And thanks for the tip on the thermal paste.

Glad you specified what test you were running. A small FFT temp of 72c is too high.

Small or large fft is typically the test to use when loading up just your cpu. large fft is the most demanding.

 

[BadOmen]

Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12

Originally posted by: BadOmen
If you want to explore the issue a little more, the gentleman above (Darwen)g

Did you just call me a gentleman? Watch it there bub. I'm many things but, I don't know that a gentleman is any of them.

Oh, sorry about that, then. I stand corrected.

But say, can we really consider that high idle temps may be caused by too much thermal paste? I`ll get a bolt-thru kit anyway, because my Desktop Microwave is becoming an extreme case, but a high level of reliability on that information would help diagnostics considerably.

 

[DaQuteness]

AS5 can act as an insulation material if applied in a bigger quantity than necessary. Arctic Freezer Pro 7 isn't the best cooler around so that might be one of the things contributing to your high temps. B3 revision runs hot, it's a well known fact. If i recall correctly, AFP7 is one of the coolers that doesn't have a flat base so you might need a lapping, god knows. B3 series of Q6600 had some issues that won't allow the temps to go as low as a G0. I know this doesn't sound nice but you should consider getting your hands on a G0 OR you could get the newer 45nm version, Q9300 or Q9450 if you get a good deal on the Q6600.

 

[Sapphyric]

Just finished remounting the heatsink. I'm going to reserve judgement on whether that actually helped my cause for a few days and give the AS5 time to settle a little.

Two things I did notice while doing this were

1) There was a ton of MX-1 compound on that chip. I was very surprised, and most of it seemed concentrated along the perimeter of the heat spreader.

2) I had no idea just how tricky those clips really are until I tried to put it in for a second time, which turned into a third time when I couldn't get all four to stay in. I decided to reclean and reapply yet again after that. I'm pretty sure now the heatsink was not properly seated the first time around.

Also, I've noticed that sometimes cores 1, 2, and 3 jump above Core 0 every now and then by 3-4c before returning to a more "normal" order during processes. Is this just due to the new application of thermal compound, part of settling, or a sign that I may not have applied it as well as I should've? I used the one-line method as shown on Arctic's website and the line appeared to be a consistent thickness.

 

[BadOmen]

I passed through the exact same thing. The second time was hell and became a third. Which, in my case, was still not enough. We kinda concluded in the other thread that the pins are still bad. That's why I'm moving on to a Thermalright Bolt-Thru as soon as I have something else to add to an order (shipping is gonna be double the price of the thing, and I refuse to pay it like that).

About the mx-1, it really looks a lot, but I had a pretty good time with my temps when using it.

 

[DaQuteness]

Pushpins are the most painfull experience i've dealt with since i've started messing around with pc's 12 years ago... those clipped on coolers for AMD were very easy to install, then again, the screw-backplate combination made things even more easy, especially when you're dealing with a 1kg cooler like the Tuniq Tower They could have at least been made out of metal (the pushpins)

 

[laezyre]

I had a similar experience. I just built my first two systems using push pins. Everything seemed fine until I ran Crysis with a cpu/case temp monitoring utility. After a minute of playing my BIOS temps went from 30 C to 60 C. Keep in mind that core temps are about 15-17 degrees hotter than BIOS temps. So I was running at arond 75C ! My retail fan and heatsink seemed very stabe and came withe stock thermal paste on the heatsink.

I took off the fan/heatsink and cleaned off the grease with a cloth towel. I very firmly reattatched the fan/heatsink using a screwddriver and some firm downward pressure. I did not use ANY thermal paste. Suddenly my cpu and case temps were hovering around 40C max wih hours of Crysis playing. So I lowered my BIOS temps by 20-25 C simply by reinstalling the crappy push pins. Core temps are about 55 C.

I just ordered a vendetta 2 and will use some arctic silver paste with it.

good luck

 

[WoodButcher]

Originally posted by: Sapphyric
Just finished remounting the heatsink. I'm going to reserve judgement on whether that actually helped my cause for a few days and give the AS5 time to settle a little.

Two things I did notice while doing this were

1) There was a ton of MX-1 compound on that chip. I was very surprised, and most of it seemed concentrated along the perimeter of the heat spreader.

2) I had no idea just how tricky those clips really are until I tried to put it in for a second time, which turned into a third time when I couldn't get all four to stay in. I decided to reclean and reapply yet again after that. I'm pretty sure now the heatsink was not properly seated the first time around.

Also, I've noticed that sometimes cores 1, 2, and 3 jump above Core 0 every now and then by 3-4c before returning to a more "normal" order during processes. Is this just due to the new application of thermal compound, part of settling, or a sign that I may not have applied it as well as I should've? I used the one-line method as shown on Arctic's website and the line appeared to be a consistent thickness.

#1 , spreading like that means contact is best in the center, that's a good thing, that's where the cores are.

#2, clips suck.

As to your also,, individual core jumps are normal, if you had a pair running consistantly higher, more than say 8-10 degrees, it would indicate a bad mounting of the heatsink. One core different is common, software loading or unloading that core.

 

[Sapphyric]

#1 , spreading like that means contact is best in the center, that's a good thing, that's where the cores are.

#2, clips suck.

As to your also,, individual core jumps are normal, if you had a pair running consistantly higher, more than say 8-10 degrees, it would indicate a bad mounting of the heatsink. One core different is common, software loading or unloading that core.

Ah, OK. That clears that up.


So it's been a week now and the temps failed to change much between the initial installation and the cleaning/reseating of the AF7 Pro. I ordered and just finished installing a Tuniq Tower 120 (it JUST barely fit in my case). The idle temps are between 6c-9c lower than they were with the AF7, and once the AS5 "settles" I should be at a reasonable idle temperature.

Right now the cores hover between 45c-42c for cores 0-3 versus the 54c-49c I was averaging before. Curiously, my load temps initially aren't much better. With the Tuniq they're between 70c-67c after 10 minutes of Prime95. With the AF7 I never felt comfortable running it for more than 5 minutes because the temps would hit the mid-70 range. I'm curious if maybe I didn't use enough compound this time (used about 3/4 the length of the line shown on Arctic's website), if all the sliding the Tuniq wanted to do may have had a dramatic effect, or if I'm just unlucky and have a particularly hot-running/uneven chip?

Edit: Being the newbie to this whole business that I am, I'm beginning to wonder if I've had Core Temp/SpeedFan set up improperly. If anyone has any advice on how those should be configured for me and my CPU, that might resolve a lot of my concerns.