E8400 -- RealTemp showing 46C at idle

[Cr0nJ0b]

My rig is in the Sig.

I'm doing some OC testing and I'm worried that when I took my CPU off last time for a MB replacement i didn't put it back right. I'm getting 46C at idle which seems really high. Ambient is in the 70s here and I have what I think is a pretty descent cooler. Any suggestions? Maybe reseat, or reapply paste? I'm always wondering exactly how much thermal paste to put on my chip...

 

[CurseTheSky]

I'm in the same boat.

E8400, P182 with fans on medium / low, Core Contact Freezer, and Speed Step and C1E ENABLED, I'm getting 44C at idle. Before, I had all fans on high, Freezer 7 Pro, and Speed Step / C1E disabled, and I was getting ~46C idle. Both times I was at stock voltage and clocks.

At the same time, I had another computer with virtually no holes for ventilation, no case fans at all (the only air flow came from a low RPM fan attached to the heatsink - Hyper TX2), and an E6600. It was idling at 54C, and load would peak to 59C. I find it hard to believe that all the fans in the E8400 system can't keep it more than 10C cooler than this bad of a setup.

Try a few things to figure out what the problem is:
-Hold a razor blade perpendicular across the IHS of your processor, and look at it straight on from two adjacent edges. If you see any light under the blade, you have a concave IHS and would probably benefit a lot from lapping.
-Take the side panel off your case and run it for 5-10 minutes; see if temperatures improve (which would indicate there isn't enough airflow in the case).
-Buy a bolt-through heat sink; you can get the Xigmatek S1283 and bolt-through kit for a reasonable price.
-Try newer thermal paste; if you're using some that's been sitting around for a while, it may have separated. I use Arctic Cooling MX-2 / Tuniq TX-2 these days, but most are within 1-2C of each other.

Good luck, and if you figure out what it is, please let me know. It's driving me nuts too. I don't have the time lately to do much of anything with my computer, or I'd follow my own advice.

 

[donfm]

I am running at 40C both cores with the stock Intel cooler and C1E and speedstep enabled at idle according to realtemp3. Using Arctic Silver 5 on the CPU

 

[gummi467]

Yeah, I've just installed my noctua NH-U12P on my E8400 and I was sitting at 30C idling in bios (no OS installed yet). I would suggest your pull the heatsink, reseat the CPU if you're worried and then reseat the heatsink. make sure on the noctua that you are tightening both sides evenly as you screw it down. ie: do a half a turn on each side. I did notice that my HS got caught on something for a second and didn't want to tighten any more but I couldn't figure out what it was. I loosened it a bit on that side and wiggled it and it popped down a little bit and then it was fine tightening the rest of the way. if your HS got hung up on something on one side that would easily explain your temps so go ahead and remount it and make sure you have good contact on all sides.

also lapping your cpu heatspreader could be beneficial but only if it isn't flat to begin with. Mine looked fine and the finish on my noctua is damn near perfect. I would have to take some 2000 grit to it to make it any better so I'm leaving it as is for now.

 

[tornadog]

I think something's screwy with the temp sensor on my e8400. My temps at stock V(1.225V) and speeds using a AC 7 Pro and AS5 is 45 degrees. I bumped it up to 3.9Ghz and stock V and temp is still same. I bumped the speeds to 4.05Ghz and V in bios to 1.4375V, and temps at iddle is still 46 degrees. I ran Orthos overnight and it didnt fail but ran full load at a blazing 75 degrees.

 

[WoodButcher]

45nm chips are notorious for stuck sensors. In any case idle temps are irrelevant, It is the loaded temps that you need to concern yourself with. Tdog, at that voltage and core speed, with the cooling you have that is the temp I would expect.

 

[gummi467]

Tdog: you're going to want to be careful if you're planning on running those voltages 24/7 regardless of cooling solution. granted you could have been running it just to check your temps but just be aware unless you're really dying to upgrade to Q9650 sooner rather than later

 

[Gillbot]

My E7500 reports 44C at idle, 49C at full load. The sensors are not really meant to report "idle" temps anyway.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Gillbot
The sensors are not really meant to report "idle" temps anyway.

It should be a sticky about this, since there are so many threads born with this "issue" all the time.

 

[tornadog]

Originally posted by: gummi467
Tdog: you're going to want to be careful if you're planning on running those voltages 24/7 regardless of cooling solution. granted you could have been running it just to check your temps but just be aware unless you're really dying to upgrade to Q9650 sooner rather than later

yup i went down to 3.9Ghz @ stock V as I was not gaining anything by a 100Mhz oc other than the high Voltages.

 

[Borealis7]

what you should look at is the Distance to TJmax. for idle it should be higher than 60. if its higher than 70 its very cool. i O/Ced my chip to keep DTJmax at 70 idle.
during load it should be no lower than 30 or 20. 20 is getting dangerous.

also check your RealTemp settings. if TJmax is not set to the correct number you will see temps higher than reality.

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: Gillbot
The sensors are not really meant to report "idle" temps anyway.

It should be a sticky about this, since there are so many threads born with this "issue" all the time.

Make a good informative one and i'll stick it.

 

[tornadog]

damn just ran orthos and it failed after 5 minutes, had to knock it down to 420(x9) to get it to run past 15 minutes!

 

[scruffypup]

I have to disagree a lot with some of what was stated in here,..

First you cannot compare what one person gets for temps to another,... unless it is the same setup, same ambient ROOM temp, same temp monitoring program that is calibrated the same,...

For some of you saying look at the distance to TjMax instead,.. sorry it is the same thing it is just a different way of looking at it and can still be wrong if you have the temp monitoring program calibrated wrong (some are based on intel's specs,.. so you can get different reading between the 3-4 main temp sensing programs of 10 degreees easily)

Also,... to OP,... if you have 70C ambient temps in the case,.... then I don't think you have a HSF issue and the chip is running very nicely - it is 24 degrees below the temp inside the case for crying out loud,... it is not going to be snowing,... if you want lower temps,... you need to more more air through the case since you seem to be heating the inside of the case up quite well with the graphics card,...what are your 100% load temps? I suspect they get to maybe mid 50's worst case,.. if they don't even get there then your HSF is definitely doing all it can considering temp in case,.....

For whatever reason there seems to be an impression running amok on here that you can overclock a chip quite a bit, have a very hot graphics card and some other nice heat producing items (raid, etc) put on a hsf and expect it to be running 0 degrees or something,...

My thought to the OP is that you have your chip running at a nice temp if that is an accurately calibrated program (the intel sensors are not as bad as the rep they are getting) considering you say OC (but not saying what OC), 6 harddrive, 2 optical, 4 sticks of ram, nvidia 260, soundcard,... you don't even have to start worrying about the chip unless you are getting mid 60's to 70 at load,... then you might want to be concerned

 

[WoodButcher]

Cr0nJ0b, so, what are your load temps running prime?
@ scruffypup, I'm thinking the op meant his room temp was 70's F not C but your right about the other internals. The fact he is running a waterloop makes me think stuck sensors but he does not give enough detail to say for sure. If that loop is a small rad cooling the gpu as well it would make perfect sense to see such high temps in the cpu.