Getting hot in here

[litlbob]

First off, the hard ware:
Case Thermaltake Aguila
Core duo 2 e 6400 (stock cooler)
Asus Radeon x1900xt video card
Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste (brought cpu down 3 C)
1 120 intake fan, 1 120 mm output
600 watt OCZ gamerstream P/S
DFI infinity 975x Mobo.

When I am idle, temps are
NB - 49-51 C (passively cooled)
CPU 42-44 C
System - 39-41 C

When I start up a relatively old game (Project Snowblind which came with the card), CPU gets up to 54, NB up to 55 (30 minutes). Didn't get the case temp. All is set at stock settings (no O/C). Ambient temp of my house: 76 F.

I have a zalman 9500 to cool the CPU, but I would have to take the whole thing apart to get there. Am I doing something wrong, on is better fans and a new cooler my only option?

 

[VinDSL]

Hrm...

Well, let me just say this, based on personal experience, and on some reading in recent threads elsewhere...

'We' built two identical CD2 machines for a guy in 'Vegas' last month, and the CPU temps varied 20 º C between the two machines.

Secondly, while researching Scythe Infinity coolers, I ran across a thread where a much trusted Guru couldn't get the heat on his E6600 under control, even though other ppl weren't having any problem. He ended up going with water-cooling in this incomplete saga -- more to continue.

Bottom line: It would appear that some CD2 CPUs run hotter than others, for no particular reason -- at least for no reason that has been figured out yet.

I'm taking a wait n' see attitude before I give up my 'Northwood'. Personally, I think Intel is having some problems right now, with these new chips -- but I haven't read that anywhere -- just going by my gut feeling!

 

[litlbob]

What temp should I set my shutdown to be? I have it at 65 c but the intel site sats 61.5 c is the max temp.

What I am worried about is I built this to play the current gen games and if I cannot play but for an hour I need to go to something else cooling wise...

And hot hot should I let the North bridge get?

 

[Bobthelost]

The northbridges can get very hot without damage, they'll become unstable before they suffer explosive death.

There were issues with some software programs giving dodgy temperature readings, although i think they were mostly Asus boards.

 

[foosa]

My temps where about the same as yours, and I just installed a zalman 9500(the one without the led) and now i am sitting on 31c and load is 40c. Install it, it took me about 30mins to do it.
my specs are in the sig.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I've been noticing many people over at xtreme systems have had their C2D CPUs come with a severely concave IHS resulting in serverely hot temperatures. Generally when an IHS is concave it is hard to tell but some were painfully obvious when using a straightedge across it. There are only 2 options for this when the IHS is concave - 1 is to RMA the CPU to intel to get a new one and hope that it doesn't have the same problem, the other is to void the warranty on the chip and lap the IHS smooth. Other than that not much else you can do.

Hopefully yours is just a case of "stock cooler inefficiency syndrome" and a 3rd party cooler will fix it.

Intel has some serious problems with their QC on those chips and they shouldn't. I can see an IHS being slightly concave or convex (concave is worse) but not to the extent that some of these C2D's are shipping.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: SparkyJJO
I've been noticing many people over at xtreme systems have had their C2D CPUs come with a severely concave IHS resulting in serverely hot temperatures...

Bingo!!!

 

[Bull Dog]

Ya concave sucks major *beep* Convex isn't as bad, but its also far rarer than concave.