High/confusing idling temperature?

[richjamacian]

I recently purchased the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO and I keep getting high/conflicting temperature readings when idling. When I check through BIOS and SpeedFan, it reads ~41°C idling temperature. However, when I check with AMD Overdrive, I get readings of ~28°C. I even ran my CPU back at stock settings (AMD 8150 @ 3.6 GHz) and it's like nothing's changed. I've always had different readings from different programs but nothing like this. The fans are kinda loud so I'm going to say it's probably the former.

Anyone have any ideas/tips?

Mobo: ASUS Crosshair V
CPU: AMD 8150 (stock for now, 3.6GHz)

 

[Firetrak]

i'm going to guess two things.

One you put too much thermal paste on and its not evenly spread or too thick and is not transferring the heat correctly.

or

You haven't waited long enough for the paste to set which can take almost 5 days.

If the 2nd, leave your machine on doing nothing for a few days then retest.

If the first, take the fan/heatsink off. Clean off all thermal paste. Clean with alcohol after, then THINLY apply the paste. It should literally be maybe 2mm thick as most. across the entire chip leaving a 1MM edge around the chip borders.

Reattach everything again and retest. Also make sure the fans are running and not snagged, plus the mobo is not restricting the fan speed to "quiet".

 

[richjamacian]

I put a little less than a pea-sized amount of paste on, then kinda spread it around with the cooler then let the pressure spread the rest of it around. It might just need to settle.

 

[Jovec]

The CPU runs at full clocks and voltage in the BIOS, hence the higher idle temps. Using AMD Overdrive means you are in Windows, which means the CPU is allowed to lower both the clock speed and voltage during idle (aka Cool n Quiet). This is the key reason for the large difference in temps.

There is also the question of which sensor to measure. The CPU temp in AMD Overdrive is pulling temps from CPU sensor. The BIOS and Speedfan are probably pulling temps from a different sensor, probably the socket sensor.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Not an AMD user, but familiar somewhat with Cool & Quiet. Those temperatures look about right for idle. And . . .

What Jovec said.

Also be careful interpreting voltage and thermal readings among different programs. Some are more reliable than others. Almico's "SpeedFan" is based on an expanding database of chipsets and motherboards. Often, it does not configure to detected sensors so as to report accurately the source or meaning of the readings. It requires a certain amount of tweaking from the user, who in turn must acquire some information about his own motherboard.

Or at least . . . it had always had those troubles for a long time. I could be less certain, only because I haven't used it for a while.

Best to look at the proprietary software bundled with the motherboard, compare readings to as many as two other monitoring suites -- like HWMonitor or AIDA-64. Then pick one which seems to be consistently accurate.

Like I said, I wouldn't very well know what sort of difficulties AMD fans will have in these matters, but I speak from experience as pertains to Intel and monitoring software.