How hot is too hot? cpu at 55c under no load

[Sonikku]

Well I finally got it straightened out. My CPU is now at about 35-40c and the cores are both in the same range. A far cry from Speedfan reporting the CPU being 70c and the cores being 95c under load. It seems the intel stock cooler wasn't getting good contact with the processor. It was evident when I finally worked up the courage for a second attempt reseating the thing because the arctic silver paste I had applied was barely spread from the pea drop method I used the previous attempt.

I had made sure all four knobs had been turned clockwise and raised up and everything my first attempt too, but this time I took out the cpu altogether (made it easier to clean off to boot) and resocketed it/hinged it in before putting the heatsink down. This time it worked, though I notice that even though I pushed knobs in as best I could, two at a time both diagonally from each other with a click, one of them still feels loose enough to turn with my fingers no matter what I tried while the other three are so tight I'd need a flat head screwdriver to turn. It could be one of the black leg poke through things is defective. But oh well, it works.

Personally I would prefer to have the kind of money to just blow 40 bucks on a top of the line heat sink alone with screws and everything. But that wasn't an option, and I thank you all for your help.

 

[carling220]

I too have a strange issue like this. My asus 77 board is set to 'optimal' which seems to overclock to 4.3 at 1.3v (will manually overclock soon). I have a 212evo and some corsair fans.

It fluctuates between 30-55 when just doing nothing or on the internet. But at max load, during firestrike, and also at 100% load in GTA V, it stays in the 60's, occasionally hitting a max of 72. I believe 60-72 is good when under 100% load for a duration? Strange that it can hit 55 doing nothing, but only 60-70 at full load?

 

[ClockHound]

It fluctuates between 30-55 when just doing nothing or on the internet.

Thanks, that's an important distinction.

Don't trust most temp sensors at the low end of the scale. Imagine there's some background tasks that seemingly are doing nothing but sucking some power at random while scanning for phantom viruses. As well, the OS keeps busy with some housekeeping tasks in case you stop doing nothing at any moment.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I too have a strange issue like this. My asus 77 board is set to 'optimal' which seems to overclock to 4.3 at 1.3v (will manually overclock soon). I have a 212evo and some corsair fans.

It fluctuates between 30-55 when just doing nothing or on the internet. But at max load, during firestrike, and also at 100% load in GTA V, it stays in the 60's, occasionally hitting a max of 72. I believe 60-72 is good when under 100% load for a duration? Strange that it can hit 55 doing nothing, but only 60-70 at full load?

I thought I expounded almost too much about this on your broken-motherboard thread, so I can't really add anything.

Only to say some increased airflow or better cooling will lower the idle temperatures. I assume you're using the Fan Xpert software, BIOS and motherboard thermal fan control features?

 

[ClockHound]

I've scanned the thread and didn't see any mention of intake fan config in the Sonata. Is this the Sonata with no intake fans? Or 2 92mm? Or single 120mm?

Without intake fans the Sonata is a quiet little burning hell for components.

 

[Sonikku]

I've scanned the thread and didn't see any mention of intake fan config in the Sonata. Is this the Sonata with no intake fans? Or 2 92mm? Or single 120mm?

Without intake fans the Sonata is a quiet little burning hell for components.

Mine is the Sonata 2 with the single 120mm. But as noted on the last page, my issue = solved. My 95c under load is now down to 50c under load and 30-35 at idle. For clarification, carling220 is the one with the issue now, he jumped into the thread with a problem of his own.

 

[Sonikku]

Well, damn. I'm starting to think my motherboard's thermals are broken. On the one hand, Speedfan and CPUID HWmonitor both show both of my processor cores are hovoring about 35c each. Yet, they suggest the CPU is 124c. wtf?

And my system is -1c? What is going on?

 

[Ketchup]

Could be the board, since it's thermals are the ones that are off. But since the CPU reads are correct, I doubt it will affect anything.

Maybe just keep it until it bugs you enough to want to upgrade.

 

[Sonikku]

I'm a little hard up for cash and was thinking about getting a used i5-2500 3.3 GHz SR00T to replace my aging pentium g630 both to squeeze a little more life out of my 1155 board and because the benefits of spending three times as much on a new Haswell i5 mobo/cpu combo didn't seem worth it for the modest heat/wattage/performance improvements in modern games. But could screwy thermals hamper me?