Question Is it possible that my CPU is giving a false temperature reading?

[JBrasch]

Replaced a CPU fan on an HP Pavilion g7-2325dx and the whole install went smoothly, I even cleaned off the CPU and the heatsink with an alcohol pad and applied some new Arctic Silver MX-4 thermal paste. Everything is running just fine and showing no signs of system issues other than it being an older laptop. But just to make sure everything was running good I opened up Speccy by Piriform and it showed the CPU temperature at a staggering 255 °F (124 °C) and idles around 212 °F (100 °C). I'm reaching out to you guys because I want to make sure there's nothing wrong and if there is, fix it before any permanent damage is done. The CPU is an AMD A8-4500M. Please help me out here, thank you!

 

[Gt403cyl]

Generally Speccy is not known for accurate temp readings, try other software and see if the readings are normal, 124c would realistically shut down so it's more than likely a very false reading.

 

[JBrasch]

Generally Speccy is not known for accurate temp readings, try other software and see if the readings are normal, 124c would realistically shut down so it's more than likely a very false reading.

I downloaded HWinfo as well and it appears to give a different temperature reading for the CPU (in the red rectangle) but it does still display the ridiculous temps (in the blue rectangle):

https://imgur.com/a/9XslXZT

 

[Gt403cyl]

I downloaded HWinfo as well and it appears to give a different temperature reading for the CPU (in the red rectangle) but it does still display the ridiculous temps (in the blue rectangle):

https://imgur.com/a/9XslXZT

Those readings are in Fahrenheit 130f is roughly 54c so that's more realistic.

 

[Markfw]

Those readings are in Fahrenheit 130f is roughly 54c so that's more realistic.

But it says current is 216f, not right

 

[Gt403cyl]

But it says current is 216f, not right

True, but if it was really running that hot it would thermal shutdown I would think.

That said unless the cooler is not actually contacting the CPU then I don't see how it would still be running that hot without shutting down.

 

[JBrasch]

True, but if it was really running that hot it would thermal shutdown I would think.

That said unless the cooler is not actually contacting the CPU then I don't see how it would still be running that hot without shutting down.

That's exactly why I'm stumped haha

 

[Markfw]

That's exactly why I'm stumped haha

Quote from @Iron Woode: "AMD FM series APUs have a major flaw in reading temps. You simply can't rely on the temp readings."

 

[VirtualLarry]

If that were an AM3/AM3+ platform, with an FX CPU, I would say that the mobo is intentionally setting the CPU temp reading too high, to intentionally throttle the CPU clocks. This happens, when the BIOS (in SMM mode), detects that the VRMs are overheating.

 

[Iron Woode]

Quote from @Iron Woode: "AMD FM series APUs have a major flaw in reading temps. You simply can't rely on the temp readings."

see my thread from a few years ago:

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...reading-from-a10-5800k.2473480/#post-38238415