Question Regarding my 1.8A Stock Temps

[BtSnake]

Hello, been reading these boards a lot recently. Especially the hot deals section since I was buying a new comp. Anyway heres my Question.

I bought a 1.8A hearing how cool they ran and potential for overclocking (especially the 1.6A), maybe in the future. I used Hardware Monitor Program that came with my Abit motherboard to check on temps just to see and I am getting around 51-52 C at idle times. Seems quite high from what ive read (Maybe its just an unlucky chip that runs hot?). Specially with people saying they get 55 C or so at full load when overclocked (provided they have decent cooling where im just using stock intel HS&F). Also was getting warning for having too low of vcore with 1.43-1.46 with the programs trigger set to go off below 1.55. Vcore is set in bios to 1.5 as default. Also getting a warning here and there about my -5v charge from powersupply hitting -5.48. Curious if maybe my PSU has anything to do with my heat issues.

Anyway heres my system specs
1.8A @ 1.8A
512 megs of Samsung PC-800
Abit TH7II-Raid
Leadtek Ti4400
Santa Cruz Sound Card
Generic Case and Generic 300 watt PSU

Would appreciate any thoughts on the matter. Im content with staying at this CPU speed, I just think with an idle temp like this at stock speeds, I will have no chance of OC'ing in the future.

 

[Jgtdragon]

That is high for a northwood. What case you using? Might need some case fans for the case. Is it hot in your room? Make sure your heatsink is clip on securely. I got the same chip, montherboard , and rams. My idle temps range from 39-42c depending its a hot day or not. The highest at full load was 53c on a hot day.

 

[Johnnychangs]

Hi
You definitely need a more powerful PSU anyway. What is your case cooling like? You should definitely have an exhaust fan in the back of the case (near the CPU)....Fan on power supply doesn't count An exhaust fan on the top of your case may help also.

Back to the PSU thing....I think this may be the culprit. To get unstable voltage readings is kind of scary. Check out this article here:
http://www.virtual-hideout.net/articles/p4northwood_ocing_adventure_part2/index.shtml

Yes, it is about unlocking a P4, but at one point in the article he runs into being limited by his PSU, and goes into detail about it. He also give some recommendations to some good high power, cheap PSUs.

I personally like Antec myself, but thats just my opinion.

Cheers

 

[jdurg]

There's really just one question that needs to be asked. How stable is your system? I have found from personal experience that how cool your chip runs doesn't matter as long as your system is stable. I have my 1.8A overclocked to 2.52 GHz with a vcore of 1.775 volts. At idle, my CPU temperature is around 48-50 degrees Celsius. Under full load, it's about 63-66 degrees Celsius. However, that full load temperature drops back down to idle after about two or three seconds of idling. I've run Prime95 for upwards of six hours without one single problem. So the temperature really doesn't matter as long as your system is stable. If you run into instability, check and see if the power supply, RAM, or PCI cards are causing the instability. If you've ruled all of those out, then yeah, the temperatures are causing the problem. But I'm beginning to think that too many people are getting too concerned over the temperatures of their northwoods. Running them at higher temperatures will shorten their lifespan, but from ten years to about 6 or 7 years. I doubt any of us will be using our current CPUs in six years.

So if your system runs as stable as you want it, then don't worry about the temperatures.

 

[BtSnake]

Jdurg, Yes my system is stable, but I have not overclocked anything at all, thats why I thought my temps seemed pretty high for a non-OC'ed northwood.

I don't really have much in terms of cool/exhaust, Im gonna look into getting a new case with some fans/exhaust and a decent PSU that might help. Would getting a better PSU help enough at 300w or should i look to get a better one with more watts to boot?

Also Johnny thanks for the link, I'll look into it.

 

[SteelCityFan]

I have the same chip and Motherboard. I run mine at 2Ghz. My temps are about 48-49 idle and 56-57 load. I think a lot of it has to do with luck. Fans won't help. I used to have 5 normal case fans in my Antec SX635 case including the 2 on the PS. I replaced 2 of the case fans with low speed panaflos. My temps were the same with the case open.

Some people will tell you that your Northwood is too hot, and that you are doing something wrong because there is no way it should be that hot. I have a different opinion after spending weeks trying to get my temp down. Some of the 1.6A and 1.8A chips were originally rated at higher speeds, but Intel dropped them to lower speeds to fill demand at those price points. Of course, some 1.6A's and 1.8A's would not have been rated that high.

You and I got one of these chips.


The only other explanation is that our motherboards are reporting temps too high. I once read a post on HardOCP from someone who had 2 different TH7-II Motherboards. The one showing things like the low VCore (mine does too) showed about 10-15 degrees higher CPU temp than the one that was a little over on VCore.

EDIT: I lean in this direction. Even though I know for 100% that my heatsink is making very good contact with my CPU, the heatsink is only luke warm to the touch on full load. If it were really running at that speed, I would think the heatsink would be rather hot to the touch.

I tried a lot of things.. The Thermal pad at first, then 2 different applications of Arctic Silver 3, I even halfed the small amount I applied the last time by taking the heat sink off and wiping off what was on the HS, and respreading what was remaining on the CPU. No Change. Let me add that using the AS3 over the thermal pad dropped my CPU temp by about 2-3 degrees.

Critical Temp (according to the support email I sent Intel) is 67C, and shortly after that the CPU will simply throttle down and not burn up. I happily run mine at 2Ghz... it does just fine..


Oh, and if you are worried about the VCore, just bump it up slightly in the BIOS... oh, and there is a new BIOS just released in April if you did not know...

 

[jdurg]

I too have to agree that some of the chips just seem to run hotter than the others. My cpu was packaged in January of this year, so it was one of the first Northwoods made. With later pack dates, I've seen people be able to reach 133 fsb on stock voltage. I needed 1.7 volts to get to a 133 fsb. (Which is actually about 1.6 volts. My MSI 845-ARU board seems to undervolt by .1 volts.) I have also been trying everything to get my temperatures down. At one point, I had two 60 cfm intakes and two 60 cfm outtake fans. The noise coming from my computer was just too much for me to handle, so I just replaced the two intakes with a quiet Panaflo and the two outtakes with an enermax temperature sensing fan. My temperatures didn't change. I also replaced my 300 watt PSU with an Enermax 431 watt PSU and noticed that the extra fan on the new PSU has helped out the cooling. I've also noticed that my load temperature of 66 degrees max is only at 66 degrees for a second. It then immediately drops back down to about 57 degrees. Thankfully, my cooling system is doing a good job because my temperatures quickly return to their idle status as soon as the load is removed from the cpu.

I hope your overclocking turns out to be a success. If you can only get to 133 fsb, look on the bright side. For what you paid for your 1.8A, you'll have the effective speed of a 600 dollar plus cpu.

 

[Duvie]

My 1.8a at stock runs 36c on my sis645 mobo...according to bios and asus probe...I have 2 case fans and PS with 2 fans...I also got a avc hsf...it runs 4000rpm while stock ran about 2700 or so...load barely touches 42c

At 1.8@2.2ghz with 1.55 vcore I run 37-38c idle and 44c load

At 1.8@2.52ghz with 1.775 vcoreI run 39c idle and 51c load

one thing to note when I ran stock 1.8 on msi ultra i845d mobo I got 48c idle with stock fan...60c load...then I go new hsf and used AS2 instead of thermal pad and switched to sis mobo. Rumor even in msi circles was board did not support northwoods early on and many were reporting erroroneous temps.

 

[Barrei]

Get an Alpha 8942 and a Y.S.tech fan here my idle temps at 2.58ghz cpuv 1.65v are 30-31c load temps 37-39c , used to be with stock hsf at 2.52 ghz and cpuv 1.625 idle 36-38c load 52-56c , so the alpha made a big difference as whole system run better when cooler that is a fact , the big difference is in load temps , as you can see, from my overclocking experience cooler is ALWAYS better.

 

[jdurg]

The Alpha is a nice heatsink/fan. Unfortuneately, it doesn't use the standard Intel P4 retention mechanism, so you have to remove your motherboard in order to install it. For people like me who just finished building their system, taking everything out just to upgrade a heatsink is a bit much to ask. I've just grown to accept the fact that my Northwood isn't able to overclock as much as the later packaged ones do. However, that doesn't bother me. I spent 180 bucks on my 1.8A and having it running at a speed that would cost me over 600 dollars to buy right now. It's my first overclock ever, and I'm incredibly happy with it. I'm also surprised that the first computer I ever built, and the first overclock job I ever did, turned out to work so great. I can't complain about a 2.52 GHz computer. It's fast enough for everything that I want to do with it. I may try higher speeds in the future, but I'm pretty happy with a 140 fsb. (From the MSI forums, I see that the MSI motherboards lock the PCI and AGP buses at their default speeds after the fsb hits 133. So even at a fsb of 154, the PCI and AGP will still be in spec.) However, my RAM is only PC2400 RAM so I think 150 is the highest that I hope to hit. Then again, the fact that I can run 2.52 is a happy surprise. A 720 MHz overclock is pretty damn nice.

 

[Barrei]

Damn right 720mhz is a great overclock I have had mine up to 2664 mhz = 18x148fsb but my Samsung pc 2100 memory couldn't take it , but my original Samsung pc2700 is on it way.