Sensor reading wtf moment

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
21,111
16,318
136
I wanted to reduce the noise level from my system, and as I am pretty sure that the main cause of the noise is the processor fan, I thought I would try re-applying the thermal paste. I spent quite a while cleaning both surfaces (processor and HSF contact), and applied the officially-advised amount of Arctic Silver 5, put everything back together and booted up.

The first curious thing to happen was that the BIOS said that I had installed a new processor. I did a quick check in the BIOS and everything was as expected. Once Win7 had booted, I fired up SpeedFan (4.44).

In SpeedFan I have four sensor readings, two of which are for the processor. Under > Configure > Temperatures, it lists the 'Core' reading coming from the AMD K10 chip, so I assume there's a sensor in the chip, and the main CPU reading from ATK110. The main CPU reading is giving a reasonably-sane reading of 34C, but the Core reading is coming back zero.

I tried uninstalling SpeedFan (as I have lately been getting a weird error when I start it, I felt it wasn't going to be a big loss) and deleted its config files in the process. However, once I had installed it, I'm getting the same readings for ATK110 and Core.

Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 630
Stock cooler, originally stock paste too, but now Arctic Silver 5 is being used.
Board: ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3.

So far the replacement heat paste hasn't helped, but Arctic Cooling's guide reckons that it takes a 200hr burn-in period before everything has settled.

Any idea why the 'core' reading might have gone wonky?
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
21,083
3,585
126
lol thank god you were able to fix it.

i still got a cpu which thinks its chuck norris and tends to idle BELOW AMBIENT. <--- impossible unless i have a chiller, which i dont, hence chuck norris.
Also a 580GTX that must of once again belong'd to chuck norris because it too reports idle BELOW AMBIENT.

:\

Im getting tired of chuck norris parts breaking physics... because its very hard to do accurate scaled tests..
 

Flat Mop

Member
Aug 9, 2011
36
0
0
lol thank god you were able to fix it.

i still got a cpu which thinks its chuck norris and tends to idle BELOW AMBIENT. <--- impossible unless i have a chiller, which i dont, hence chuck norris.
Also a 580GTX that must of once again belong'd to chuck norris because it too reports idle BELOW AMBIENT.

:\

Im getting tired of chuck norris parts breaking physics... because its very hard to do accurate scaled tests..

My Chuck Norris mobo always reads -294.7 degrees celcius (about 21 degrees below zero kelvin). Those thermodiodes are notorious for being badly calibrated though.