Worried About High Temps

[Pez D Spencer]

I have an Opteron 170 CPU running at 2.5GHz with a Zalman CNPS9500 heatsink/fan, (see my sig for the rest of my system specs). I also have a Lian-Li PC-65 case.

Currently, my idle temps are about 45-47. Im not sure what I am getting under a load but I assume its well into the 50's. My case has four 80mm fans, 2 front, 1 top, and 1 rear. The front fans are intake and the top and rear fans are exhaust. I only have one hard drive which is side mounted, so the front fans are not severely blocked. The top fan is obstructed somwhat by the PSU cables but I have made as much clearance as possible. The heatsink fan is not directly in front of the rear exhaust fan, it offset slightly. See the pics in my sig for visuals.

The top fan and front fans are connected to a Vantec Nexus fan controller and are running wide open all the time. The rear fan is connected to the motherboard. Last week I took the heatsink off, reapplied some AS5, tweaked the mounting bracket a little to get more pressure but it didn't help. I read that some of the CNPS9500's are defective and have a concave bottom but this is not the case with mine.

I built this system about a week ago and overclocked it right after buliding it. The day after building it was when I took the heatsink off and reapplied the AS5 as I explained in the above paragraph. The day I built the system and the next day after reapplying the AS5 I was idling at 43. Every couple days since then I have been creeping up a degree or so and am now topping out at an average of 46. Why is the temp gradually increasing like this? Before overclocking I was idling at about 38. All of these temps are reported by Asus Probe. Speedfan reports the same temps as Asus Probe.

Earlier tonight, out of curiosity I took the side of the case off and pointed a box type window fan at the open side of the case. After doing this the temp dropped from 47 to 38 in a few minutes.

Should I be concerned about these mid 40's idle temps and why is the idle temp gradually increasing like this? I know the best thing to do would be to get a different case but I just spent 120 bucks on this one. Besides that I really love the looks of this case. I may replace the case in a few months but right now this is not an option because my computer funds dried up a long time ago. I guess I could leave the side off but that looks welfare as hell and I really don't wanna do that.

I read that the max temp for an Opteron is 70 which I am getting nowhere near but at the same time 70 is damn high IMO. Somone told me that a mid 50's load temp is ok but I just wanted to make sure. I've always heard that ideally you wanna stay under 50 with a load. Also, at stock speeds the CPU was running a 1.425 voltage and it is also running at 1.425 overclocked. I didn't increase the voltage when I overclocked. Is it normal for my temps to increase 6 or 7 degrees when I overclock even though I didn't add any voltage?

That just about wraps it up. Any advice or comments are appreciated.

BTW, some guy on here was claiming to be getting idle temps of 25 and a 40 degree load temp with an OC'd Opteron 170 and a CNPS9500 HSF. Im not a temperature expert and I don't know what kind of case he has, but I dont know if I believe that. I mean, if I only get 38 with the side off and a huge box fan only inches away then how is he getting an idle temp of 10+ degrees less?

Thanks in advance.

 

[sandorski]

Sounds ok to me. My X2 3800 at full load is 51c on the stock heatsink at stock speed.

 

[letdown427]

If the temps are gradually increasing, it could be that dust it building up around the intake fans (do you have filters on the fans? they may be getting clogged up) This will raise the box temperature gradually as less and less air can get in.
Have you been looking at case temperatures too? Room temperatures been increasing?

When you OC, even if voltage is normal, temps can rise, as the processor is working harder at the higher speed, more electrical signals are being passed around etc, so yeh, temps will rise, even with stock voltage.

That does seems a pretty high idle. Maybe try it at stock speeds, and see what you get? That could give you more useable results for comparison.

Also, I guess your temp sensor could be a bit crap? Probably worth checking load temps aswell. If they don't change much, it could be your sensor.

You could just have a warm chip, but consider that as a last resort explanation if you can't find anything better!

As for the other guy, his could have a chilly room. He could have some massive noisy fans in the case aswell, pumping his rooms cold air through the case. I don't know. But 38 with a huge box fan near it is too high IMO. Unless you use your PC in a sauna?

 

[Absolute0]

With that heatsink and speed i think you should idle around 36 and load around 45

 

[Pez D Spencer]

Originally posted by: letdown427

If the temps are gradually increasing, it could be that dust it building up around the intake fans (do you have filters on the fans? they may be getting clogged up) This will raise the box temperature gradually as less and less air can get in.
Have you been looking at case temperatures too? Room temperatures been increasing?


That does seems a pretty high idle. Maybe try it at stock speeds, and see what you get? That could give you more useable results for comparison.

The system is only a week old so there is no dust build-up yet. The front fans have filters but I don't use them.

At stock speeds it was idling at around 38

 

[Absolute0]

I'm just saying what temps i would expect.

One thing is for certain, never trust the CPU temp that the mobo tells you, as it is just about always wrong. I dont know how accurate it is on ASUS boards...

 

[Furen]

Your vcore is a bit high, have you tried dropping the it down a bit? Most DC Opterons default at around 1.3-1.35v, so your motherboard was overvolting a bit. How much AS5 did you apply? Not too much I hope. How is it that you measure idle temperature but not loaded? If you are reading from the bios then that's not even close to idle, it's more like 50-70% load-equivalent. K8s idle at very low power consumptions since HLT lowers the CPU's idle power draw and SOI drops current leakage quite a bit.

 

[Pez D Spencer]

I lowered the vCore down to 1.35 and everything booted fine. I'm going to run Prime95 and see how it does. If it does ok then I will step it down some more. I'm idling at 40-41 now, but I still don't know if its stable.

And no, I applied only a small amount of AS5. I followed the directions. Even though the directions instructed to put less grease than I usually use. But then again, before building my Intel system a year or so ago, I always used generic stuff.

 

[Pez D Spencer]

1.35 failed Prime95 after an hour. I'm gonna try 1.375 then 1.4 and see if that works. However, since the motherboard defaults to 1.425 I'm not really expecting it to pass. We'll see though.

 

[Bobthelost]

I run my 4400 @ 2.58 with 1.45v.

My idle temps are around 40*C and load hits 52*C (when maxed out GPU and CPU).

If your case temps dropped that much when you opened it up and provided fresh air i'd be looking hard at your case's airflow. Try to neaten up the wiring if you can, check the case fans aren't being throttled down too soon.

 

[Pez D Spencer]

I believe the main airflow problem is that the video cards are blocking the front fans from blowing up into the case. I think Im going to get a 5.25 bay fan and see if that helps.