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X4 940 Giving me hell...

RavenSEAL

Diamond Member
I had to downclock this thing 300MHz to get acceptable idle temps of 37C...

I've redone the AS5 twice, have less than half a tube left which i bought brand new.

I'm using AC Freezer Pro 7 and actually disarmed my main rig and pulled out 2 fans for my client's PC, so now the damn case is loud as heck and has 5 120mm roaring all over the place...

Anyone know what the heck is with AMD's TJ temp of 80C?
Then i got people telling me not to drive it over 65 or hell is gonna break lose!
This computer is due TOMORROW! I got 15 hours to fix this and i don't think i have much AS5 left...

As a matter of fact, the freaking GTX460 i stuck in there is running at 29C!!!! 29C!!!! For god's sake, that thing is a freezer in there and this x4 is HAWT.

Gonna stress it a bit with Starcraft or BC2 and see what happens...
 
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Your problem might be the cooler you are using. That is not a very good cooler at all. What is your temps at stock settings?
 
Your problem might be the cooler you are using. That is not a very good cooler at all. What is your temps at stock settings?

AC Freezer Pro 7 is one of the best, if not the best cooler in the market for under $60, that thing has nearly 5k reviews on the egg and i use it on 2 other machines, in which it keeps my C2d E8500s under 30C idle.
 
AC Freezer Pro 7 is one of the best, if not the best cooler in the market for under $60, that thing has nearly 5k reviews on the egg and i use it on 2 other machines, in which it keeps my C2d E8500s under 30C idle.

That cooler is only good for dual cores, It will have a hard time handling quad core CPU's. There are plenty of coolers under $60 that put Freezer pro to shame. You can get a CM hyper 212+ for half that price.. which is a far better cooler than AC freezer pro
 
That cooler is only good for dual cores, It cannot handle quad cores. There are plenty of coolers under $60 that put Freezer pro to shame. You can get a CM hyper 212+ for half that price.. which is a far better cooler than AC freezer pro

Says it cools up to 135W...
 
You put one really thin layer on the CPU only. More is not better.

This. You use 1 layer, and it has to be so thin as to be almost transparent. Practice a bit, if you can get it thinner, good. If it is too thin, you will notice that AS5 is actually coming off and exposing the CPU surface... Best way to apply is with a razer blade, however using a CC will do for me.
 
That cooler is only good for dual cores, It will have a hard time handling quad core CPU's. There are plenty of coolers under $60 that put Freezer pro to shame. You can get a CM hyper 212+ for half that price.. which is a far better cooler than AC freezer pro
My 940BE is pretty happy at 3.4GHz (not stable at 3.6 & 3.7GHz in tests, but stable enough to surf the net) with the CM Hyper 212+.

And my MSI N460GTX is awesome, stable at 1000 MHz in tests but the CPU have to be at default 3.0 GHz clock.

The sweet spot is CPU at 3.4 GHz & graphics at 950 MHz.

I don't know the temperature because the mobo temperature sensor doesn't work with this CPU in OC mode.
 
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That cooler is only good for dual cores, It will have a hard time handling quad core CPU's. There are plenty of coolers under $60 that put Freezer pro to shame. You can get a CM hyper 212+ for half that price.. which is a far better cooler than AC freezer pro
Sometimes, you just have no choice. I want to keep my two classic CM Praetorians, which unfortunately can only accommodate 92mm tower HSFs. So I'm using a Thermalright XP-90 in one and a Xigmatek HDT-S963 in the other. No issues with temps.
 
The AC Freezer Pro 7 is not even close to one of the best heatsinks under $60. It gets the job done on dual cores but not quads. I had one on my 940 BE when i was running that as my main rig and had to upgrade coolers to get over 3.4Ghz. Also i believe the max temp of a 940BE is around 70c, i think its either 67 or 72c I cant remember exactly but i had the thermal spec sheet from AMD for it when i was overclocking it try googling AMD thermal specs and see what you come up with. Mine ran at 3.8Ghz and hit 65c under prime but needed 1.6V.
 
I used to have a Freezer Pro 64 cooling my 7750, and at 1.4v it idled at 41C. Before that it was cooling an Opty 165, also at 1.4v, and that idled at 39C.

I finally bought a CM 212+ during Black Friday for $20, best investment ever. I sidegraded to an X2 255, running at 1.52v, and it idles at 26C. Ambient is around 21-22C.

I chucked that Freezer Pro 64 into the back of the parts bin.
 
Anyone know why HWMonitor is reading the CPU as 140w? It's supposed to be 125w -_-

beacuse HWmonitor is the worst program to monitor anything thats has ever been written.

It thinks my i7@4.2Ghz is drawing 120w(its a 130w TDP chip STOCK.....) and also seems to think my 5v rail is .6V. Its useless POS.
 
beacuse HWmonitor is the worst program to monitor anything thats has ever been written.

It thinks my i7@4.2Ghz is drawing 120w(its a 130w TDP chip STOCK.....) and also seems to think my 5v rail is .6V. Its useless POS.

Gotcha...thanks.

By the way, i've been running prime95 for about 5 minutes now and it won't push the CPU past 62C.

Considering the fact that the most CPU challenging thing my client will be doing is playing SC2...should i be worried so much about temp as to having to order a CM hyper 212?
 
I've had 2 OEM 940BEs in the last month or so (first one was so bad that I returned it) I suspect that the current 940BEs that they're selling are the bottom of the barrel Phenoms performance-wise. my current one has almost NO headroom at stock voltage, and requires 1.437v to hit 3.4ghz, at which point I'm having thermal issues despite running a Sunbeam CCF120, which is very well regarded on even high wattage processors.

Sigh, a quality BE quad for $95 seemed too good to be true, and I guess it was.
 
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Alright....

So, i settled @ 2.8GHz with 1.2V running prime95 @ 51C for sake of "longevity and stability".

But, when i go into "stock" mode with the CPU

It jumps up to 3.0 GHz with 1.35v @ 65C running Prime95

Only god knows why this chip does that... Hopefully those 200MHz won't wreck the starcraft 2 partying this thing was build to do.
 
makes sense to use very little thermal paste as it is by design there to fill up only the tiny non-visible irregularities on the cpu and heatsink surface.

An Athlon x4 for a SC2 Rig? Seems a poor choice to me. SC2 is dual-core optimised and often cpu-limited depending what you play. Obviously the client it on a tight budget but a dual core phenom @same clock would probably perform better, not to mentioned at higher clock.
 
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