HELP! Abit IP35 Pro/E8400 is displaying weird CPU temps and has become unstable!

Wrapped up my PC re-build yesterday and now things aren't looking good. Immediately after booting for the 1st time with Win install CD in, computer began to alarm from the internal speaker. Shut down and entered BIOS to take a look. CPU temps were at 127C! Immediately checked inside the PC and heatsink felt fine and didn't notice any hotspots around CPU area. Just disabled the alarms because I figured this wasn't even possible to run this hot. Made it through Vista install fine and began to setup the computer (drivers and whatnot). After installing the uGuru software so I could monitor the temps from Windows, the CPU was at 8C? It seems to bounce between zero and low single digits and 127C (always 127C when high). I even ran Orthos for 2 hours and it went from 18C on the low end (actually stayed there for quite a bit) and up to 127C. Now today the computer has began to freeze up (completely unresponsive) and can barely make 2 minutes into Windows before freeze up. I'm totally confused now and don't know where to begin. One thing that needs to be noticed is that I had to use a LOT of pressure to install the CPU heatsink clips. To the extend that I may have tweaked the board. Is the CPU temp sensor in the chip itself or in the board?

Put your finger on it and confirm its that hot....you probably have some hsf miscues..

theELVISCERATOR said:

Put your finger on it and confirm its that hot....you probably have some hsf miscues..

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There isn't any heat coming from the sink or the pipes. How cool do these run just idling without a load?

what bios does the board have? what program did you use to get temps?

I also had incorrect temps with the Abit IP35 Pro/E8400 combo, but I updated to bios 16 and it seem to display correctly. There isn't a Abit IP35 Pro thread here but you can find a good one at HERE at xs.

That particular heatsink is a b**ch to mount... or atleast I had trouble getting the thing to mount.

I wouldn't be surprised if one of the clips came undone, it happened to me a couple times.

UPDATE: Computer is completely unstable now!

First thing I did today is to check the CPU heatsink mount. Removed heatsink and then the CPU to double check everything and it all looked good. I was experiencing freezing in Windows within 5 minutes of boot the other night and it was consistent even after 5 restarts. After inspecting the CPU and re-mounting heatsink, I cleared the CMOS and even set the BIOS to 'Optimized Defaults' just to be sure. Booted fine and made it maybe 4 minutes into Vista before it froze up again (and I'm mean COMPLETELY unresponsive). I'm just fed up with this system right now and don't know what to do. Just a side note when I did make re-boot and went into the BIOS for the 1st time after checking the CPU/heatsink, the CPU showed 5C so it is still showing incorrect temps. The temps aren't my main concern right now though. What are my options? RMA the board? What are the odds that the CPU is bad? AHHHH!!! I just want this fixed!!!!

we are tring to help you but you havent told us what bios you are using on this board. we can only do so much with the info you gave us.

Evilsizer said:

we are tring to help you but you havent told us what bios you are using on this board. we can only do so much with the info you gave us.

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Compteley spaced that. I'm loading 'fail safe defaults' in bios right now and it shows a date of 9/06/2007 with a 14 at the end of a long number. This date matched the version 14 on abit's site so it has be version 14. I did some google searches and it seems others have had this CPU temp problem as well with the board.

Another thing to point out is all voltage controls are set to auto and it is displaying a setting of 1.2250 under the control but under the readings page it show 1.14. Is this normal to have that much of a difference between set and actual?

ok since you told us the bios that says alot. Bios 14 was never correctly setup for 45nm cpus. what you need to do then it download bios 16 from the site and flash to that one. your temp issue on that front will be fine, the voltages should also now match up too. just keep in mind if your running with EIST and C1E, when you see voltages in uguru or via CPUz they will be reported correctly. it is normal if you set the voltage in the bios to say 1.35 and got 1.325, since the boards actuall voltage will vary from bios.

Load fail safe with exception to enabling USB so I had keyboard and mouse and disabling the beep warnings. Booted Windows and has been running for a good 10 minutes now. Was able to get a screen shot:



As of this posting it has been running Orthos for 12 minutes which is a good sign.

Evilsizer said:

ok since you told us the bios that says alot. Bios 14 was never correctly setup for 45nm cpus. what you need to do then it download bios 16 from the site and flash to that one. your temp issue on that front will be fine, the voltages should also now match up too. just keep in mind if your running with EIST and C1E, when you see voltages in uguru or via CPUz they will be reported correctly. it is normal if you set the voltage in the bios to say 1.35 and got 1.325, since the boards actuall voltage will vary from bios.

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Hopefully you can see the pic good enough but it looks like I have version 10 of the BIOS. Anywhere I can verify this in the BIOS itself (didn't see anything). Oh and what should be a stable voltage for a stock E8400? Are my number too low? Thanks for the help!!!

Update: Temps are upto 35C now and not fluctuating at all like they were before.

Ok BIOS is updated to v16. Temps seem to be correct now. I'm running optimized bios settings and running Orthos and seeing 57C and 1.2V. I'm gonna keep this running for a while to see what happens. Hopefully this BIOS update is the cure

Has become unstable again under optimized settings. CPU temps are reading in the normal range when idling (35C or so) with an occasional spike to some crazy high number (like 240C) which will beep the alarm. Seems to be running hot under Orthos (like 61C after a half hour) which is probably a mounting issue. I'm just tired of these stability problems and will probably RMA this board.

remove the power plug and pull the cmos battery. let it sit for about an 1hr, then load defualt, dont load optimized.

When I first read this thread I just saw the first word of what kind of ram you were using, and didn't thinnk of this. I know you say it is Corsair, but since you also say it is Ballistix Tracers I assume you mean it is actually Crucial. I have had alot of problems with running Tracers in my IP35 Pro board, all due to the sticks just giving up the ghost. 4th round was last week. Bad ram can cause the symptoms you are describing, along with many more little things, like bios corruption. Have you tried any other memory? Have you thoughouhly tested the sticks you have? Vista has a memory diagnostic in the boot menu would be a good start. Before I would give up on the m/b I would test the memory. The IP35 Pro is an extreemly good, stable m/b. I doubt that it is your problem.