- Joined
- Feb 5, 2010
- Location
- New Jersey
Hello to all as this is my first post here. This a overclocking forum so I figured there are experts here to help me with my problem. Ok, I will begin listing all my system specs.
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9550s (highest stable oc so far is 3.6 Ghz)
MBD: Asus P5Q-EM with latest bios (highest stable fsb so far is 1688 Mhz)
VGA: Ati x800xl PCI-E 256Mb
RAM: 2 x 1Gb OCZ Gold ddr2 800Mhz (haven't really focused on ram oc but I got 1014 MHZ out of this while at 1688 Mhz fsb)
HDD: Western Digital 250 Gb Eide, Seagate 120 Gb Eide
DVD: Samsung sh-223q 22x sata dvd-rw
Other addons: floppy drive slot multi card reader (connected internally to usb),
OS: Windows XP SP3 32bit + all current updates and drivers loaded, Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit + all current updates and drivers loaded (not activated and only installed for testing on separate drive)
Software used in testing: Prime95, SIW, Speedfan 4.40, Core Temp 0.99.5, Cpu-Z 1.53
I have built this system as a portable gaming system that also has capability to be a HTPC in the future when I purchase a blue ray drive and a tv that has hdmi input. For now I will use it mostly for gaming. For cooling the cpu I used arctic silver 5 and the original Pentium 4EE Intel heatsink and fan (stock heatsink and fan that came with my cpu was alot smaller and proves to do a worse job cooling than the Pentium 4EE one so I will not use the stock one). I let the system and arctic silver 5 stabilize for a week of everyday on and off use of the computer while I play games and browse the web. For gaming I mainly used Flight Simulator X as it uses all cpu cores).
2 days ago I started testing the computer and the overclocking ability of it. Here is where I see a problem with my cpu.
BTW for testing I have the case cover off so actual temps will be little higher when the computer is closed.
At idle load with minimal set of programs loaded at start up I have these temperature readings on cores 1 to 4: 27c 27c 34c 37c @ 26c (79f) room temp and right off the bat I notice a problem with this. With room temp of 26c the first 2 cores are only 27c? I measure the room temp with a fairly accurate set of 2 digital thermometers standing in front of the intake fans for my case.
Next is full load temps. After running Prime95 small FFTs test for half hour resulted in these core 1 to 4 readings: 69c 63c 63c 63c @ 26.5c (80f) room temp. This tells me that at least 2 of the temperature diodes on the cpu may not be working correctly. I did the same test with the cpu not overclocked and the temps were lower but also the first core was hottest at the end of prime95 and at idle the last 2 cores were much hotter than the first 2 cores. Seeing how different the temperatures were I decided that maybe the heatsink was not properly mounted so I removed and reapplied arctic silver and tried Pentium 4EE heatsink again and then the stock one and got the same pattern of unbalanced temperatures in the end.
I have contacted Intel about this and they are ready for me to RMA them the cpu. So my question is this. Is this a normal occurrence among quadcore cpus to have this large temperature differences among the cores? I predict it will take at least 2 weeks for the cpu RMA process to take and I really do not want to waste that time if i will have the same result again.
Thank you in advance for any suggestions.
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9550s (highest stable oc so far is 3.6 Ghz)
MBD: Asus P5Q-EM with latest bios (highest stable fsb so far is 1688 Mhz)
VGA: Ati x800xl PCI-E 256Mb
RAM: 2 x 1Gb OCZ Gold ddr2 800Mhz (haven't really focused on ram oc but I got 1014 MHZ out of this while at 1688 Mhz fsb)
HDD: Western Digital 250 Gb Eide, Seagate 120 Gb Eide
DVD: Samsung sh-223q 22x sata dvd-rw
Other addons: floppy drive slot multi card reader (connected internally to usb),
OS: Windows XP SP3 32bit + all current updates and drivers loaded, Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit + all current updates and drivers loaded (not activated and only installed for testing on separate drive)
Software used in testing: Prime95, SIW, Speedfan 4.40, Core Temp 0.99.5, Cpu-Z 1.53
I have built this system as a portable gaming system that also has capability to be a HTPC in the future when I purchase a blue ray drive and a tv that has hdmi input. For now I will use it mostly for gaming. For cooling the cpu I used arctic silver 5 and the original Pentium 4EE Intel heatsink and fan (stock heatsink and fan that came with my cpu was alot smaller and proves to do a worse job cooling than the Pentium 4EE one so I will not use the stock one). I let the system and arctic silver 5 stabilize for a week of everyday on and off use of the computer while I play games and browse the web. For gaming I mainly used Flight Simulator X as it uses all cpu cores).
2 days ago I started testing the computer and the overclocking ability of it. Here is where I see a problem with my cpu.
BTW for testing I have the case cover off so actual temps will be little higher when the computer is closed.
At idle load with minimal set of programs loaded at start up I have these temperature readings on cores 1 to 4: 27c 27c 34c 37c @ 26c (79f) room temp and right off the bat I notice a problem with this. With room temp of 26c the first 2 cores are only 27c? I measure the room temp with a fairly accurate set of 2 digital thermometers standing in front of the intake fans for my case.
Next is full load temps. After running Prime95 small FFTs test for half hour resulted in these core 1 to 4 readings: 69c 63c 63c 63c @ 26.5c (80f) room temp. This tells me that at least 2 of the temperature diodes on the cpu may not be working correctly. I did the same test with the cpu not overclocked and the temps were lower but also the first core was hottest at the end of prime95 and at idle the last 2 cores were much hotter than the first 2 cores. Seeing how different the temperatures were I decided that maybe the heatsink was not properly mounted so I removed and reapplied arctic silver and tried Pentium 4EE heatsink again and then the stock one and got the same pattern of unbalanced temperatures in the end.
I have contacted Intel about this and they are ready for me to RMA them the cpu. So my question is this. Is this a normal occurrence among quadcore cpus to have this large temperature differences among the cores? I predict it will take at least 2 weeks for the cpu RMA process to take and I really do not want to waste that time if i will have the same result again.
Thank you in advance for any suggestions.