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Phenom II too hot?

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J

jnev_89

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Sep 2, 2004
I've got a Phenom II 955BE (as of yet not overclocked because of temps) in my media PC, and it averages a temp of 70-75 C while idle. It will easily go over 80 C when in use. Is that normal? It's running the stock heatsink (on arctic silver 5), and the most intensive thing I use it for currently is playing 1080P video. I've been looking into replacing the heatsink with something bigger and/or better, but I was mostly just curious if these kind of temperatures were normal? I had an Intel Prescott CPU before this and even that didn't get above 70 C when under 100% load.

BTW, all temperatures were read using Core Temp.

Thanks for any advice/info.
 
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Are you sure that you are reading the CPU temp and not the MB temp? 70C is well over the safe zone for that CPU. I use Speedfan for temps and I can easily see which one is the CPU temp because it goes up with load. Right now I'm idle at about 32C with my X4 B45. On my system TMPIN0 is the CPU temp. None of the core temps work because I'm on an unlocked CPU.
 
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I would double check you mounting, and fan speed you might have a defective fan.

Use CPUID hardware monitor to check your fan speed.
 
Never heard of stock temps that high. Definitely check the mounting.. something is clearly wrong or the software is malfunctioning. Even on the stock HSF, and decent case airflow.. most people can bring a 955 up to 3.4-3.5Ghz and top out around 55*C. BTW, 55*C has been the preferred stopping point for peak temps. At stock speeds, it can handle going over 60*C, but over 75*C should only be Intel's temperature territory (i7s). :p
 
Well, I just dusted out my case, and reapplied AS5. The temp is currently hovering at around 56-60 C (and I'm just browsing the internet), so it still sounds too high. I checked with SpeedFan and in the BIOS, and they all read the same temps. Could there be something wrong with the temp sensor? Is there anything else I should check out, or should I just drop the issue, since everything seems to be running fine (knock on wood)?
 
That's still a very high temp for any AMD processor at stock speed. Open CPU-Z to check the vCore, maybe your BIOS has gone off the deep end?


You can also check the case airflow by taking off the side and pointing a room fan at it to see if temps drop ...
 
it's currently running at 1.408V. What should it be at? That seems a bit high for stock frequency, but I'm really not positive on that...
 
I did try putting a fan in front of it... didn't really help.

Currently I keep my case open (side door taken off). I tried putting the side-door back on, and it caused the cpu fan to spin up to full blast just to keep the cpu at around 55-60 C. I pulled it back off, the cpu cooled to 50 (as the fan was still spinning full-blast), and then went back up to 55-60 as the fan spun down. Almost seems like the temp sensor is bad, since everything runs stable. I'll try lowering the voltage on the cpu though and seeing if it's stable; I have no idea why it's been running 1.4 V when 1.3-1.35 is the stock voltage...
 
You've got Q-Fan (or whatever your BIOS calls the CPU fan speed controller) turned on and you're worried the CPU is too hot??? :screwy: Turn that thing off, man! It's set to idle down your CPU fan, thereby decreasing cooling, when the CPU reaches a certain temp. It's 100% fine to run it if that's what you want to do BUT you can certainly expect your CPU temps to stay high as well.



Also, yes, you should go into BIOS and manually set the vCore to 1.35v - maybe even 1.30v or even lower. My 940BE ran for three days solid crunching SETI the whole time on only 1.15 vCore at the stock 3.0 GHz ...
 
I was more asking the question as to if it's safe for the cpu to stay at those temps. Since this is a media PC, the quieter it is, the better.

I did go into the bios and lowered the voltage. However, it was kind of weird. I lowered it .05V (so it should have gone down to ~1.35V), but now when I check CPU-Z, it says that the voltage is 1.28V. WTF?? Either way, the cpu is now idling at 51-52 C, so it's definitely an improvement, and still feels stable. I ran prime95 on it for 10 minutes (no errors), and the temps went up to 79 C, but cooled back down to 51-52 quickly after I stopped the test.
 
there is something wrong considering AMD specifies the Phenom IIs thermal max at 62C.
 
jnev_89 said:
I was more asking the question as to if it's safe for the cpu to stay at those temps. Since this is a media PC, the quieter it is, the better.

I did go into the bios and lowered the voltage. However, it was kind of weird. I lowered it .05V (so it should have gone down to ~1.35V), but now when I check CPU-Z, it says that the voltage is 1.28V. WTF?? Either way, the cpu is now idling at 51-52 C, so it's definitely an improvement, and still feels stable. I ran prime95 on it for 10 minutes (no errors), and the temps went up to 79 C, but cooled back down to 51-52 quickly after I stopped the test.
Click to expand...

sounds like just a hot processor. my old Pentium D 2.8Ghz Presler dual core ran at 75C load and down in the mid 50's running standard applications. worked fine and still runs like a champ for its age but it did get to be a little nerve racking when it got up that high.
 
Well, I kept lowering the voltage, and I'm now prime95 stable at 1.17 V, with an idle temp of 40-42 C. I think that's pretty good. Any lower voltage and it blue screens on prime95.

Thanks for the tip on that; I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me earlier to try that.
 
7AIR28 said:
sounds like just a hot processor. my old Pentium D 2.8Ghz Presler dual core ran at 75C load and down in the mid 50's running standard applications. worked fine and still runs like a champ for its age but it did get to be a little nerve racking when it got up that high.
Click to expand...
AMD <> Intel - there's something more going on here. No AMD runs over 70°C ...
 
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