SOLVED CPU apears freakishly hot

Hi all,
I just threw together a budget (< £500) rig yesterday and the CPU appears to be running abnormally hot.

Rig Specs:

• Zalman Z9+ MID-Tower ATX Case with 1x 120mm fan and 3x blue LED lit 120mm fans. (2x Exhaust, 2x Inlet)
• ASUS M5A78L-M LX V2 Micro ATX motherboard
• AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition @ 3.4GHz
• Xigmatek GAIA Universal CPU Heatsinc (includes 120mm CPU fan)
• 1x Dane-Elec 4GB 1333MHz Value RAM
• Corsar Builder Series 500W PSU
• ASUS GTX 550Ti 1GB GDDR5 Graphics Card
• Western Digital 320GB Caviar Blue Disk Drive
• Samsung SH-S224BB 24x DVDRW
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

At stock (with Q-FAN and Cool and Quiet disabled), running FPU, CPU and Calculation test 0 in AMD Overdrive for 1 minute, the CPU temp reaches 62C, with individual cores maxing out at 76C.

Running FPU, CPU and Calculation tests 0 and 1 for 1 minute, the CPU reaches 68C with individual cores topping 82C.

All four tests (0, 1, 2 and 3) the cores max out at 83 with the CPU at 68.

For stock settings, this seems quite high to me - especially when people are telling me that the upper limit for a Phenom CPU is 62.

I've already tightened the heatsinc, realigned the fan and flashed the BIOS. Anything else?

Thanks.
-Ben

Did you apply thermalpaste? lol

What does CPU-Z show as the Vcore (Core Voltage) while under load? Default Vcore for the 965 is 1.40V, but can normally run stably at a lower voltage between 1.325 and 1.35V.

RQFumbles said:

Did you apply thermalpaste? lol

Click to expand...

Yes. I've just taken it apart now and applied a bit more. No difference.

redduc900 said:

What does CPU-Z show as the Vcore (Core Voltage) while under load? Default Vcore for the 965 is 1.40V, but can normally run stably at a lower voltage between 1.325 and 1.35V.

Click to expand...

1.416v

Post some pics of your CPU-Z CPU and your HWMonitor showing your mobo and cpu temps

EDIT: Open HWMonitor first and do a CPU test before you take the pic if you want. It only helps us help you!

RQFumbles said:

Post some pics of your CPU-Z CPU and your HWMonitor showing your mobo and cpu temps

EDIT: Open HWMonitor first and do a CPU test before you take the pic if you want. It only helps us help you!

Click to expand...

Speedfan quite happily lists everything you asked for.
Pic taken during AMD Overdrive test.


Note: Temp1 and Temp2 are the CPU and MB respectively, SF duplicates them for some reason.

In an effort to be all on the same page when we try to assist a user, we all use HWMonitor and CPUz. All of the temps are given as a voltage value that the software must calculate and display in the app as a temp. Since we all see HWMonitor day after day after day, it is much easier to see patterns that develop. Both with a users system and with the software.

One is free to use whatever in his daily use but for post asking for help, it is generally better to get us all on the same page with reporting software.

Beyond all of that your temps appear HIGH and need to be lowered in whatever way possible.

RGone said:

In an effort to be all on the same page when we try to assist a user, we all use HWMonitor and CPUz. All of the temps are given as a voltage value that the software must calculate and display in the app as a temp. Since we all see HWMonitor day after day after day, it is much easier to see patterns that develop. Both with a users system and with the software.

One is free to use whatever in his daily use but for post asking for help, it is generally better to get us all on the same page with reporting software.

Beyond all of that your temps appear HIGH and need to be lowered in whatever way possible.

Click to expand...

Posting this from a laptop. The tower is in bits again.

I'm practically going around it with a fine toothed comb to make sure its not a faulty part. Give me 20 mins to finish up and put it back together and I'll try again.

I took the system apart (everything except removing the mobo and PSU from the chasis) and then back together again.

When cleaning the thermal paste off of the heatsinc I noticed a clear, almost invisible sheet of gooey plastic. Rubbing off the paste must've pulled it loose - took a while to remove it all because it kept on tearing (had to fish out the tweezers) and it really was near invisible.

Friend on messenger says it might have been the adhesive layer from the warning sticker, and when I peeled off said sticker I must've only taken the hard plastic top layer with the print.

The good news is that, at idle, the CPU is at a comfy 27C, each core resting at 30. Tried my luck at a basic overclock (just upped the multiplier) and under stress from AMD overdrive, both the core and CPU temps are now considerably lower. CPU reached a max of 41, cores maxed at 50.


Skyrim also played brilliantly on Ultra and regulary hit 60fps at 1080p. 45fps on high at 2560x1440! (AA disabled in both cases).

So yeah, I don't know weather to feel stupid or angry.

Now I just need to see if I can break the 4GHz barrier. Anyone know the stable voltage for the 965?

Good thing you found that sticker. Now as far as 4.0, overclocking isn't plug and play. You will need patience to do it right and have a system that is overall faster. If you want help there are plenty of people here that will help you. Have a read of this thread, you'll learn a lot.

Mandrake4565 said:

Good thing you found that sticker. Now as far as 4.0, overclocking isn't plug and play. You will need patience to do it right and have a system that is overall faster. If you want help there are plenty of people here that will help you. Have a read of this thread, you'll learn a lot.

Click to expand...

Sorry, beat you too it


Multi x19.5
Bus Ref. 206MHz
Fully stable. Survived both Skyrim and AMD Overdrive without breaking a sweat, staying under 52C (fans barely go over 1k RPM, too).
I've not tried the core voltage yet (as it ignores my setting under Windows) so it'll be a BIOS job when I get home from work tomorrow night.

Overclocking my 550Ti will be what I need help with. But thats a topic for another thread

EDIT: Forget what I said about the increase in RAM, everything from Adobe Premiere to VLC Works flawlessly with it! Full screen game? Not so much. :B

If surviving skyrim and amd overdrive is stable enough for you. AMD overdrive is not a real test of stability, personally 2 hr's of prime is what I consider stable. Also if you want an efficient overclock, that will make your system faster overall then you'll need to do more then just up the multiplier. Overclocking correctly is a process that requires patience.

Mandrake4565 said:

If surviving skyrim and amd overdrive is stable enough for you. AMD overdrive is not a real test of stability, personally 2 hr's of prime is what I consider stable. Also if you want an efficient overclock, that will make your system faster overall then you'll need to do more then just up the multiplier. Overclocking correctly is a process that requires patience.

Click to expand...

I knew the setting I had were right on the tip of disaster. Tried Prime95 and I had to lower the HT Link back to default because I received two memory errors (memory management and IRQ).

So the CPU is back at 3.9GHz but the RAM is now running at 1600MHz without question.

Put up Sig at OCF.

New Shortcut method for putting a Signature with your system information following your every post so people can know what is in the case that they are trying to assist with. You can use something like what is shown in my signature as a good template of needed information Thank you.

it is generally better to get us all on the same page with reporting software.