AMD Sensors A10 5800K A85X erroneous

[lhgordon]

From your own review posted 10/02/2012: "The other problem I ran into was the inability of any temperature monitoring software to correctly monitor the APU’s temperatures. Even the EasyTune6 software from Gigabyte would not give correct temperatures. I ran a stress test at 1.5 V to the CPU and it showed 40 °C as a maximum temperature; I think not! AIDA64 showed 27 °C; no way. This pattern held true for the many monitoring utilities I tried. Even AMD’s own Overdrive software was whacked out when it comes to temperature monitoring"

I own a gigabyte GA-F2A85X-UP4 motherboard with an A85X chipset and A10 5800K CPU running Windows 7 Pro X64 and agree with the statement. Even the integrated GPU reads ~7C at full power.

Some sensors don't show up at all, but I remember running across an article that allows the Windows 7 sensor module to be reset, but I can't find it anymore.

has anyone solved this problem yet?

Please reply

 

[trents]

When you're talking about the APU itself you would be monitoring core temps, not CPU temps. "CPU temps" is generally used to speak of motherboard socket temp monitoring which would not be problem of the APU sensors. Most monitoring software that comes with motherboards like EasyTune will only give socket temps.

 

[BeepBeep2]

It is known that every CPU since Phenom II X6 from AMD has had erroneous temperature sensors...

Phenom II X6's sensors were 10-15c below real...
AMD FX-4/6/8 -100 series CPUs were 15-20c below real...
AMD FX -300 series CPUs probably do not change that from X100 series...
AMD Llano also reports idle temperatures below ambient, probably 10-15c off real temperatures too.
I've noticed also the last few Phenom II X4's I've had from 2012 seemingly reading a bit low as well.

 

[lhgordon]

There are probably a hundred brands of sensor displays for Windows-7 many of then have correction tables that can be customized. Has anyone been successful using a custom correction table?

 

[BeepBeep2]

Basically, add 15c to whatever is read out for something closer to reality. I've measured up to 20c difference on an FX-8150.

 

[Ustitan]

Stumbled upon your thread looking for OCing advice/results from the A10-5800k. I had the same problem as you. I downloaded SpeedFan and it seems to be exactly right. let me know if it works.

 

[trents]

Basically, add 15c to whatever is read out for something closer to reality. I've measured up to 20c difference on an FX-8150.

^+1

 

[visiblegorilla]

The only accurate temp readings that I've gotten so far are from CPUID Hardware Monitor and Open Hardware Monitor (http://openhardwaremonitor.org/).
Here's a side-by-side with Prime95 running:


And another side-by-side after 5 mins idle:


Here is a piece of a comparo done by FrostyTech:

Picture from www.frostytech.com/

So as you can see, these temp readings seem pretty accurate. A delta of +12 or +13 Celsius running Prime95 on this 100W TDP APU is right on the money, where you'd expect to see it, just above an 85W load and well below a 150W load.

EDIT: Sorry, that would be a 15 degree delta over ambient. I attribute the extra 2-3 degrees to using the Cooler Master TIM that came with the cooler... I kinda globbed it on, too. Applying some Arctic Silver the right way should definitely lower the temps 2-3 degrees.

Are you guys talking about core temps vs. software-measured socket temps? In that case, the BIOS at these settings measured 32 degrees just sitting there, after it plateaued, a minute or so after booting up (initial BIOS reading was around 26 and steadily climbed). Compare that to the CPU idle temp measured by software at 24 degrees, and you have an 8 degree difference at idle between the BIOS reading and the software reading, at least for the ASRock FM2A85X. Hope that helps.

 

[lhgordon]

more information to stirr into the pot

From the original author - Lee Gordon

I keep a digital watt meter on the input of my PC (excludes the monitor).
The only additional HW I have uses about 12 Watts for Fans and SSD. The NB is barely warm to the touch and probably uses less than 3watts.

BIG SUPRISE - The UFEI BIOS default settings BEFORE starting any OS draw an estimated 100 watts by the CPU. Therefore some of your comments about BIOS temperatures are incorrect.
Currently I am trying to set the BIOS voltages and frequencies as low as possible so I can read the BIOS temperature with CPU power less than 30 CPU watts to calibrate the BIOS temperature readings.

 

[visiblegorilla]

Here's the thing, and apparently you picked up on it: in the BIOS, the APU is running, default, at 3800 MHZ, 1.35V. It runs this frequency and voltage constantly, producing 100W constantly. In Windows, power management takes over and starts dropping voltage and frequency (if you have Cool 'n' Quiet enabled). This might explain why the APU runs hotter in the BIOS and cooler in Windows at idle. I'll try it out; I'll disable Cool 'n' Quiet by manually setting voltage and frequency to 1.35V and 3800. Then I should see similar temps in Windows.

I assumed the voltage measurements posted in the pics above were somewhat inaccurate, but the ASRock board may be getting aggressive enough at Auto setting to increase vCore to 1.44V. If that's the case, the instability I experienced recently by manually setting voltage to 1.40 and frequency to 4000/4400 makes more sense. I'll play around with it and post results.