Intel i7-860 running extremely hot

anco85 · Post by **anco85** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 11:40 pm

Hey everyone, first time poster, long time lurker. Really excited to officialy be part of the forum.

So, on to the question.

I finally managed to scrape together enough bucks for a new pc after my 8 year old Athlon 3600+ died on me. I spent hours upon hours rummaging through forums and review sites to make sure I got the best bang for my buck.

Most important for me was a quiet system that would perform brilliantly. Well, I almost got it right.

Partslist:

Antec P182 SE
Coolermast Xtreme 460w
Asus Sabertooth 55i mobo
Intel i70-860
Club 3d HD 5770 OC Edition GPU
Mushkin 2 x 2gb DDR 1600
WD Caviar 1tb

The system performs amazingly and I love it to bits. On low speed settings, it's close to quiet as well, however, it seems to be running extremely hot.

With all the fans on low, it idles between 45 degrees celcius and 50. The slightest movement(WMP, Solitair, anything) and it shoots up to and over 60 degrees. I've seen it run at 72 while copying data only.

The top and rear chassis fans are exhausting from the case and the CPU fan as default, but it feels like it's pulling, which might be where the issue lies. However, I'm not 100% sure.

What else can I do to sort this issue out?

P.S. if setting chassis fans to high speed, temp drops by 1 or 2 degrees

mentawl · Post by **mentawl** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 1:07 am

Looking at your location, what are the ambient air temperatures while the cores are idling at 45-50c?

Assuming it's not really high ambient air temps, it's possible one of the heatsink push-pins isn't completely engaged, if you're using a pushpin-based heatsink.

anco85 · Post by **anco85** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 1:14 am

Thanks for the quick reply.

Ambient temperatures average around 25 to 35 degrees, some days a nudge under 40's, but during testing I'd say it was in the low 20's with high humidity.

Push pins are all seated correctly, was the first thing I checked.

Any other ideas? Maybe Arctic Silver would solve some of my issues as Intel seems to have a thermal paste shortage

mentawl · Post by **mentawl** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 2:57 am

Some of the current breed of motherboard are very fond of arbitrarily raising the core voltage if the CPU voltage is set to "auto". In the motherboard bios, try setting all the voltages to "normal" rather than "auto", see if that makes a difference.

A new thermal paste application -may- help, but the TIM on the stock Intel HS shouldn't be too bad for a single mounting.

Try the CPU under a truly heavy load. Download and run Intel Burn Test (http://downloads.guru3d.com/IntelBurnTe ... -2047.html) while you have your hardware monitoring package open. Stop the test if you get near 90c on an individual core, because that'll mean there's definately something wrong!

=)

*Edit - does the CPU temp drop substantially with the case panel off?

anco85 · Post by **anco85** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:10 am

I'll give all that a try. I spoke to some people and they reckon 70 degrees under load is pretty normal. I'm getting concerned though.

The temp doesn't drop with the side panel of, maybe 1 degree at most.

If I drop the voltage on the CPU, then surely that means less performance?

mentawl · Post by **mentawl** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:24 am

Well, 70 under load is ok, but just copying data to and fro is not really a load for any modern CPU.

If removing the side panel doesn't help matters much, then it's entirely to do with the heatsink, so I doubt case fans etc are really at fault.

You'll not really be lowering the voltage on the CPU, just ensuring that it remains at the stock level - like I said, some modern motherboards like to give CPUs a little more voltage than they're rated for at stock, for whatever reason - my own motherboard does this with my i7 920. Your CPU will perform identically with the voltage set to "normal" as it will with any higher voltage, if all else remains equal.

anco85 · Post by **anco85** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:32 am

I'll grab some arctic silver 5 and see if that makes a difference.

Isn't upping voltage overclocking? Surely that's beneficial performance wise? I'll give it a go anyway

Thank you

mentawl · Post by **mentawl** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 5:13 am

No, upping the voltage alone isn't overclocking. Overclocking is when you raise the clock speed of the CPU (over clock) above the normal value. Raising the voltage is merely a means to achieve this, and having a higher voltage alone will not improve performance at all, and will just create extra heat - which may be what's causing part of the problem here.

anco85 · Post by **anco85** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 5:17 am

ahhhh, that makes a lot of sense and now that you mention it, watching the core voltage with PC Probe, it definitely fluctuates

danimal · Post by **danimal** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 8:38 am

core voltage bouncing around is normal... most motherboards will allow you to set it to a fixed maximum value in the bios.

you are running the stock intel cpu cooler? what software are you using to monitor the temps? are you sure that it's reading the cpu core voltage itself?

core temp is the industry standard for overclocking, because it can be calibrated.

ces · Post by **ces** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 10:10 am

Looks like you are using the stock cpu cooler.

Why would you not change it to a super cooler. Scythe Mugen is inexpensive.

A Prolimatech with Dual Nexus fans would be even better.

60C under normal usage is just too much. Temps seem to vary from CPU to CPU even with the same model number.