CPU Temperatures

[martinlest2 58]

Hi,

 

I have a PC which I use only for FS (specs below): I have just added a CPU temp gauge (via CoreTemp) to the desktop and am a bit alarmed at the information it is giving. The PC came with the i7-950 pre-overclocked to 3.8 GHz (and I wouldn't dream of losing this overclocking - FS runs as smooth as silk). I have never had any problems with sudden shutdowns in the two years I have had the PC...

 

Temperatures at startup show around 50degsC. When running FS they are 70-85 degs: when I switch to Spot View, they can be up to 10 degs higher - i.e. to a max of 95degs on cores 1 & 2. Under the TJMax, but much too high I would have thought even so?

 

The PC was shipped recently from where I was working, in Thailand, to the UK, but I have checked inside the case that the fans are OK and that the big Fenrir cooler on the CPU is clipped in place properly: all fans seem to be turning just fine. No visible dust. Q-Fan is enabled in the BIOS and the fans do vary in speed as I use the PC. They certainly seem to be whirring away (max I imagine) as I fly in FS. (What should the CPU fan speed be? The BIOS showed me around 2500rpm I think).

 

In any case, when I switch back from Spot to Cockpit view, the temperature (at least as indicated by CoreTemp) drops by 10 degs within just a couple of seconds. If the fans and/or heatsinks had a problem I wouldn't have thought this temperature drop would be so fast. Or can't I trust the figures that the software is giving me? The changes in temp seem so fast, whether up or down...

 

Anyone able to help me with figures for their i7 CPU temperatures when running FS(9/X)? And at idle?

 

Thanks,

 

Martin

[mjrhealth 820]

If the heatsink is a heatpipe, ( i did look it up)than yes they will drop that quick they are very efficient at getting rid of heat, you coul dtry adding a seconf fan on the heatsink to suck the air out, push pull it can help. Or remove the heatsink and reinstall it just incase it moved during the move.

[martin-w 3,235]

Your temps are high! For comparison, my i7 3770K runs at just above 50 degrees in FSX, and thats at 4.5GHz. Thats with a Noctua NH-D14, a Superior cooler to yours.

 

What are your voltages If this was overclocked by someone else, they may have set the CPU voltage way higher than it needs to be.

 

Try using RealTemp, for temperature monitoring.

 

If temps are that high, then long term, CPU degradation would be a concern.

 

You say it was shipped from Thailand... were the temps okay prior to the move???

 

If so, then remount the CPU cooler with decent qualityTIM.

[lodestar 186]

Also check your Vcoore, it may be to high for 3.8GHz

[martinlest2 58]

The overclocking was set by pcspecialist.co.uk who made the PC for me. I have had no problems to date, although I mostly have not had a temp monitor visible on my desktop. In Thailand, given the high ambient temperature, I had my PC in a small, air-conditioned room. Here in the UK (I am only here for Christmas, will go back to Greece - minus the PC sadly - later this week) the room temperature is kept at around 20degs.

 

Oddly today I am flying FS9 and the CPU temp (as shown by Asus Probe) is maxing at about 65degs, which I would say is OK. CPU fan speed around 2400rpm.

 

Rather than just have the thermal seal checked (the most likely problem I would have thought, after shipment from Thailand to the UK) I am considering getting pcspecialst to fit me up with a 'water' cooling system. Would that be a positive addition to the rig you think?

 

Thanks again for the input.

 

Martin

[lodestar 186]

Absolutely, go for water cooling, becouse of Thailand!

 

I told you to check Vcore becouse i know more than one "pc specialist" who has screw-up PC settings. I reamsambled my PC(ansambled by one pc specialist) becouse of poor cable management and i managed to reduce temperatures by more than 10C.

 

With water cooling you will not need to worry about temperatures anymore.

[martin-w 3,235]

The overclocking was set by pcspecialist.co.uk who made the PC for me. I have had no problems to date, although I mostly have not had a temp monitor visible on my desktop. In Thailand, given the high ambient temperature, I had my PC in a small, air-conditioned room. Here in the UK (I am only here for Christmas, will go back to Greece - minus the PC sadly - later this week) the room temperature is kept at around 20degs.

 

Oddly today I am flying FS9 and the CPU temp (as shown by Asus Probe) is maxing at about 65degs, which I would say is OK. CPU fan speed around 2400rpm.

 

Rather than just have the thermal seal checked (the most likely problem I would have thought, after shipment from Thailand to the UK) I am considering getting pcspecialst to fit me up with a 'water' cooling system. Would that be a positive addition to the rig you think?

 

Thanks again for the input.

 

Martin

 

 

Martin... PC Probe does not measure core temp, it measures case temp which is cooler. As I said, download RealTemp to check your temps. Some temp monitoring software isn't compatible with certain CPU architectures. Use RealTemp, and make sure TJMax is set right in RealTemps settings.

 

I would say no, don't dive in to water cooling. Fix your temperature problem first. Don't throw money at it, fix the problem! Water cooling requires regular maintainace, and there is the possibility of leaks... Water cooling is not for everyone.

 

Your CPU at that overclock, should be fine with high quality air cooling. Water cooling should NOT be essential for you.

 

I have suggested in my previous post, that you check your CPU voltage, the other poster suggested the same. [VCore, Asus call it CPU Temp] Both of us are of the opinion that the supplier that overclocked your CPU may have over volted. Companies like that overclock a lot of PC's, so they tend not to be too fussy. They just set a high voltage so it will be stable and be done with it. Thus you could very well be running with a CPU [VCore] voltage that is way too high.

 

Check CPU volts and find out!!!

[martin-w 3,235]

Oddly today I am flying FS9 and the CPU temp (as shown by Asus Probe) is maxing at about 65degs, which I would say is OK. CPU fan speed around 2400rpm.

 

If you're seeing 65 degrees in FS9 courtesy of PC Probe... then that would suggest [as a rough guess] a core temp of 80+ degrees, which is very high for FS9. I see 55 degrees core temp at 4.5GHz in FSX.

 

Try RealTemp.

 

There is a possibility of course, that you are unlucky enough to have a CPU that requires very high volts to overclock, thus the heat. But I doubt it.

 

It's also true that your Fenrir cooler isn't as good as my NH-D14, by I'd guess maybe 10+ degrees.

 

3.8GHZ is a small overclock, there is no way you should be seeing such high temps!

[lodestar 186]

oops, i saw now that overclock is just 3.8, you should not have these temperatures even with a stock cooler. So, if readings are ok - cooling is not the problem here, for sure. But you must check that with RealTemp or Core Temp, Assus Probe can give a very very wrong readings.

 

You need:

 

CPU-Z to see CPU frequency http://www.cpuid.com...ares/cpu-z.html

Core Temp to see CPU temperatures and correct VID: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

Here you can see how to check/set TJ Max and very interesting things about temperatures and voltages: http://www.overclock...es-and-voltages

 

My PC is overclocked to 4.8GHz, I have NH-D14 too, and i get about 54-55c with fs9, and max 59-60c with fsx.

[Tom Ek 0]

My PC is overclocked to 4.8GHz, I have NH-D14 too, and i get about 54-55c with fs9, and max 59-60c with fsx.

 

How do you get so high temps with the Noctua??? I have the same cooler on an oc procesor, and I only get bettwen 35-38c max.....

 

I would say no, don't dive in to water cooling. Fix your temperature problem first. Don't throw money at it, fix the problem! Water cooling requires regular maintainace, and there is the possibility of leaks... Water cooling is not for everyone.

 

Very good advice, maybe you should check this out.....

 

[lodestar 186]

How do you get so high temps with the Noctua??? I have the same cooler on an oc procesor, and I only get bettwen 35-38c max.....

This temps are not high at all for fs9 and fsx. For fsx, high is maybe when you are more than 75, about 80c. And it depends how high is your OC, ambient temperatures etc. Also, you should check your TJ Max in real temp, 35-38c is too low with fsx and air cooling

[Tom Ek 0]

It's TJ max measured with RealTemp 3.70 at max load in FSX....

[martinlest2 58]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I started using Asus Probe after advice from a hardware tech forum: more than one person said that as I have an Asus M/B, the Asdus tool would be more reliable than 3rd. party monitors. Here (and no disrespect to anyone's opinion!) I get opposite advice. So often the way on forums of course!

 

I do have other diagnostics installed, like CoreTemp, HWMonitor, CPU-Z.. which show core temperatures (which are higher of course than the CPU temp shown by AsusProbe). It seems from all the hardware tech forums that I have read that it's the CPU temp that is important rather than the core temperatures.

 

Whatever, idle CPU temp is around 50degs with core temps around 65degs - clearly too high. Up to 25degs higher with FS9 running. FSX can set my AsusProbe warning signal off. I was not aware of any problems in Thailand, before shipping (although as I said, I didn't monitor CPU temperatures regularly, the PC being in an air-conditioned room) and I suspect it is the shipping that has cracked the thermal seal.

 

As for voltages, my core voltage in CPU-Z and AsusProbe shows as 1.34V. Maybe it needs to go down?

 

There was a time when I built my own PCs, but twenty years on I no longer trust myself (rather, my patience, or lack of it) to take the heatsink off and do repairs myself. It's worth a bit of money to me to get this fixed by someone who knows exactly what they are doing. I can either get a local firm to look at the problem, or I can have the PC shipped back to pcspecialist, who have given me a very reasonable guide price for fitting liquid cooling.

 

But no, I won't dive into liquid cooling (so to speak) until I learn more about it. What 'regular maintenance' is required?

 

In any case, I am now working in Greece and go back this Friday (without the PC), so have plenty of time to decide what to do before I come back to the UK in early June!).

 

Martin

[foibles 0]

I would say no, don't dive in to water cooling. Fix your temperature problem first. Don't throw money at it, fix the problem! Water cooling requires regular maintainace, and there is the possibility of leaks... Water cooling is not for everyone.

 

Your CPU at that overclock, should be fine with high quality air cooling. Water cooling should NOT be essential for you.

 

But no, I won't dive into liquid cooling (so to speak) until I learn more about it. What 'regular maintenance' is required?

 

There are different forms of water cooling. A lot of aficionados have had good results with custom-built water coolers. An alternative are off-the-rack water coolers. As I understand it, you won't get as effective cooling with the latter, but you won't pay as much as with a custom-built cooler, either (although I haven't checked prices on custom cooling in going on two years).

 

While custom-built water coolers require maintenance, there are off-the-rack liquid coolers that are advertised as "maintenance free." I have a CoolIT Eco ALC, for example, which is a closed loop system that supposedly requires no maintenance. It was selling for about $70 I guess at the time I acquired it.

(Note that I'm not recommending this particular model or company, just providing additional info.)

Here are a couple of reviews in which this model was compared to other coolers, one of them including the Noctua NH-D14 Premium air cooler already mentioned in this thread:

http://www.guru3d.co...o_review,6.html

http://benchmarkrevi...=1&limitstart=4

 

The risk of leaks is real, though. The first liquid cooler I had was installed in a high-end gaming computer that I had had built by a computer specialty firm about 4 years back (back in the days before I realized how easy, and less costly, it is to build your own!). They put in a CoolIT Domino ALC. Two years later, the cooler line spontaneously failed and leaked all over the components beneath it in my computer case, destroying an expensive GPU. I hadn't opened the case, hadn't even moved the computer between the time I originally received it and the cooler failed. Just all of a sudden one day, the display was acting up, so I took a look inside the case and discovered the mess. The company that had built the computer shipped me an updated model from the same cooler manufacturer as a replacement at no charge (although I was now out a GPU). I discovered that other people had also had cooler failures with this same model that had failed on me, for example:

http://www.tomshardw...blew-wanna-pics

 

So that is one potential problem that I would weigh very carefully if deciding on going with liquid cooling. No matter how well the liquid cooler is built and installed, there is always the theoretical possibility that it could fail in a way that could ruin other components of your build, a risk that is absent with air coolers.

 

(In fact, I often wonder whether I should keep the cooler I have in place or dump it out, of fear that it could fail like the last one did. I guess I am trying to weigh how long I think the cooler will last before a failure against how much longer I think I will go without wanting to replace the current GPU anyway for a more updated model.)

[foibles 0]

Here's a review posted just a few days ago that directly compares several closed-loop water coolers to the air-cooled NH-D14.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/h100i-elc240-seidon-240m-lq320,3380-12.html