I built my new computer last weekend, this was the first time ever I've build a computer from scratch. Now I'm wondering about a few things. First, the specs: Antec P182 Corsair HX620 Asus P5Q Pro Intel C2Q Q9550 (not OC'd) Club3D Radeon 4870 (has stock cooling) 4x2GB of Corsair XMS2 DHX (total 8GB), @ 4-4-4-12; 2.1V TRU120E with Noctua NF-P12 @12V The three stock Antec Tri-cool fans Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit I think that's all the necessary stuff. Well, the most critical thing is the temps. My CPU is idling at 45C... Yes, the hottest core is that hot and the coolest is about 40C. I'm monitoring the temps with SpeedFan and Core Temp. If I stress the CPU with Prime95, the temps will jump up to 55C and slowly increase thereafter. I don't know how much this CPU can handle, but I'm sure these are not normal temps. What levels should I be expecting? I used the stock thermal paste which came with the TRUE, and I spread it a bit with the nozzle. Afterwards I remember that you should put a line of the paste (on a quad) and then press the cooler on it to spread it (but I don't know what way the line should be). The paste didn't sqeeze out on the sides when I put the cooler on. Also, there was a piece of foam on the backplate, should that be removed? (I didn't.) The GPU temps are really bad, too, it's idling at 80C and when I load it with two RTHDRIBLs (one isn't enough according to Catalyst Control Center) it'll jump to 85 and stay there. And the fan doesn't speed up at all, just stays at low/medium... AND Rivatuner isn't compatible with the newest Catalyst 8.8 drivers so I can't adjust the fan speed to 100%. Neither do I know what kind of temps I should be looking at. There are cables in the way of the card, but those can't be moved thanks to the design of the P182 (the PSU is on the bottom and the cables come out just at the card). I don't know how I'm going to stick a Xonar and a wireless card in there as the case is so full already The third temperarure related thing: There is very little air coming out of the back of the PSU. Is that normal? Software wise, I recall somebody talked about a tool that'll convert all the Windows apps shortcuts to point to the 64-bit variants. Does somebody have the link to that tool? And, does somebody have a recommendation on a 64-bit AIO codec pack? I think that's all for now, if I find something more to ask, I'll come back. Thanks in advance for your answers!
If this piece of foam was on the back of the heat sink then you definately want to remove it. Ideally, you want a perfect metal on metal connection between your heat sink and your CPU. Perfect metal on metal isn't possible because of microscopic scratches and imperfections in the surfaces of both components. The thermal past needs to be applied to facilitate the proper heat transfer from the metal chip to the metal heat sink. It's the tool used to overcome the imperfections. A piece of foam in between the CPU and heat sink will cause big problems. Remove it immediately. Be sure to clean the CPU and the heat sink extremely well, re-apply your thermal paste and reassemble the computer. Phil
One moment, sounds like he means foam on the inside of the retainer that goes on the back of the motherboard - this should be left where it is, as it removes the risk of the mounting bracket shorting things out. I think you're worrying unnecessarily about the temperatures. 45 degrees for a high-end Core 2 Quad sounds pretty decent to me. Thermal paste squeezing out from the sides of the CPU would be a bad thing too - people have a habit of going OTT with the stuff. All it's designed to do is fill in miniscule imperfections - at high points, you should still have almost metal-to-metal contact between the CPU heat spreader and the heatsink base. GPU temp sounds a little on the high side, but if the fan isn't spinning up, clearly the card BIOS doesn't think it's high. I'm not sure how hot modern ATi GPUs run, but you'll probably find that's a normal temp with the stock cooler. And yes, it's normal for there to be minimal airflow from the PSU - I normally use Tagan PSUs and they're exactly the same. For codec packs, I really like the 'Vista Codec Pack' with the 64bit addon - I run Vista Ultimate 64bit, and it covers everything I ever play and much more besides. Full details at http://shark007.net/ - you'll need the 32bit pack and the 64bit addon.
I say take of the heat sink, clean all the paste from the cpu and heak sink. Apply some more (a rice grain sized amount). Also give the paste some time to cure. The GPU sounds a little on the hot side, i've not had an ATI card in years so I don't know much about the drivers/software. Is there anyway to change the temp and which the fan speeds up? Maybe have a quick check that the heatsink is seated properly.
Thanks for your inputs! It's a really a huge job to remove all the cables, then screw the motherboard off and then remove it, remove the heatsink and then reassemble everything again, I'd not prefer to do it What kind of temperatures do these 45nm quad cores handle? AFAIK it's 60C but is that right? Also, I'd like to overclock but at these temps it's not possible. And if these are the temps with this huge cooler, what would the temps with the tiny stock cooler be like? :-0 Do you think a higher airflow fan on the cooler would help anything? Now I'm running Prime95 and I can't get any core to go higher than 57C.
57c is nothing to worry a about. P4's run in the triple digits! Also remember the thermal paste takes about a week to set properly. Although when I built my PC I didnt notice a change really at all. I found the spot coolers work very nicely for cooling down the RAM/board. Antec makes one I think. It makes the beast a bit more noisy, but Im not concerned with noise on my system. May not hurt to remove the south/northbridge heatsinks and reapply the paste as well, something I did on mine as the "heat pad" was horrible.
Well, good to hear that the high fifties aren't too bad. Now today when I stress the CPU, it's only max 55C. But the GPU temps, is 80 on idle something normal? Would a faster fan help to cool down the CPU? (Obviously it does, but how much actually?) Huh, now when I've been stressing both the CPU and GFX simultaneously for a while, the air from the back of the PSU is REALLY warm and the fan still doesn't move too much air... Just in case it blows, does Corsair give money for the rest of the computer if it breaks?
Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme is not known to have good idle temperatures, but it rocks under load. 55c under load seems fine, my q6600 @ 3Ghz is doing 40c idle and 55c load. 45nm quads are about the same. but the best method is theevilelephant said, just put a dot in the middle, and then let the heatsink do the work. you can also add a few washers to the screws. the ATI 4870 is known to be hot, so don't worry about it. as long as it's not artifacting you'd be fine. to improve airflow in p182: clip a 120mm fan onto the middle drive cage. that way the GPU and northbridge gets direct airflow. don't worry about Corsair PSU, they are rock solid. i fold on GPU and CPU all the time, yet my Corsair never spins up. give us a photo of your build? i may able to suggest a few places to hide the cables if you haven't done so already
Thanks! I was googling on "q9550 max temp" and came across this. Then I downloaded Real Temp and guess what! It shows max load temperatures of only 52C! I think it's because this app uses a TJ of 95C (which is correct for this CPU AFAIK). All the other tools I've been using so far (Everest, CoreTemp, SpeedFan) use a TJ of 100 or 105. So, I'm not too worried anymore! But, another thing to possibly worry about... The VRMs on the 4870 go as hot as 110C on load But I guess that's normal for MOSFETs? And as long as there is no smoke or artifacting there's nothing to worry about? Anyway, if/when I'm overclocking, how far (temp wise) is it wise to push the CPU? I'll post a few pics soon.
not sure if you've heard about ATI's engineering problem with their 48x0 VRMs or not..... while the new 8.8 drivers bring a good improvement on other games as usual for ATI. but their card is badly designed (the GPU is very good design, but their card needs more testing) ATI nerfs FurMark in the driver to stop it from pushing the VRMs to maximum heat...nice, way to "glaze" over engineering faults! Source: http://en.expreview.com/2008/08/26/ati-officially-optimize-catalyst-for-furmark-making-it-run-slower/ You can also follow here for more good reading that links to many other posts about this... http://forums.tweaktown.com/f31/diamond-radeon-hd-4870-xoc-black-edition-27348/#post256321
Yea, I read about the FurMark thing and decided to test it myself, however I didn't see any improvement over a renamed exe (but whatever). Here are a few photos of the insides (as you can see I'm not the very best at taking pictures): http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii203/mm_vr/P1010056.jpg http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii203/mm_vr/P1010057.jpg http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii203/mm_vr/P1010058.jpg http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii203/mm_vr/P1010059.jpg http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii203/mm_vr/P1010060.jpg update: Just a little teaser... Is THIS alright?
sorry, cannot comment on 4870 because i don't have one. for case cabling: put the large cables through the other side! flip the Hx620w so it's easier to route large 24pin and 8pin cables through the other side. my current state as i recall, 4870 is same length as 8800GTS 320MB (which i had one) you can put a fan at the end of the drive cage to improve airflow around it (basically blowing at at the graphics card PCB). just like this: doing same thing with 8800GTX as well, just needed some innovation to get a fan in that position.
Thanks for the suggestion, but it's a heck of a job to flip the PSU (took about 3h for me to install and route all the cables ) so that's not something I'm going to do Maybe when I upgrade something. I'll take a look at putting a fan on the drive cage. So I should put it at the blue circle and not at the red circle? As you can see, the power connectors from the 4870 go pretty far so it might be a bit difficul to put it at the blue circle. And of course my cable routing in the drive cage...
if you route the PCIe cable from the back, it'll come out fine, and a 25mm thick fan fits there perfectly. put fans at both locations. that way, it creates a tunnel effect, making sure to blow the air very far over the graphics card PCB.
I OC'd the CPU to 3.4GHz, using 1.2625V voltage. When loading it with Prime95 the temp goes up to 60C but the CPU socket temperature completely freaks out, sometimes it shows 122C and sometimes 32C... Just to be sure, is this correct?: I can heat this CPU up to 71.4C and there will be no damage. According to this, as far as I can understand, it is:
Socket temp...? Just look at the temps for the 4 cores in CoreTemp, they're all you really need (assuming there's not smoke coming of your Northbridge). 70 deg C is fine, as a guide you should avoid going above that for sustained periods and you won't damage the chip. You should be able to increase voltages and clock speeds until it is reaching 70deg C in a sustained test with Prime95 or similar. Once you find this limit, that's about as high as you can overclock without better cooling (which with the True 120 is probably a dual 120mm rad!). As a guide, my Q6600 reaches the limit of about 70 degrees at 3.6Ghz. You're doing quite well considering you are only getting 60C at 3.4Ghz. As far as the GPU goes, I found adding a side fan to my case reduced the temps on my 8800GT by 10 degrees. Though I don' think that's and option on the P182. Temps of 85C at load isn't bad.
Okay now... Something is SERIOUSLY wrong. The northbridge/MOSFETs were just at 112C What happened was that I started playing a game. There was a lot of squealing during gameplay but I thought that was normal. I had left Everest running in the background. I just happened to take a look at my G15 screen and when I first saw that I just thought it was just a temperature a bug (like with the CPU socket temp) but then I opened the case and touched the heatsink and it was REALLY hot. It idles about at 45-50C. The CPU is overclocked to 3.25GHz currently. When I load it with Prime95 it (NB temp) doesn't change at all which is strange. But when I start playing the game it shoots up to 100C. The NB and the MOSFETs are connected with a heatpipe on a P5Q Pro. Is it as simple that the MOSFETs just can't handle the load by the CPU? And why doesn't the temperature rise when I do Prime95? Is it a manufacturing defect or something?
That is odd, possibly to the extent that there is something wrong with the board. With the CPU ( @3.6Ghz) and GPU fully loaded, my northbridge isn't even warm to the touch. I can't reach the coolers for the power circuitry but I doubt they're hot. The cooling on my P5K premium isn't that much more than on the P5Q, something must be up with your board. How new is it, could you return it? I'm not sure if "gets hot when overclocked" is enough of a reason. What are you using to record the temps of the MOSFETs, etc?
The mobo is bought last saturday, a week ago, and so is everything else in this computer. Everest Ultimate reads a temp called "System" which obviosly is the NB. And the NB and the MOSFETs are connected to each other with a heatpipe which balances the temperature between them as you can see from this picture: I just went away for a few minutes and left the case open. When I came back, Vista had started indexing and the NB temp was 53C. This leads me to think that disk activity makes it very hot. Before I bought this mobo I read a review and there they said that "the MOSFETs got up to a toasty temperature of 50C on load". So I really don't think this is normal EDIT1: WTH, now it's 25C! I just think the temperature sensor is a bit f00ked up. EDIT2: Now I closed he side panel and the temp jumped to 42C. I think it really needs some airflow. Are there any small fans available for separate purchase that can be fastened to a MOSFET heatsink?
