AMD Athlon x4 880k Crazy Temps in BIOS??

[nasch007]

Greetings! I just purchased an Asrock Fatal1ty board and the 880k brand new.

I have an Antec 900 case with pretty good airflow. I'm wondering if there is something wrong with the BIOS of the board or with the cpu in reporting the temperature back.

I've read the sticky: http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2122665/understanding-temperature-amd-cpus-apus.html

But it doesn't talk about whether BIOS temps are accurate. Here's the situation:

Bought the aforementioned items. Put em together and now sitting in BIOS on HW monitoring page, the CPU temp climbs drastically. It goes in increments of 0.5C from about 31.0C-44.0C, sometimes higher. Again, this is in BIOS while it's doing pretty much nothing. Seeing those numbers had me concerned.

Booting to Desktop and using Asrock's Fstream Utility, temperature reading is about 32-33C, while idle. I understand from the sticky that this is the socket temperature which is pretty accurate re: idle.

Then using AMD's Overdrive software only shows "Thermal Margin" which according to sticky is "how far away from the MAX temperature you are" & I'll get readings of 61.0C down to 40s and 30s under load. So seeing the difference between sitting in BIOS and sitting at Desktop, I'm not sure what to make of this. What is the max operating temperature for this chip? Am I in a safe area?

To be safe, I tried cleaning off the default and replacing it with Arctic Silver thermal compound. Added a 120mm case fan (side panel over vga area). Cranked CPU fan to full 3000rpm. Still seeing the same behavior. Booting into BIOS, check the Hardware tab, CPU starts at ~31 or 32C, and goes up like every second or two by 0.5C until it's at mid 40s.

Is this actually an accurate socket/on-die temp? Is there something wrong with my CPU? Or is this not reporting to the motherboard correctly? Or is the motherboard misinterpreting it? Should I worry about this discrepency at all? Is it possible to get damaged while sitting in BIOS?

The rig has yet to overheat or crash but I'm worried if there's a sensor wrong or backwards or something why it's reporting weird temperatures to the BIOS/motherboard. Let me know if I'm just being paranoid or if you think this should be maybe a motherboard issue.

Thanks!

 

[RARRAF]

mid 40s is nothing too get worried about PC's get hot the CPU is designed to get hot when it goes 65+ then its too hot and will throttle the frequency
CPU COOLERS
The Cooler Master 212 EVO and the Cryorig H7 are two extremely popular choices under 40 ish USD

 

[RARRAF]

plus some software gives inaccurate readings

 

[nasch007]

mid 40s is nothing too get worried about PC's get hot the CPU is designed to get hot when it goes 65+ then its too hot and will throttle the frequency
CPU COOLERS
The Cooler Master 212 EVO and the Cryorig H7 are two extremely popular choices under 40 ish USD

Just to be clear, it's mid 40s while idling in BIOS. Not under load. So that concerns me what load temps will be if most of the monitoring software is inaccurate.

I'm assuming that is the throttle threshold with AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet feature enabled, correct?

Also I have a 212 Evo but one of the stands is stripped out so I was hoping not to use it unless I have to.

Thanks!

 

[nasch007]

plus some software gives inaccurate readings

Understood. I would think that the BIOS would be somewhat accurate, though. Is that what's going on here?

 

[Quixit]

plus some software gives inaccurate readings

Understood. I would think that the BIOS would be somewhat accurate, though. Is that what's going on here?

A lot of systems don't run full power management while in the bios. It's a fail-safe in case the settings are wrong. Boot to OS before taking any readings, even then idle temperatures are not normally important, only maximum load temperature. CPUs are built to run up to about 80C all day long without issue.

 

[Twigman]

The BIOS is still reading from the same sensors as the software you're using. Inaccuracies in one will also appear in the other, assuming the signals are being correctly interpreted. I.e. an old archival hard drive I use comes up as being over a million C regardless of what program I use to check.

Regarding the temperature of 30-40C, as said above that's standard. Due to physics it would take much more than even a large tower fan to pull you CPU down below 30, and once below that you have to start worrying about condensation of the water in the air on your motherboard. ~

 

[nasch007]

plus some software gives inaccurate readings

Understood. I would think that the BIOS would be somewhat accurate, though. Is that what's going on here?

A lot of systems don't run full power management while in the bios. It's a fail-safe in case the settings are wrong. Boot to OS before taking any readings, even then idle temperatures are not normally important, only maximum load temperature. CPUs are built to run up to about 80C all day long without issue.

Thanks for confirming, I suspected it is something like that. Just weird to see since I upgraded to a brand new mobo/processor combo and seeing the rate at which the temperature climbs I'm like "whhaaaa??"

So you think the temp is inaccurate in BIOS, then? Or are you saying probably it IS accurate because no power management settings are active?

I will of course keep the focus on load temperatures and do know that is what's critical. Do you recommend a software that can accurately read this chip's temperatures in the OS? I understand Thermal Margin and looks like I'm doing well in regards to that. I'd just like to know an actual number for what temp I'm at during load.

Thanks for your input!

 

[nasch007]

The BIOS is still reading from the same sensors as the software you're using. Inaccuracies in one will also appear in the other, assuming the signals are being correctly interpreted. I.e. an old archival hard drive I use comes up as being over a million C regardless of what program I use to check.

Regarding the temperature of 30-40C, as said above that's standard. Due to physics it would take much more than even a large tower fan to pull you CPU down below 30, and once below that you have to start worrying about condensation of the water in the air on your motherboard. ~

Understood. I guess what alarmed me most was that being in the BIOS and seeing the rate at which the temp indicator climbs... scary. From 31 or 32 on a cold boot to mid 40s in a matter of maybe 15-20 seconds. Made me think I didn't apply the heat sink correctly or something. But yeah I get it overall and in practice I get mid 40s or low 50s on load ain't gonna kill it but damn didn't think that'd be the case idling in BIOS.

Yeah not looking for condensation although the motherboard supports a "dehumidifier" funtion. LOL at that! Not sure entirely what that does but that's for another day.

So I shouldn't bother trying to install the Evo? I can curb down the 3000rpm on the wraith, as well? Just worry about what load temps are reported in the OS?

 

[Twigman]

Climbing from 30 to 40C in 15-20 seconds is fine. Your CPU knows how to deal with temps and will control the fan accordingly if it wants to. I would be a little worried if it does what my laptop does and spikes from 40C idle to 95C in less than 2 seconds (not even joking) all because I want to open a new tab.

Why does your motherboard have a dehumidifier option??? Aren't they supposed to reduce the amount of water in the air? Google will know this answer.

The Wraith cooler should be fine for you, but if you wish to install the evo go for it. It might do a little do decrease your load temps (definitely not your idle ones). ~

 

[nasch007]

Climbing from 30 to 40C in 15-20 seconds is fine. Your CPU knows how to deal with temps and will control the fan accordingly if it wants to. I would be a little worried if it does what my laptop does and spikes from 40C idle to 95C in less than 2 seconds (not even joking) all because I want to open a new tab.

Why does your motherboard have a dehumidifier option??? Aren't they supposed to reduce the amount of water in the air? Google will know this answer.

The Wraith cooler should be fine for you, but if you wish to install the evo go for it. It might do a little do decrease your load temps (definitely not your idle ones). ~

Thanks for the reassurance. I guess I was just tripping because I've not seen spikes like that before, at least not in any of my previous builds. But if it's cool under load, and gets warmer than my previous one at idle, I suppose that's all good. I borrowed a temperature gun just in case because I was really not believing the BIOS temps could be accurate. But if that's the way of the new world, lol. Just gotta accept it and move on. No worries. I'll check idle and load temps again with the temperature gun and I read on a different thread that gigabyte's easy tune was a little more friendly with FM2+ chips. In the end I guess everything's ok.

Thanks for the help!

 

[nasch007]

Climbing from 30 to 40C in 15-20 seconds is fine. Your CPU knows how to deal with temps and will control the fan accordingly if it wants to. I would be a little worried if it does what my laptop does and spikes from 40C idle to 95C in less than 2 seconds (not even joking) all because I want to open a new tab.

Why does your motherboard have a dehumidifier option??? Aren't they supposed to reduce the amount of water in the air? Google will know this answer.

The Wraith cooler should be fine for you, but if you wish to install the evo go for it. It might do a little do decrease your load temps (definitely not your idle ones). ~

I borrowed a temperature gun from work and thought I could check some stuff out. So I took my case panel off and let it open to some air. Sat idling in the BIOS HW Monitor page. The temp climbs right past mid 40s. Didn't settle until it read 52.5C. This was after I took a pretty good sized boxfan and put it on HIGH and pointed it right at the guts of my machine. That STILL seems like a very hot temp to me all things considered. I could check the northbridge-type heatsink next to the cpu and mainboard itself temps with the gun, which were stable (like 35 to 33 max) but unfortunately the laser can't quite hit the CPU with the heatsink on it. Couldn't get an angle which I suppose is the point. Closest I could get was probably still hitting the heatsink/fan and I got a reading of 36C. So jeez. I guess these are intended to run super hot... but I can't imagine. 52.5C - 90 that's 37C to work with and I'm only in BIOS. And I read before the throttle kicks in around 60-65C? So shoot. I have no idea what to expect. LOL!! I guess the real test will come with a marathon gaming session. Here goes!