[AMD] CPU is idling at 50-60 degrees Celsius...

[firelink70]

Hi, I have an A10-5800K. When my system is idling, the CPU temps range from about 50-60 Celsius. Now, according to what I've seen in other questions, this isn't too normal for idle temps. Because of this, I just started paying attention to my fans and I'm appalled at myself for how they're set up. It seems that I have 1 intake fan from the side (more towards the back), and 2 fans in the back that are sandwiching the radiator of my Corsair H80i.

I feel like my fan setup is a culprit of my high temps, but if anyone has any extra ideas on what's causing this, I'd greatly appreciate a reply. I'll provide any pictures you may want to see, and can run some monitoring tools for a while to see what's up.

 

[engineer5261]

What is the ambient temp in your room?

 

[firelink70]

I have one of those little head-scanning thermometers, so I'm trusting what it says. It was reading ~28 Celsius. Others in my house have also chimed in, saying it feels much warmer in this room than the rest of the house.

 

[maxwellmelon]

that is way to hot for a liquid cooler. did u use the right brackets when u install it( usually they come set up for intel cpu), are you sure you applied thermal paste right. is the cooler seem to be working?(at 60c) that radiator should have noticeable warm/hot air blowing off of it? is the radiator even warm(water pump failure).

 

[firelink70]

I do feel warm air coming from the fan pushing air from the radiator. I have my spare parts for the cooler and can/will check again to see if I'm using the correct brackets. This cooler had a backplate for the Intel mobos though, but I'll look anyway. The computer is almost 4 years old now, so I would imagine that checking the thermal paste (which was pre-applied by Corsair) wouldn't hurt.

 

[engineer5261]

I have one of those little head-scanning thermometers, so I'm trusting what it says. It was reading ~28 Celsius. Others in my house have also chimed in, saying it feels much warmer in this room than the rest of the house.

It should not be that high with a corsair H80i. Are you sure you are monitoring the correct sensor?

 

[firelink70]

I'll post what I'm seeing in HWMonitor.

http://imgur.com/N8uOGBV

 

[Barty1884]

For an AMD chip, you should be monitoring Idle & Load temps via AMD Overdrive - it's the only truly accurate way of ensuring safe temps. http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/over-drive

Other programs are not recording in the same way - you're interested in the "Thermal Margin".
What is Thermal Margin:
"Starting with AMD OverDrive Ver 4.3.1.0690 instead of displaying CPU temperature, AOD will report Thermal Margin. Thermal Margin indicates how far the current operating temperature is below the maximum operating temperature of the processor."

AMD OD essentially works backwards - you're looking at essentially "degrees to zero".
70'C is the maximum (and essentially "as cool as OD is going to recognize") and it works down to 0'C under load.
You want to ensure you're keeping it above 10'C if you can (read: 10'C to problem territory).
Thermal throttling can kick in around 10'C (sometimes higher, sometimes lower).

There's been quite a few cases of AMD and HWMonitor (or similar) 'matching up' and making sense together, but many, many more situations where HWMonitor (and similar programs) think a chip is likely on fire, when OD captures it as quite a distance away from 'danger' territory.

 

[firelink70]

For an AMD chip, you should be monitoring Idle & Load temps via AMD Overdrive - it's the only truly accurate way of ensuring safe temps. http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/over-drive

Other programs are not recording in the same way - you're interested in the "Thermal Margin".
What is Thermal Margin:
"Starting with AMD OverDrive Ver 4.3.1.0690 instead of displaying CPU temperature, AOD will report Thermal Margin. Thermal Margin indicates how far the current operating temperature is below the maximum operating temperature of the processor."

AMD OD essentially works backwards - you're looking at essentially "degrees to zero".
70'C is the maximum (and essentially "as cool as OD is going to recognize") and it works down to 0'C under load.
You want to ensure you're keeping it above 10'C if you can (read: 10'C to problem territory).
Thermal throttling can kick in around 10'C (sometimes higher, sometimes lower).

There's been quite a few cases of AMD and HWMonitor (or similar) 'matching up' and making sense together, but many, many more situations where HWMonitor (and similar programs) think a chip is likely on fire, when OD captures it as quite a distance away from 'danger' territory.

Oh man, do I feel silly now. I never realized the thermal margin deal. I may have heard of that long ago but never worried about it until this "problem" arose. Well, according to AOD my thermal margin for all cores idle is maxed at 70, so I must be good. I just worried because of the constant complaints of how warm my room gets. That must mean the H80i is doing it's job. Now I just need to find better solutions for cooling the room...

 

[Barty1884]

Exactly. 70'C is as cool as OD will recognize, so you have plenty headroom.

Just ensure you test at load too - idle temps are one thing, but you want to ensure that cooler is doing the job at the other end of the scale too.

Don't worry too much, as the idle vs load can seem dramatically different. Provided you stay in double-digits at full load (like a stress test) you're totally fine.

 

[firelink70]

Exactly. 70'C is as cool as OD will recognize, so you have plenty headroom.

Just ensure you test at load too - idle temps are one thing, but you want to ensure that cooler is doing the job at the other end of the scale too.

Don't worry too much, as the idle vs load can seem dramatically different. Provided you stay in double-digits at full load (like a stress test) you're totally fine.

I'll run Prime95 if I can get some free time. My CPU likes to idle at 1.475 V (says that next to VID), am I reading that wrong as well? I feel like the voltage should be lower at idle at least.