CPU High Temperatures with water cooling / Dying?

[danhaz]

Hello guys,

Maybe someone can help me....

Before I get into this thread I'd like to let you know I'm not the best with anything technical with PCs, but I can relay stuff through my friends who have more experience (they suggested I make this thread).

So recently I wanted to check out the temperatures on my three-year-old PC and see how hot things were getting when idle, I noticed straight away my CPU was getting around 55 - 70C at resting rate, however my case never felt anything but warm at most and my fans wasn't blowing out hot air but the cpu fans at the top of my tower would get very loud

I didn't really know what the problem was, so I went to my friends for suggestions. Some of them suggested trying other temperature monitor programs so I tried out Corsair Link and I was getting similar results. Another friend suggested trying resetting my BIOS settings to default just to see what would happen. Once I did that, I got a CPU Fan Error on startup.

At this point, I tried changing to all of the different profile modes in the EZ BIOS mode which were
Normal, Power Saving and ASUS Optimized and nothing was working, however, I manually tweaked the CPU fan settings just now and I was able to get past the bios screen and now I'm writing this thread for help/guidance. At this point, I don't know what the issue is, a dying overheating CPU, broken watercooling, broken heat sensors. I have no clue if you have any idea I'd be grateful to hear from you.


My Specs

CPU Overclocking: oc45 - 4.5Ghz - Stable OC on all CPU cores
CPU: A407 - Intel Core i7 4790K
CPU Cooler: B301 - Corsair H100i GTX Extreme Water Cooler
Operating System: Windows 10 (64-bit)
Motherboard: 4227 - Asus Maximus VII Ranger
RAM: X2C202 - 32GB Corsair 1600mhz Vengeance (4x8GB)
M.2 Super-fast SSD: G503 - Plextor 128GB M6e M.2
Hard Drive: G302 - Seagate 2TB (Hybrid 8GB SSD)
Sound Card: Q302 - Onboard 7.1 Audio
Graphics card: D109 - NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980 4GB
Internet: J202 - Wireless 802.11N 300Mbps MIMO PCI-E card
Case: K320 - NZXT H440 Black/Red
PSU: K703 - 850W Corsair RM Fully Modular

 

[MeanMachine41]

Hi danhaz

Ideal temps are 10-15C above ambient room temperature at idle and 60-65C under load.

Common causes for Overheating are:
Your Overclock, VCore set too high. Incorrect Bios settings can yield high temps at idle in Bios.
TIM (Thermal Interface Material) needs replacing.
Your AIO pump is failing and should be RMA if within warranty period.
Slow build up of heat within the case due to pockets of dust and inefficient throughput.

All will have to be checked.

 

[The Original Ralph]

Those temps are on the high side

it could be just dust clogging your cooler or radiator, pump getting weak - when was the last time you took a look at your fan blades and cleaned the dust off them?, and blew out the radiator - from the outside blowing inward. Also at the three year mark, this would be a good time to pull the water pump off the CPU and replace your thermal paste

as far as the heat damaging your cpu, i wouldn't worry about it - it's doubtful you've damaged your CPU - i ran my intel i7-4790(non-k) for about 3 months rendering video files (1-3 hour jobs) with the cpu showing 100% load and temps showing max 67C

that 67C temps was too consistent or predictable, i was relying on ASUS's AI Suite III for temps. I downloaded HWMonitor (CPUID) and it showed 97-100C while Asus's utility was showing 67C. Intel's XTU utility also showed the same 100C temps.

Point is i'd run my cpu at temps that could almost fry eggs for 3 months on 1-3 hour jobs, 1-2 jobs a day.
Once i upgraded my cooler and brought my temps down, i ran some benchmarks in Intel's XTU (Extreme Tuning Utility) utility, and the nice part there is, once you've run a benchmark, intel asks if you want to compare your results with others online. Every time i run one, and compare to others running the same cpu and chipset as mine, i'm always in the top 5% score wise.

Intel's CPUs have a thermal throttle limiter, if temps get too high, it slows the cpu down to let it cool some - that was the reason the temps would bounce from 100 down to 97 and then jump back to 100 - but that thermal limit saved my cpu. So it's doubtful that heat had damaged my cpu

 

[danhaz]

Hi danhaz

Ideal temps are 10-15C above ambient room temperature at idle and 60-65C under load.

Common causes for Overheating are:
Your Overclock, VCore set too high. Incorrect Bios settings can yield high temps at idle in Bios.
TIM (Thermal Interface Material) needs replacing.
Your AIO pump is failing and should be RMA if within warranty period.
Slow build up of heat within the case due to pockets of dust and inefficient throughput.

All will have to be checked.

So I just had a huge clean out inside my case, got rid of a load of dust. Also applied more thermal paste onto the CPU itself, however I'm still getting high temps and the CPU fan error on boot up on default bios settings. Any suggestions?

 

[danhaz]

Those temps are on the high side

it could be just dust clogging your cooler or radiator, pump getting weak - when was the last time you took a look at your fan blades and cleaned the dust off them?, and blew out the radiator - from the outside blowing inward. Also at the three year mark, this would be a good time to pull the water pump off the CPU and replace your thermal paste

as far as the heat damaging your cpu, i wouldn't worry about it - it's doubtful you've damaged your CPU - i ran my intel i7-4790(non-k) for about 3 months rendering video files (1-3 hour jobs) with the cpu showing 100% load and temps showing max 67C

that 67C temps was too consistent or predictable, i was relying on ASUS's AI Suite III for temps. I downloaded HWMonitor (CPUID) and it showed 97-100C while Asus's utility was showing 67C. Intel's XTU utility also showed the same 100C temps.

Point is i'd run my cpu at temps that could almost fry eggs for 3 months on 1-3 hour jobs, 1-2 jobs a day.
Once i upgraded my cooler and brought my temps down, i ran some benchmarks in Intel's XTU (Extreme Tuning Utility) utility, and the nice part there is, once you've run a benchmark, intel asks if you want to compare your results with others online. Every time i run one, and compare to others running the same cpu and chipset as mine, i'm always in the top 5% score wise.

Intel's CPUs have a thermal throttle limiter, if temps get too high, it slows the cpu down to let it cool some - that was the reason the temps would bounce from 100 down to 97 and then jump back to 100 - but that thermal limit saved my cpu. So it's doubtful that heat had damaged my cpu

Thanks for the reply, read my response above if you have any ideas.

 

[The Original Ralph]

you never stated what utility you were using to monitor temps

 

[danhaz]

you never stated what utility you were using to monitor temps

Speccy & Corsair Link. They both were giving me similar results. Another thing I should mention, my CPU fans are always blaring out loud if this helps at all

 

[The Original Ralph]

i don't know those - i use HWMonitor, but only after comparing the temps it was reporting with the temps intel's XTU utility was showing - and they've always been spot on. I just more faith to confirming with intel's utility as i assume intel would know best how to read their sensors

MeanMachine41 pretty much hit the items to look at

just noticed you stated "...Also applied more thermal paste onto the CPU itself.." You can apply too much thermal paste. There are plenty of online videos demonstrating how much to use, but basically i apply slightly less than 1/2 of a small pea in terms of volume.

That pump could be weak, at three years old but i'm not familiar with water cooled systems - i've just got an aversion to putting water into a case full of expensive electronics. And it's possible you've got air in the system, again, after 3 years, i don't know how you monitor water level in that cooling system.

In case you have that AI Suite III Asus utility installed, un-install it for the hey of it. I found a ton of reports of folks reporting it creating conflicts in their BIOS (using it on ASUS mobos). After un-installing it, there's an AI Suite III cleaner that Asus released, that you should then run in safe mode. What's it say when Asus releases a cleaner utility for the very utility they released.

My other computer is a 4790(non-k) on a Asus Z97M-Plus mobo, in a compact case, and my idle temps are 28-32C, browsing 34-38, but i've also got 5 security cameras feeding 5 video stream thru the cpu, being recorded to a dedicated SSD, recording 24/7. Without that 24/7 recording, temps would easily be 2-3C lower - high loads, when i'm rendering videos and cpu usage is showing 98-100% temps will hit 64-66C. And again, that's a 4790 at 4.0 MHz. And it's being cooled by a Noctua NH-U12S which is a moderate level air cooler. Your CPU and mine are awfully close in terms of TDP, 84W vs 88W

Something else just occurred to me - download HWMonitor (it's free) and see what it's reporting for VCore (core voltage).

 

[danhaz]

i don't know those - i use HWMonitor, but only after comparing the temps it was reporting with the temps intel's XTU utility was showing - and they've always been spot on. I just more faith to confirming with intel's utility as i assume intel would know best how to read their sensors

MeanMachine41 pretty much hit the items to look at

just noticed you stated "...Also applied more thermal paste onto the CPU itself.." You can apply too much thermal paste. There are plenty of online videos demonstrating how much to use, but basically i apply slightly less than 1/2 of a small pea in terms of volume.

That pump could be weak, at three years old but i'm not familiar with water cooled systems - i've just got an aversion to putting water into a case full of expensive electronics. And it's possible you've got air in the system, again, after 3 years, i don't know how you monitor water level in that cooling system.

In case you have that AI Suite III Asus utility installed, un-install it for the hey of it. I found a ton of reports of folks reporting it creating conflicts in their BIOS (using it on ASUS mobos). After un-installing it, there's an AI Suite III cleaner that Asus released, that you should then run in safe mode. What's it say when Asus releases a cleaner utility for the very utility they released.

My other computer is a 4790(non-k) on a Asus Z97M-Plus mobo, in a compact case, and my idle temps are 28-32C, browsing 34-38, but i've also got 5 security cameras feeding 5 video stream thru the cpu, being recorded to a dedicated SSD, recording 24/7. Without that 24/7 recording, temps would easily be 2-3C lower - high loads, when i'm rendering videos and cpu usage is showing 98-100% temps will hit 64-66C. And again, that's a 4790 at 4.0 MHz. And it's being cooled by a Noctua NH-U12S which is a moderate level air cooler. Your CPU and mine are awfully close in terms of TDP, 84W vs 88W

Something else just occurred to me - download HWMonitor (it's free) and see what it's reporting for VCore (core voltage).

Here is what HWMonitor says

EDIT - Just reading this now, under the motherboard theres a temperature of 127C which is weird as it jumps from 127C to 0c quickly, nothing in between

 

[The Original Ralph]

just noticed, are you overclocked to 4.5??

"EDIT - Just reading this now, under the motherboard theres a temperature of 127C which is weird as it jumps from 127C to 0c quickly, nothing in between"

it could just be your BIOS is corrupted. for the helluva of it, you might try, first clearing CMOS, then flashing the latest BIOS from Asus's web - if you've never done it, the procedure to do it in your BIOS is explained in the mobo's manual - here's a link, you'll need to format a USB flash or thumb drive FAT32, and after downloading the latest BIOS for your mobo (https://www.asus.com/us/supportonly/MAXIMUS%20VII%20RANGER/HelpDesk_Download/) you'll have to input your OS and it will show you the BIOSs _& drivers available. In the manual it will explain after extracting the zip file on your desktop, what to rename the file to, Then that flash drive has to be in a USB 2.0 port on your computer, then reboot and go into BIOS (hit F2 as soon as the POST or Splash screen shows up), then go to tools - and i forget but iirc, it's called EZ Flash - but it'll be in the manual. DO NOT USE THE tool that let's you flash from within windows.

Before flashing the latest BIOS, return BIOS settings to default settings - iirc, F5 will do it, but there'll be a button in BIOS that you just clik on to return to defaults

here's a shot of my CPUID temps and VCore - you're almost a 1/10V higher at the same level of activity (actually my computer was showing 10% load or usage when i took that screen capture), but i don't think that would give you temps that high. After flashing or reflashing your BIOS, we can try bringing that voltage down some.

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