Dell Precision T7500 overheating

[gnihgnih]

Hi all

I was looking for solution and I can't find it anywhere.

I bought 'old' Precision T7500 which came with single X5667 quad core that I upgraded with two hexacores X5670. All run fine until I try to push it to the limits. I noticed that no matter what I do and what is the CPU load, the fans run quite the same(quiet and on low rpm)

I was experimenting with rendering and I noticed that a few cores temperatures went over 90C after less than 5 minutes and continued to increase so just stopped the program. The same happens with Prime95 and every bench that can load CPUs to the max. When in idle(a few programs but CPU shows 0 to 1%) temperatures are in range 33-43 for different cores.

For primary CPU I'm using the lowest range heatsink - the aluminium one and for the riser - I guess the default one.

So I have a few questions:
0. Is 30-40C normal temperature in IDLE for x5670 and standard settigns, default case, single Quadro FX4600 etc Precision T7500?
1. What was officially best CPU that DELL did put while they were still were selling these? Maybe it is not designed to support there x56xx series.
2. Is it a bug that reaching and passing T case which is 81.3C for X5670 doesn't make fans run faster(it goes faster, just a little bit faster). I guess if the temperature goes to Tj max which is 102 CPU will downclock itself but I don't want to try.
3. Even if I upgrade the primary heatsink with mid- or high-performer one, I still can't find info if there are other than one I have in the riser, so the 2nd CPU will still be overheating. My question is - is there different heatsink for the riser?
4. What is the really safety temperature for X5670? Some ppl say 60 is too much for them, I'm not such a maniac

I don't overclock and I don't think it's possible with Precision series. I really like the monster but I can't leave it to render 24/7 with this problem. I tried SpeedFan and there is a hack feature for Dell boards that I can control the fan speeds, they can be really noisy but this is not a solution for me as it's not something Dell has provided by default. Related to my 1st question, I hope this is not a design problem.

Anyone with two hexacores 95W X5600 series please help.

 

[bambiboom]

gnihgnih,

The primary suspect are the CPU heatsinks. The Xeon X5667 is 95W and the X5670 is 130W. and yes the T7500 was sold new with all the LGA1366 X5600 series. With the higher wattage CPU's you must use the Steel /Copper pipe heatsinks. I call those the "Office Building Model" heatsink I bought a T5500 with an E520 and the cast Aluminum heatsink ("Organ Pipes").

Also, adding the T7500 CPU /memory /fan riser really fills up the case, lowering air flow. If you're using a RAID controller, those put out a lot of heat as do older high end graphics cards. If you're doing rendering, scientific, video editing, financial analysis, or simulation that run the system at high levels for long periods, I'd recommend also adding a couple of case fans- perhaps 90mm on the back panel grille to extract heat out the back. Those can be attached to one of the spare 4-pin Molex with a splitter / adapter. Find fans that have an inline speed adjustment.

As you discovered, the T7500 was designed to prevent users from changing the fan behaviour. If you're in a hot climate, consider adding a front panel fan controller and besides as many back panel fans, arrange a set of memory fans. Until you solve the situation, to continue working, place a table fan on the floor close to the T7500 on a high setting blowing air into the front. When I used a T5500 with the very hot-running Quadro 4000- I once saw the 4000 at 102C- I started taking off the side panel and using a table fan blowing right on the Quadro and it worked- 85C.

However, the first thing is to have both CPU heatsinks be the Office Building Model ones.

The Dell Precision TX500 were a high point in my opinion- beautifully made, ultra-reliable, and quiet, but the 2nd CPU riser design was a mistake as it was much more expensive than simply having another socket on the motherboard and makes the case completely filled, cutting off airflow. HP did this too on the z620-and the power supply had to be a really odd zigzag box- a poor engineering decision in my view. The drives in the T7500 are also not in an an ideal position for cooling and you might look into a small fan for the drives if you're running mech'l drives.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

Modeling:

1. HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) > 32GB DDR3 1866 ECC RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Samsung SM951 M.2 256GB AHCI / Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) / Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)>
[ Passmark Rating = 5581 > CPU= 14046 / 2D= 838 / 3D= 4694 / Mem= 2777 / Disk= 11559] [6.12.16]

Rendering:

2. Dell Precision T5500 (2011) (Revised) > 2X Xeon X5680 (6-core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz), 48GB DDR3 1333 ECC Reg. > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > PERC H310 / Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > Logitech z313 > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (27", 1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3844 > CPU = 15047 / 2D= 662 / 3D= 3550 / Mem= 1785 / Disk= 2649] (12.30.15)

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 

[gnihgnih]

BambiBoom,
Thanks for your answer and suggestions.
Both CPUs (X5667 and X5670) are 95W TDP according Intel website and that was one of my points to get exactly this CPU as I wanted to have optimal performance/power consumption. I have found similar to your suggestions about adding extra fans and I myself 'designed' another solution with fan directly attached to the organ pipes heat sink.

From what I've read, I think that this is a design issue because if I upgrade the primary heat sink with high performer, I will still get overheating on the riser CPU or at lest I haven't found anything about different models for this heat sink. My riser sink is already the office one you have mentioned.

I also think that riser-design is bad decision. Dell also should realize it because I saw that next generation is with on-mainboard dual CPU design.

Cheers,

GnihGnih

 

[bambiboom]

gnihgnih,

Yes, you're correct that the X5670 is 95W-sorry. I was thinking it was the same as the X5680.

However, I still maintain that to start eliminating possible problems,both heatsinks should be Office Models.It only takes one CPU to overheat to cause the shutdown. I have a T5500 with two X5680's - which are 130W and running renderings at all core use for 6-8 hours never caused a thermal shutdown. The frightening event was seeing the Quadro 4000 at 102C and I manually shut it off immediately.

A couple of of other ideas:

1. Are you sure the thermal paste is properly distributed?

2. I was interested in your comment that the fan speed never seems to change. This leads me to believe that there may be a problem with the sensor or the circuit that switches the fan speed. If you run HWMonitor, you can check the fans' RPM as it changes. I would be interested to know the fans' speed. I think in the T5500 they are going at about 1400RPM after they're on awhile.

I had tried Speedfan also with a Precision T5400, but Dell thinks they know best and I was never able to find a workaround. The T5400 allso had a chassis intrusion switch and if I opened the case sometimes the switch would stick and the fans would run full speed. I cleaned the switch and it cured that problem but the T54400 was always a bit hot. Part of the trouble was the DDR2 RAM which was often creeping up to 75-80C even with the special RAM cooling fans.

Adding a fan directly to the heatsink sounds like a good idea, as long as it doesn't block the air flow through the shrouds.

I also wonder if there isn't a way to wire the main CPU fans directly to a supply off the spare 4-pin Molex. The idea would be to put an inline manual fan controller, but a better solution iht be to wire PWM fans directly to a front panel fan speed controller. Still, that would be the last resort- I think the solution doesn't not have to be so elaborate.

Yes, the riser design is just a silly idea- complex and expensive for no good reason. I've been thinking to replace the T5500 at the end of the Summer with an HP z620 as I can use Xeon E5 8-cores that cost less than the T5500 6-cores (E5-2680) , the RAM is DDR3 1600 or 1866, and the disk system is SATAIII. There is also an advantage to having both systems be HP as I can more easily clone the HD from the z420 to the z620 than to the T5500 whihc hhas a PERc H310 RAID controller as the boot device.. As long as I don't use the software at the same time on both systems, it's valid. However, the z620 also uses a 2nd CPU riser and it's putting me off the idea. Those risers cost almost twice as much as a T7500's- $120-150. The z820 has a true dual CPU board but the systems are almost twice as expensive as z620. Anyway, the T5500 works really well.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 

[gnihgnih]

BambiBoom,

The thermal paste could be a problem as I'm using some cheap paste, but still the difference should be with a few degrees. I've assembled/upgraded about 10 computers the last 6 months with the same paste and I don't have problems with them, just this T7500. I have actually another T7500 with my old X5667 which has absolutely same problem - temperature raises over 80 and I just stop the benchmarks to cool it down. I don't use it so I haven't made a lot of tests with it but it looks like it has the same problem.

My old workstation was T7400 and I had a few T5400 for some time so I know what are you talking about, but I haven't had the problems with overheating just because their fans increase speed when needed.

My concern is that my machine goes over 90C and it doesn't look that CPUs go to throttle or fans to go on the max.

SpeedFan shows names of the fans just as fan1...fan6. I use Everest/AIDA and they show 5 fans with humanized names as:
CPU:939
System:1230
Fan1:1150
Fan2:1188
GPU:1529

That is on the start of testing with CPU core temperatures between 29-38C(it is not completely idle - 1% load with a browser and the usual desktop progz)
Running prime95 for 4-5 minutes gave me 79C on 2 cores and no sensible change of fans - they change with +/- 10 RPM. At 79 degree I just stopped the prime95.

According you point 2 - do your fans change sensible on rising temperatures, and at what temperature they start to increase their speed?

I don't install all the drivers from DELL website for my T7500 as they are quite old and it looks that Windows find everything by itself. It would be really ridiculous if I need to install a driver for chipset or something else to control the fans. Do I need to install something extra?

I was also looking for getting HP, probably Z800, but their 'designer' PSU and higher price are reason to wait.

Here in the UK the riser itself for T7500 is about 200 pounds (about 260 USD at current rate, tomorrow could be $200 with the events lately)

Wiring the fan to the molex is an option but as all other options it will either always be noisy or I have to control it manually, which is annoyance. Usually this machine runs a few virtual machines, a browser, etc. I render sporadically so it's not a big issue, but I want it as it should be.

You said that 6-8 hours running rendering at 100% never gave you thermal shutdown, but what are your CPU temperatures? Your CPU is with higher TDP but also with lower Tcase at 78.5C. Mine is 81.3C so your probalby should start throttle at lower degrees. I can't find reliable info about TjMax but CoreTemp shows for my CPU it's 96C which is not far away from 90C I have seen before with no intention for my workstation to do something to cool itself down.

Cheers

 

[bambiboom]

gnihgnih,

The X5670 is rated to 81.3C and I would say proportionally, I would begin worrying at 62-65C.

This is a conundrum as there is nothing especially clearly wrong. That said, my approach would be to first eliminate the simpler possibilities :

1. Have both heatsinks be Office Buildings

2. Changing the heatsink will present an opportunity to check the thermal paste situation and the heatsink contact surface condition- I carefully polish these to a mirror finish with a flat piece of ground Aluminum and jeweler's paste or home scouring powder. I found earlier on that I was using too much also and now make a thin X- shape in the center. using Arctic Silver .

3. Make certain that the system BIOS and chipset drivers are the latest. The BIOS may well configure a bit more liberal CPU throttling and this is also the fan control.

4. I wonder if there might be a fault in the MB temperature sensor? The 1100 RPM under load is certainly far less than the T5500 which idle at about 1400RPM and the second anything is running, increase speed. The z420 main fan is running at 2000+RPM when the system is just idling with no load.

I have the T5500 off line (the second monitor /KB/ mouse connection) at the moment while I organize the T3500, but will try and start it up on HWmonitor and watch temperature and fans speeds. The X5680 is rated for 78.5C and my memory is that the highest temperatures (I saw) were 74C on CPU 1 and 72C on CPU 2- that was probably 3-4 hours into a rendering slog. The Quadro 4000 was I think 92C- and they're all done at 105C. When not rendering the temperatures were very different e.g., 62 and 45. I have never heard a change in the fans speed but they do change. The HP z420 is usually almost completely silent does have a fan roar on some restarts when the CPU might still have temperature in it. Currently the E5 -1660 v2 is 46-48C with a low of 51 and high of 60C, and the Quadro K4200 is 47C. Fans are running at 2250 RPM.

If all these measures have no effect, I'd say try direct wiring the inline fan controllers and set them at the highest speed that is not noticeably noisy. The z420 with fans running at 2700RPM as they were earlier can't be heard at all at more than 40cm away.

The more I think about the T7500, the more I think the symptom is simply low fan speed. As for cause, perhaps the bearing is dragging, the motor is weak, or it's a sensor / control issue.

It's not impossible that there could be a larger, high capacity, modern fan /heatsink added, but it depends on the mounting spacing.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 

[gnihgnih]

BambiBoom,

Thank you!

I'm on the ebay looking for a new heat sink "office building model". I was going to do it anyway and I was looking for U402F (highest performer) but now I'm forced and I will go with 0U016F. Meanwhile I succeed to configure FanSpeed to increase fan speeds automatically on 75C, I think it's low enough from T operational and it seems to work fine.

The only reason that makes me believe that this is not a personal issue but design issue or serial problem is that I have two T7500 bought from different sellers, different DELL dates, configs etc. with same behaviour. It will be really odd to have both with broken sensors.

Upgrading BIOS is one of the first things I do when getting a new machine. The common thing between my T7500s is that I myself have upgraded CPUs . Maybe it's time to reconsider my techniques. I know sometimes I put a bit more paste than needed and also my paste is probably the cheapest possible, but it just worked until now with very different machines.

I will also put linux on my 2nd "test" T7500 to check for different OS behaviour. It's with single CPU so there also no "riser blockage" reason.

Cheers

 

[Mongrel_one]

The primary suspect are the CPU heatsinks. The Xeon X5667 is 95W and the X5670 is 130W. and yes the T7500 was sold new with all the LGA1366 X5600 series. With the higher wattage CPU's you must use the Steel /Copper pipe heatsinks. I call those the "Office Building Model" heatsink I bought a T5500 with an E520 and the cast Aluminum heatsink ("Organ Pipes").

Also, adding the T7500 CPU /memory /fan riser really fills up the case, lowering air flow. If you're using a RAID controller, those put out a lot of heat as do older high end graphics cards. If you're doing rendering, scientific, video editing, financial analysis, or simulation that run the system at high levels for long periods, I'd recommend also adding a couple of case fans- perhaps 90mm on the back panel grille to extract heat out the back. Those can be attached to one of the spare 4-pin Molex with a splitter / adapter. Find fans that have an inline speed adjustment.



Bambiboom, did I read that correctly, you have fitted the T7500 riser into a T5500?

The T7500 riser board, Dell part number H236F with 6 x Ram slots not the T5500 Riser board, Dell part number F623F with 3 x memory slots?

Ive been searching for a long time for an answer as to whether the T5500 would work with the T7500 Riser.

I too own a T5500, I upgraded the CPU's to E5550's, ripped out the quadro and added an R9 270x,

Heat was a problem for me as well, especially with the mainboard CPU, so I installed Speedfan and worked out what each fans ID was, I labelled each fan as to what it was (Intake upper, Intake lower, riser CPU etc) in Speedfan and adjusted each fan to have a custom fan curve, the front intake fans hit 100% at 60 degrees Celsius.

I added a fan to the aluminium heat sink and installed a rear fan to suck the hot air out. Now only see maximum 70 degrees Celsius on the main CPU. The area I'm worried about the most is the power supply. Its so hot in that upper back corner of the computer, I'm going to open the power supply and clean it properly and see if I can put a faster fan inside it. (I'm an electrician so I kind of know what I'm doing and know how to solder and heat shrink)

But I have noticed a spare 4 pin fan connector near the memory slots on the mainboard, so i was going to see if I can get a riser card heatsink and fan combo to put on this CPU, but the heatsink/fan combos go for around $20 - $40 less then a complete riser card on ebay,

These things are solid machines and still hold their own despite the age. I'm punching over 60-100 fps in even the most recent games with setting close to if not maxed out.

A: Dell Precision T5500
2 x X5550 2.66-3.06GHz
1 x H.I.S ATI R9 270x OC edition 2GB
12GB DDR3 1066MHz
1 x Samsung EVO 850 500GB (Windows 10 Pro x64)
2 x WD 2TB Green (Raid 0 for Storage and used as NAS)


B: Lenovo ideapad 510-isk
Intel i7 6500u 2.5-3.1 GHz
Nvidia GeForce 940mx 2GB
20GB DDR4
1 x Samsung EVO 850 500GB (Windows 10 Home x64)

 

[bambiboom]

Mongrel_one,

Sorry, but the reference to T7500 is mis-typing. When I bought the T5500 riser I compared the T7500 and T5500 risers and they are definitely not compatible. The T7500 case is taller and the shape of the riser fan shrouds is different.

External Cooling Solution: I tried Speedfan on both the T5400 and T5500 internal fans and it had no effect. At the time at least it worked only on PWM fans and Dell appears to not allow users to alter their cooling designs.

Since this thread was active in June, I've changed the T5500 for an HP z620 with the intention to make this a very high performance system to do everything. To assist high compute applications, I wanted to add a Tesla GPU coprocessor. these are very expensive new, but highly depreciated when three years old. The older ones made for servers also use a lot of power and run hot. This z620 has added, a Tesla M2090 6GB GPU coprocessor (new, $3,200, now $86) to the Quadro K2200 (4GB), a combination that performs in 3D as well as a Quadro M5000 (8GB, $1,900) and quite a bit better than a GTX 970. It's 225W and has a passive heatsink intended to be supplied with air at 75 cf/m in a server. As an experiment I set a USB!, Thermaltake A1888- 47 cf/m @ 3000 rpm behind it to force air through the heatsink and not only did it cool the M2090 to under 50C, the CPU's (2X Xeon E5-2690 8-core @ 2.9 /3.8GHz) idles at 34-36C, and the K2200 seems to hang about at 42-45C. During a full 100 utilization 32-thread rendering, the CPU's reached 60C, well under the 72C limit. I run this fan at only 42% and, inside the case, it's barely audible up close.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzXtPxHilS63a3ZGQlZQTGRTMVU

Thinking of a better solution than only setting it in the case, I found a YouTube video done by a fellow who added a Tesla K80 (24GB, $5,200) and made an external duct using a Thermaltake A1888. His version is not very crafted, but the cooler is dissipating heat from 300W. I made a quick mock-up 3D model of one made in 1/16" Plexiglass.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzXtPxHilS63bGliQXpxaWR4X1U/view?usp=sharing

I've been thinking about a way to make a box with three or four A1888 that covers the most or the entire vented rear panel area. This would resemble the 4X external fan cooling solution to the Supermicro Superworkstation 7048GR-TR, which can use use four double-height GPU's. It would have to be easily removable and have opening in the sides for cables, but might be a way to have a very effective solution providing completely controllable fans.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

CAD / 3D Modeling / Graphic Design:

HP z420 (2015) (Rev 3) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) / 32GB DDR3 -1866 ECC RAM / Quadro K4200 (4GB) / Samsung SM951 M.2 256GB AHCI + Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) + Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)
[ Passmark Rating = 5581 > CPU= 14046 / 2D= 838 / 3D= 4694 / Mem= 2777 / Disk= 11559] [6.12.16]

Analysis / Simulation / Rendering:

HP z620 (2012) (Rev 3) 2X Xeon E5-2690 (8-core @ 2.9 / 3.8GHz) / 64GB DDR3-1600 ECC reg) / Quadro K2200 (4GB) + Tesla M2090 (6GB) / HP Z Turbo Drive (256GB) + Seagate Constellation ES.3 (1TB) / 800W > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > HP 2711x (27" 1980 X 1080)
[ Passmark System Rating= 5675 / CPU= 22625 / 2D= 815 / 3D = 3580 / Mem = 2522 / Disk = 12640 ] 9.25.16
[Cinebench R15: OpenGL= 119.23 fps / CPU = 2209 cb / Single core 130 cb / MP Ratio 16.84x] 10.31.16