E7400 TCase higher than TJunction

[kornfan71]

Hi,
I just finished my first build, and I'm getting ready to overclock. I came across CompuTronix's sticky here about temperatures. I started monitoring temperatures at stock settings, and noticed that while running Small FFTs in Orthos, my TCase was reported as being about 5C higher than my TJunctions. CompuTronix's article says that it should be: TJunction > TCase > Ambient
I continued to calibrate temperatures. I was able to meet all of the requirements for the test, except the ambient temperature, which was reported as 24C by one of my digital thermometers.
My tests concluded that my TCase needed an offset of -2C, which seemed reasonable. However, I also concluded that my TJunction temps needed a +8C offset, which seemed unlikely. Right now, without offsets, RealTemp says I'm 39C and 35C on my cores (idle). I highly doubt that an E7400 at stock speeds in an Antec 900 case would be 47C idle.
So what's going on? 39C idle seems within reason, but 47C? Somehow I doubt it. Did I get bum sensors, or is something incorrect with RealTemp/SpeedFan/BIOS, or should I not calibrate and trust the values that I get?

Hardware:
Antec 900 Case
Intel E7400 @ 2.8 GHz, stock cooler w/ Arctic Silver 5 paste
Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L, Rev 1.0, BIOS ver. F4

 

[CompuTronix]

What were your uncalibrated temperatures?

 

[kornfan71]

Here are those uncalibrated temps:

MY DEFAULT SETTINGS (not the maximum cooling setup in the guide):
Idle:
TCase: 35 C
Core 0: 39 C
Core 1: 35 C

Under load:
TCase: 60 C
Core 0: 55 C
Core 1: 55 C


MAXIMUM COOLING, AMBIENT 24 C:
Idle:
TCase: 29 C
Core 0: 39 C
Core 1: 35 C

Load:
TCase: 58 C
Core 0: 53 C
Core 1: 53 C

I re-did the calibration and I got an offset of -1 for TCase and +9 for each of the cores.

So, in my normal settings, I see:
(Idle/Load)
TCase: 34/59
Core 0: 48/64
Core 1: 44/64

After reading more on the Intel DTS, I realized that Core 0 is obviously stuck at 39 C, and Core 1 may even be stuck at 35 C.

I just felt that +9 C offset was a bit high. I suppose I was wrong, especially after all I read about how much I read about how totally accurate the DTS is! 😗

If you feel that these values seem wrong for an E7400 in an Antec 900 case, whatever else you'll need, I'll be more than happy to get.

If you think the temperatures look fine, then sorry to bother you! 😀

 

[CompuTronix]

Tcase appears to be non-linear. Have you tried flashing BIOS?

 

[kornfan71]

I have the latest version for my board, F4.

 

[CompuTronix]

Tcase Idle is very close to what it should be, however, it scales from 29c at Idle to 58c at Load, which is 29c, and is excessive for the Test Setup using the stock cooler, and suggests non-linearity. Since any given BIOS version must be encoded for all processor socket variants, it's likely that Tcase Load will never be correct on your current P43 motherboard BIOS release due to eroneous programming for the E7400. It happens.

Tjunction, however, scales 18c from Idle to Load, which is reasonable for the stock cooler, assuming that Core 1 is not sticking at 35c. Tjunction Load is typically accurate more often than not, which suggests that Tcase Idle and Tjunction Core 1 are correct. Therefore, my advice is that no calibrations are needed, so if you just ignore Tjunction Idle Core 0, and ignore Tcase Load, then your temperatures will make sense.

Hope this helps,

Comp

 

[kornfan71]

Alright, sounds good. Thanks for your help! 😀

A shame that temperatures can't be accurate from the start....