I7-4790 - High temperatures? What are symptoms of overheating CPU?

[lofemofe]

Just ran core temp with my i7-4790. I am getting temps that are like 89-91 C Max Temp and this is at about 50% load. At 30-40% load I am at 70-75 C degrees. It has a stock cooler on it.

Are these temps too high to this CPU? And if my CPU is overheating what are some symptoms you might see?

 

[Ecky]

That's warm, but your CPU will not throttle until 100c. It's practically impossible to damage your chip from heat, and it shouldn't crash either, just get really slow.

I would expect the stock cooler to do better than that. What are your ambient temperatures? Check it for dust, make sure the fan is spinning, and if that fails, consider replacing the thermal paste with something aftermarket.

 

[lofemofe]

I just ran some anti viruses and a Unigine Bench and my CPU hit 100 C Degree max! The case is dust free. Ambient temperatures are like 18 C Degrees. Fan is spinning.

And I noticed if I am gaming, and I ALT TAB to another screen. If I open notepad lets say, and type there is huge input lag. Like I'll type B and 1 second later it shows on screen.

 

[Ecky]

If the stock cooler is mounted correctly and making good contact, and the fan is spinning, it should not run that hot.

 

[lofemofe]

Right. Is it possible that the fan is not spinning at full speed because of a PSU issue?

I am thinking possibly due to the new videocards I'm installing and new HDD this could be happening.

More problems, I just installed a 780 TI and while running a benchmark, it only ran at half speed.

 

[synphul]

It would help to list your build, cpu, mobo, psu etc. It's definitely running too hot. What are your ambient room temps? Either the stock cooler isn't mounted properly, isn't latched tightly enough into the mobo with the pushpins or something along those lines. It really shouldn't be running much over 80c at load even with the stock cooler.

Technically my car doesn't overheat until the temp gauge reaches the red line, doesn't mean it's running wonderfully just below that. Pushing a cpu to throttle temps isn't something I'd do personally. Higher temps will eventually cause electronic parts to fail sooner than not. It doesn't mean it will kill the chip in a year but I'd consider a better cooler possibly. Especially when a decent cooler like a 212 evo or cryorig h7 can be had for $30-35 to keep a cpu cool over several years. Even a $20 tx3 or t4 would be better than the stock cooler.

 

[lofemofe]

Here's my build:
Intel Core i7-4790 Haswell Quad-Core 3.6 GHz
Gigabyte Ultra Durable GA-H81M-S2H motherboard
Geforce GTX 780 TI Direct CU 2 OC
Antec EA-650 W
Kingston 8GB PC3-12800 DDR3-1600 2Rx8
Thermaltake Versa H22 Mid-Tower Case
Kingston 240 GB SSD
WD 1 TB Blue

Ambient Room Temperatures: 18 Degree Celcius.

I should note a couple things I am also seeing:
I have 2 video cards, not running in SLI just using 2 to test system.
780 TI Reference GPU seems to be running at half speed when plugged in. No idea why this is happening, 2 nights ago it was fine. Now my benchmarks are at half the FPS. CPU throttling possibly? PSU underpowered?
780 TI Direct CU 2 OC when plugged runs okay, but not as good as my reference when it was running 2 nights ago. But this card was giving me inconsistent Unigine benchmarks.

 

[synphul]

Your ambient temps are certainly cool enough so that shouldn't be an issue.

If that motherboard is revision 1.0 it shouldn't need a bios update, the 4790 compatibility exists with the f2 bios version same as the other cpu's. You said you have both cards installed? I'm curious as to how since that motherboard only has 1 pcie x16 slot, the other 2 slots are pcie x1 slots and not designed for gpu's. Maybe that's part of the problem unless I misunderstood and you're referring to testing the two gpu's independently one at a time.

If that's the case, where you're testing one at a time then your psu should be plenty. I would try to get the cpu temps under control first in case you've got multiple issues going on. We already know under heavy load the cpu is likely throttling. Sort that out so it can be eliminated then see if there's still an issue with the gpu. If not then the cpu throttling was the culprit, if the gpu problems persist then it's a separate issue.

 

[lofemofe]

Under mainboard in CPU-Z it shows:
Chipset: Intel / Haswell / Rev. 06
Southbridge: Intel / H81 / C2
Bios Version: F1
So is my CPU incompatible with my current bios?

I am testing them independently. I have 2 x GTX 780 TI, no SLI going on. I ran outervision with this set up and it looked like my power requirements were like 550W. So it seems like my system should be powered fine.

To give you a little more back ground:
2 nights ago I tested my reference GTX 780 TI. Ran beautifully, over 100 FPS in 1080P gaming.
Last night, I swapped out my GTX 780 TI reference to put the GTX 780 TI DC2 OC in there PLUS a new 1 TB HDD. Because the DC2 OC requires more power (it takes 2 x 8 pin PCIE as opposed to 6 pin+ 8pin) I had to use a 2 x Molex to 8 Pin PCIE to get it connected. The OC edition gave me inconsistent Unigine bench scores, but the scores were good. But my FPS in DOOM was a lot less than the reference card. This lead me to believe that maybe the OC edition card was not getting enough power, therefore inconsistent benchmarks.
So then I figured to put the 780 TI reference back in today, and now I am seeing it's running at half speed in games and Unigine benchmark results are garbage.

 

[synphul]

Have you tried cleaning out the gpu drivers and reinstalling them fresh? Try using ddu to clean the drivers out. Sometimes if drivers get corrupted it will have a massive performance impact.

I'm not sure why you're having to use power adapters for the gpu. The antec 650w line has a couple variations, the ea-650 green has 2x 6+2 pin pcie cables which would be what you need. The ea650w continuous power has a 6+2 pin pcie power cable so all you'd need is one 2x molex to 8pin pcie adapter. The platinum ea650w has 2x 6+2 pins also. I'm not seeing an ea 650w with no 8pin pcie options.

It's possible you have an older revision motherboard, a bios update may help. The only version shown on gigabyte's website is rev.1 with f2 bios in their cpu compatibility list though there's an older f1 bios from their bios download page. Updating the bios may not be a bad idea especially if you're running win10 and for the fact that the 4790 is a haswell refresh cpu which came out after the original haswell.

If it were simply a power issue it wouldn't make sense that the reference card would be under powered installing it back and using the power supply's included 6+2 pin pcie cables. Not when it ran fine before. If the power were an issue for the oc edition that might explain inconsistent performance on that gpu alone with previous performance returning when using the reference card.

 

[lofemofe]

Some progress here. Okay I reinstalled Nvidia drivers. Used their install program to do a clean install. The Reference GTX 780 TI just pulled a 2600 score on Unigine (Could be a bit low compared to some benches I've seen). This is 300 lower than the OC edition. So that seems good.

My Antex EA-650W is the version with 1 x 6+2 PIN PCIE and 1 x 6 PIN PCIE. I am just using 1 x 2 Molex to 1 8PIN PCIE connector. So that I have 2 x 8 PIN PCIE. When using the reference card I don't need the Molex connector at all, only the DC 2 OC edition requires 2 x 8PIN.

I guess I could try updating the bios. I don't know if this will fix my inconsistent results with my GPU or my CPU temp over heating but I might as well update it right? Can't hurt and can only do good I assume. I have never updated a bios before though, is there a simple guide someone can suggest?

 

[synphul]

Here's the instructions using gigabyte's @bios for updating.
http://www.gigabyte.com/webpage/20/images/utiltiy_atbios.pdf

I would do the bios download without surfing other places so as not to interrupt the internet connection and prevent file corruption. Not typical but not worth risking on a bios update. Make sure all other programs are shut down and make sure you have stable power. Aka not during a storm when you may lose power, losing power in the process could be pretty bad.