P6T (i7) and Cooler Master V8 help with temps

[foxrunner09]

I recently completed my build and loaded up Windows 7 Beta since it was the closest free OS I had here at work. My plans for this build was to obviously OC my i7 920. A friend of mine essentially has an identical build except he used the Thermalright 120 or whatever it is and he runs at 3.8Ghz. All of my idle temps appeared to be within an "acceptable" limit. I didn't tweak anything in the BIOS yet so things are still at Auto.

I am using the latest version of Prime 95 and Realtemp. I will only be using my build for gaming so nothing crazy. My idle temps are around 40-45C which didn't seem awful. But when I fire up Prime 95 im sitting at around 74-80C at stock speeds? I guess Realtemp records the CPU running at 2.8 Ghz but still. Am I looking at a reseat of my V8? To be completely honest I don't really know anything about OCing so I didn't even attempt to mess with it I was going to have my buddy help me with that. But with my temps already around 74-80C at stock speeds I can't help but wonder if something is really, really wrong here. I applied the thermal paste (AS5) with the "spread it with a credit card" method and tried to get it even.

Also when torture testing with Prime95 I noticed these 74-80C temps only when I run the test that states (max power and heat). When I run the blended test or the other one my temps will typically fall into the 70-75C area. At one point I was curious and removed the side door off my Antec 900 case and applied some pressure to the top of the V8 and the temps dropped about 5-10C? Again forgive me as this was really my first attempt at a custom OC build with aftermarket cooler but in all the years i've been working on computers and building my own i've never had an issue with a cooler not seating right but I guess there is a first time for everything. I've always ran stock speeds on my processors so always ran the stock coolers but I wanted to really get as much performance as I could out of the 920 so I went with the V8 cooler to help with my temps.

What temps should I be expecting to see for idle and 100% load? I was hoping to land my 920 at 3.6Ghz by the time it was all said and done. My friend that runs at 3.8Ghz was saying at times during the torture test he was in the 80-85C area but I don't really feel all that comfortable running that high......

Any suggestions from the pros on what I should do to get my temps down? What about proper thermal paste application to the i7's? Thank you very much ahead of time for your help and thoughts!


My build:
Antec 900 case ( I feel that the airflow in this is sufficient?)
ASUS P6T motherboard
Intel i7 920
Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600
2- Western Digital 150GB Velociraptors
EVGA GTX260 Superclocked edition
Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler
Antec 650W Neopower supply

 

[blevsta]

74° - 80° seems awfully hot for stock speeds. This is stock voltages as well I assume? That’s about the same effectiveness as the stock Intel cooler. What is the room temperature that the PC is in? Are you sure the CPU fan is running? Put the CPU fan to full speed in the BIOS and see if that makes a difference.

I’m no expert so I’ll just give you the same advice I received:
1. Remove the side panel on your case and see if the temps drop. 5° of a change or more and you’ve likely got air flow issues with your case. My case is very similar to yours, so I don’t think that could be the issue.

This article is a great reference to other CPU cooler temperatures, as well as the stock intel cooler: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/880/1/

I’m not sure about the credit card spreading technique for your thermal compound. Here’s an excellent article for the best technique: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=170&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=5
I wish I’d seen it before I put my cooler on. I used the pea sized blob in the center of my CPU. With the temperatures your CPU is putting out, I’d say you should do it again.

I’m currently running a Core i7 920 @ 3.675 (21x multiplier 175 base clock). Using real temp and prime95 I had load temps at 71°. My cooler is the Vigor Monsoon III. Which cooler you go with shouldn’t make a big impact, as seen in the article I linked. The V8 you got should be doing much better than that. Right now you have no room to overclock, I’d say your only option is to put it all back together again if you want to overclock.

 

[foxrunner09]

In response the room is about 72 degrees farenheit. And the CPU fan on the cooler is working. I can feel the air moving out the back. I will do a reseat with some recommended techniques. I actually checked out Arctic Silver's website and found they have a recommended technique for applying the paste to an i7.

To be honest after even looking at the article you linked to I think I may have put too much paste on. I will use some rubbing alcohol and clean it up and reapply tomorrow and see where I land after that. Thank you though! I thought the temps seemed awful high at stock speeds. I hope to land at 71C with an OC of 3.6Ghz! 3.6 was my goal from the start so if I could get close to where your sitting at in the 71C range I would be over joyed!

 

[foolycooly]

I have the cm v8, i7 920, P6T deluxe V2 and the cm 690 case. I am currently OC'd to 3.8 with a 190 BCLK 20x multiplier, 1.2125 core cpu voltage and 1.6 memory voltage.

I idle in the 39-42 range and reached a cap of 85c under full load after 13+ hours in prime95 (I attribute these somewhat higher load temps to an absurd increase in ambient temps as I left my door closed overnight while it was running)

I am also running a gtx295 which I am convinced is increasing my temps by at least a few degrees because it idles in the low 60s.

I would suggest attempting to reseat the v8. I applied mx-2 by putting a small dollop in the center of the cpu and just smacking the v8 on and tightening it.

 

[foxrunner09]

Sounds like the heatsink seating or the thermal paste application is definetly the culprit at this point. Will reseat it today or tomorrow and let you know what I come up with. If your running at 85C (cap) at 3.8 Ghz im tempted to push it up there but I may still leave it at 3.6? Not sure yet I don't want to shorten the life of the CPU too much!

I was going to try the horizontal line application that the Arctic silver web site suggests? Or should I just go with the dab in the middle? Again as I mentioned above after seeing the article and thinking back to when I was applying the paste with the credit card I think I probably got too much on there and more then likely the compound is probably acting more as an insulator then anything..... Because even when the CPU was running at 80C I touched the base of the heatsink around the heat pipes and there was only a little warmth there.... Was no were even remotely close to 80C thats for dang sure.

 

[blevsta]

I took a look at the V8 cooler on Newegg. I think it's a "square base cooler" not an HDT. If you click on the "previous" button at the bottom of the article it talks about the best thermal paste application for square based coolers. It looks like he uses something like the credit card method you mentioned.

It could be a mounting problem instead. When you take your motherboard off see if there's a visual gap between the CPU and the cooler. My friend actually put some screws onto his cooler backwards, resulting in 1/8" of a gap. Luckily we caught the problem before he got very far. If there isn't a solid contact between the cooler and the CPU your temps are going to suffer. You said your temps drop by 5-10° when you press down on the cooler, the mounting screws you attach to the motherboard are supposed to be applying that pressure already.

Also, I ran the heat tests again on my system. I didn't see the max heat option in Prime95 before. I've always used option 1 and 3. My CPU gets to 76° with that setting. I'm going to have to mess with my settings a little bit more to get down to 74° at full load. I figure that's what the stock cooler does at stock speeds. So at worst, I'm going to have the longevity that Intel approves. Also, my system hasn't gotten above 60° playing games or anything else, so I figure this is all a worst case scenario.

 

[foolycooly]

good point about temps in games Blevsta....I have yet to see my CPU go over 56-57 degrees in any normal usage of my PC (heavy gaming/multitasking). There is not much of a gap between where I idle (40ish) and where I utilize (55ish)

 

[foxrunner09]

I had a quick break over lunch I hadn't changed anything but I loaded up Vista 64 on my system. I ran Realtemp and Prime95 again and my highest temp recorded at stock speeds was 73C on one of the cores. I probably won't get around to reseating the V8 till tomorrow but I will let you guys know what I come up with..... Even at 73C max at stock according to the legit reviews of the 6 coolers for the i7 that was like the extent of the stock cooler.....

 

[foolycooly]

yeah just re-seat that monster.

 

[foxrunner09]

Ok guys i'm still not sure if I am where I should be but here I go... After reseating my V8 and using the line method from Arctic Silver's site here is what I have:

Idle temps are 36-39C (aside from the hottest core the others run around 32-36C)

Load temps are peaking at 67C or so? There is one core that is running hotter then all of the others by at least 3-4C. Excluding the hotter core typically the other cores are all running at a max of 62-63C under full load in Prime.

Now I apologize for the misrepresentation of information but I checked my BIOS and saw that I had forgotten I manually set my RAM speed to 1600 mhz.... Upon switching it to Auto (it now detects it at 1333mhz) this furthermore changed my temps.

So at the DRAM set to auto here is what im getting:

Idle 33-35C

Load temps on the hottest core peaks at 62C and ranges from 56-62. The other cores are averaging 54-58 under full load.

My memory is Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600 (or so its advertised) here is a link to it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145222

Any comments about where im sitting now? Should I attempt to OC or am I still running too hot?

 

[blevsta]

The cooler comparison article shows that your cooler is close to what you’re reporting. The variance in temperature between the cores isn’t bad, as long as it’s not much more than 5° of a variance.

You should be good to start overclocking. Set your memory to the 1600 rated speed, forget about the auto detect. But, do this after you’ve gotten a stable CPU overclock with temps you’re comfortable with.

If you can't get your memory to 1600, send it back. Corsair memory should hit it easy though. I've got my 1333 running at 1400 right now.