Do these temps sound right?

N

nugz45

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Dec 10, 2007
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My temps seem to be growing exponentially. I have a Q6600 G0 with a Thermalright 120 extreme and P190 case slightly modified.

I have OC'ed in small increments, just trying to get to 3.0ghz per core. My temps are growing in this fashion:

2.4 ghz : <=30C idle 40-42C load
2.6 ghz : 33C idle 45C load
2.8 ghz : 37C idle 52C load
3.0 ghz : 48C idle 65C load

wtf happened at 3.0?? Is temp growth exponential? I would have expected another 5-7C increase from 2.8-3.0, but I was certainly suprised. This is my first OC...is it normal?
 
Your temperatures at 3GHz do seem a bit high. My Q6600 is clocked to 3.6Ghz with an Ultra Extreme and my core temps are in the low sixties. What motherboard are you using and what application are you using to get the CPU temp?
 
Using EVGA 680i and CoreTemp. CoreTemp has always seemed pretty accurate to me in the past. Its weird that it would all of the sudden shoot up by 10-12C like that.
 
I have found that the 680i's need quite a lot of juice through the northbridge to get a good overclock. What are your voltages? Sometimes you can reduce your vcore (and therefore reduce temp) and get a stable clock by upping your NB voltage.
 
You might be right. Im not to good in the ways of voltages. I was hoping not to modify them if I didnt have to.

Heres a pic of my voltages and temps. When you say lower my voltages, around where should they be?

temps.jpg
 
mmmm... I am a bit confused by your voltages. Firstly at 1.16v your vcore sounds very low - for your cpu it is usually around 1.3-1.4. Also 12V readings are at 10.43 - which again sounds low (usually anything below 11.5V means you might have a power supply problem). But I think this might be an artifact of the CPUID hardware monitor software you are using. I have found Everest Ultimate to be an accurate measure or even better did you get some hardware monitoring software with your motherboard? pretty sure EVGA would have some. Even better would be to go into the hardware monitoring section of your BIOS as this is often the most accurate. I think getting some voltage readings from these other sources would be a good place to start to get a better picture.
 
Thanks morkboy.

nTune is the best thing I got with my motherboard. However, I cant get it to run on Vista 64bit. :rolleyes:

Ill go ahead and check my bios. Cant get much more accurate than that right? :p
 
Ok just checked BIOS and here it is:

CPU Core : 1.15V
CPU FSB : 1.39V
Memory : 1.86V
+3.3V : 3.2V
+3.3V Dual : 3.2V
+12V : 12.03V
+5V : 4.91V
+Vbat : 3.04V

Looks like HWMonitor was a bit off. However my CPU voltage stays consistent. So lowering my vcore would not be an option due to it already being unusually low?
 
I think i might be mixing up my voltages here (I have a P35 board with not as many options ;)). I am trying to differentiate between the CPU core and the CPU FSB voltages. But from looking about your CPU core voltage does seem a bit low - again usually 1.3-1.4ish. Is your CPU core set to auto in the bios? Also does your bios have readings for the SPP and MCP (chipset) as these are useful in overclocking. It has been a while since I used a 680i so this basic guide from nvidia may help also http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/45121/nforce_680i_sli_overclocking.pdf
 
All my voltages have been set on Auto except my memory voltage which I set on 1.8V when i stepped up my timings a bit.

My other voltages are as follows:

nForce SPP : 1.40V
nForce MCP : 1.500V
HT nForce SPP <-> MCP : 1.20V

I have read that nvidia OC guide, but I didnt feel like it went into enough detail for me. They tell you what not to do, and general voltage limits and such, but troubleshooting with that guide is difficult.

Anyways back the original problem...seeing as how my voltages are fairly low all around, I'm still not seeing a reason my my 3.0 OC to be so much hotter than my 2.8.

As you said my CPU core voltage is already low, so lowering voltage isnt an option here I'm guessing. Could it be that 2.8 is simply as high as I am able to go? I didnt run stress test for very long at 3.0, so I dont know how stable it was. Maybe I got a bad G0? :(
 
I agree with you on the voltages - not much chance of lowering the vcore but you could try lowing the CPU FSB to 1.35 (or even 1.3) and see if that helps. It shouldn't do any harm and if you find your system is still stable then you are good to go. Otherwise other factors could be:

1. Thermal compound used on heat sink. I have found artic silver 5 to be tried and trusted but there are other good ones. These can have a big impact on temperature (it is important to apply it properly).
2. CPU fan - what are you using?
3. Is your thermalright mounted well. I once put my thermalright on backwards by mistake (you have to be pretty dumb to do that!)and the rise in temperature was significant.
3. Case airflow

Generally your cpu temps will drop by a few degrees after a few hundred hours of use anyway as your thermal compound settles in the fine cracks on your cpu. If you were feeling adventurous you could lap your heatsink as this will should knock off a few degrees http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1188093

But I don't think you should right off your cpu as a bad one at this stage. There lots of avenues to explore before that!
 
Well at this stage we are just considering more cooling options. I am using AS5, an Antec Tricool on highest setting for my CPU fan (not the best I know but was the best my local store carried).

How do you put your TU120E on backwards?? I have it facing east and west and blowing towards my top exhuast fan. This way seemed to give me the best airflow direction.

I think my case airflow is pretty good. Like I said, I can get up to 2.8 and idle in the mid 30's still, which I was proud of.

Generally I felt my cooling was good until I got to 3.0 ghz. Its the massive jump in temps from 2.8 to 3.0 that I am really worried about. Going from 35C idle at 2.8 to 50C idle at 3.0 just really weirded me out. :shrug:
 
Is it possible that my voltage is increasing automatically when I OC? Since my voltage is set to auto, when I OC to 3.0 is it possibly my mobo is setting my voltage higher automatically for me and possibly going too high causing a lot of heat? Maybe 3.0 is the limit at which it increases voltage for you?

Why dont I just try it and find out! :p
 
Yep, I found it. Turns out my voltage is increased automatically when I hit 3.0ghz to 1.4V!! :cool:

So...how low do you think I can set my voltage and still achieve 3.0ghz?
 
That is the question. The real test is how stable your setup is. If you can run something like prime95 for say 6hrs with no crashes or freezing then you are doing well (a lot of folk think you should run prime95 for 24hrs, which is undeniably a good test, but if you are mainly using your pc for gaming I don't personally think 24hrs is needed). So I would start testing some lower CPU volts and see what you can get away with:cool:.
 
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