Hot Opterons!

H

heavyharmonies

n00b
Joined
Jun 16, 2004
Messages
50
Dunno if this is normal or if I have a problem somewhere.

Dual Opteron 246s.

MSI K8T Master2 FAR mobo (nonstandard, so I have to use the heatsink/fans that come with the mobo)

Case is this one: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-170-015&depa=1

In addition to being my main desktop, it's also folding nonstop, so it's always under a full load.

BIOS reports CPU temps of 68F and 71F
Speedfan reports 70F and 73F

No stability problems at all.

Something to be concerned about long-term? If so, what do y'all suggest?

Thanks in advance,

-Dan
 
As long as thoes temps are in °F and not °C, your fine.


ummm wow
 
133 said:
As long as thoes temps are in °F and not °C, your fine.


ummm wow
Click to expand...
Yeah, no kidding. If that's correct they're damn good. How are you cooling exactly?
 
maybe he lives in Antartica :p

yo dude, how are you cooling your processors?

and whats the room temp, case temp, ect...
 
heavyharmonies said:
ACK!

Meant C instead of F. Damned Lysdexia!

Read as C....

*grumble*
Click to expand...

Damn that is high as hell... definitly shouldn't be that high
 
heavyharmonies said:
ACK!

Meant C instead of F. Damned Lysdexia!

Read as C....

*grumble*
Click to expand...
You're going to shorten the life of your processors if they run that high for long. How neat is the inside of your case and what are you using on your processors to cool them (fan/heatsink and what thermal paste)?

We can't help you if you don't answer our questions.
 
We can't help you if you don't answer our questions.
Click to expand...

You don't have to be rude about it. I don't have time to check this board every hour of the day.

I said in my initial post that I'm using the stock heatsinks and fans that come with the MSI K9T Master2 FAR motherboard. Since the motherboard layout is nonstandard, you have to use those heatsink/fans as opposed to aftermarket. Standard ones will not connect. I have no idea what the specs are You can see the pic here:

13-130-436-03.JPG


I'm using the thermal pad that was on the heatsinks.

CPU is in front of a blinded window; room temp should not get above 85 degrees.

Case interior is somewhat cluttered; I suppose I could get some zip strips and pull the cables off to the side.

-Dan
 
The thermal pad might be your first problem. Try some arctic silver. That should drop your temps somewhat....still high though. They might just run really hot. Hope this helps.
 
I also run a kt-424 case and had heat issues until i added a 90mm exhaust fan on top. The standard cooling in the case just want sufficient for what I had. I am now watercooled, but I remember that adding the top exhaust really lowered my temps.

I also vote for adding arctic silver on your cpu's. good luck.
 
I'm thinking it's your case cooling. Those heatsinks don't look too bad. When you first boot are your temps faily low then slowly go up to 70C? If that's what's happening you definitely should improve your case cooling. Those Opterons are a pretty big investment; protect them.
 
60/63c on bootup (occasionally as low as 58c, but only saw that once), then increasing to 70/73c as load is applied.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll be stopping to get some Arctic Silver after work, as well as a beefier case exhaust fan. I don't have the tools (or dexterity) to cleanly cut a hole in the top of the case for another fan. Hopefully replacing the existing one with something more robust will do the trick.

The local store stocks the following. Which one (or ones) do you suggest?:

40MM 12V DC Fan 2 pin [FAN-REPLACE-4CM-2W]
Ball Bearing Fan 40X40X10 MM 2 Pin Power Connector short cable ( used for motherboard and video chipset replacment fans )
$5.00 Add to Cart

40MM 12V DC Fan 3 pin [FAN-REPLACE-4CM-3W]
Ball Bearing Fan 40X40X10 MM 3 Pin Power Connector ( used for motherboard/video card/486cpu replacement fans)
$5.00 Add to Cart

40MM 12V DC Fan 4 pin [FAN-REPLACE-4CM-4W]
Ball Bearing Fan 40X40X10 MM 4 Pin Power Connector ( used for motherboard/video card/486cpu replacement fans)
$5.00 Add to Cart

50MM 12V DC Fan 3 pin [FAN-REPLACE-5CM-3W]
Ball Bearing Fan 50X50X10 MM 3 Pin Power Connector ( used for CPU cooler replacments )
$6.00 Add to Cart

50MM 12V DC Fan 4 pin [FAN-REPLACE-5CM-4W]
Ball Bearing Fan 50X50X10 MM 4 Pin Power Connector ( used for CPU cooler replacments )
$6.00 Add to Cart

60MM 12V DC Fan 3 pin [FAN-REPLACE-6CM-3W]
Ball Bearing Fan 60X60X10 MM 3 Pin Power Connector ( used as case fans and CPU cooler replacments )
$7.00 Add to Cart

60MM 12V DC Fan 4 pin [FAN-REPLACE-6CM-4W]
Ball Bearing Fan 60X60X10 MM 4 Pin Power Connector ( used as case fans and CPU cooler replacments )
$7.00 Add to Cart

AMS Triple Fan Cooler [FAN-AMS-DK-148] [DK-148]
AMS Triple Fan Drive Cooler - mount a 3.5 Inch drive into a 5.25 Inch bay with 3 40MM Ball Bearing Fans in the front panel
$15.00 Add to Cart

Antec SmartCool 12CM Case Fan [FAN-SMARTCOOL-12CM] [SmartCool]
Antec SmartCool Temperature Controlled 12CM Case fan
$22.00 Add to Cart

Antec SmartCool 8CM Case Fan [FAN-SMARTCOOL] [SmartCool]
Antec SmartCool Temperature Controlled 8CM Case fan
$18.00 Add to Cart

Case Fan 12CM 4 pin [FAN-REPLACE-12CM-4W]
Heavy Duty Ball Bearing Case Fan 12CM 4 pin 2 wire power connector plugs into power supply lead 5 Year Manufacturer Warranty
$18.00 Add to Cart

Case Fan 8CM 3 pin [FAN-CASE-8CM-3WIRE]
Heavy Duty Ball Bearing Case Fan 8CM 3 pin 3 wire power connector plugs into motherboard for system monitoring 5 Year Manufacturer Warranty
$8.00 Add to Cart

Case Fan 8CM 4 pin [FAN-CASE-8CM-4WIRE]
Heavy Duty Ball Bearing Case Fan 8CM 4 pin 2 wire power connector plugs into power supply lead 5 Year Manufacturer Warranty
$8.00 Add to Cart

Case Fan 9CM 4 pin [FAN-REPLACE-9CM-4W]
Heavy Duty Ball Bearing Case Fan 9CM 4 pin 2 wire power connector plugs into power supply lead 5 Year Manufacturer Warranty
$8.00 Add to Cart

System Blower Fan [AOC-FC-2000-B] [FC-2000B]
Turbine System Fan - Ball Bearing - Fits in 1 expansion slot pushes out of rear vent - extra cooling for hot video cards
$10.00 Add to Cart

Vantec Stealth Fan 6CM [VAN-SF6025L] [SF6025L]
Vantec Stealth Double Ball Bearing Case Fan 80% Quieter than standard case fan with Smart Fan feature for Speed Detection includes 3 to 4 pin adapter and 4 case fan screws Retail Box Manufacturer Lifetime Warranty
$12.00 Add to Cart

Vantec Stealth Fan 8CM [VAN-SF8025L] [SF8025L]
Vantec Stealth Double Ball Bearing Case Fan 80% quieter than a standard case fan Smart fan with speed detection includes 3 to 4 pin adapter and 4 case fan screws Retail Box Manufacturer Lifetime Warranty
$12.00 Add to Cart

Vantec Stealth Fan 9CM [VAN-SF9225L] [SF9225L]
Vantec Stealth Double Ball Bearing Case Fan 80% Quieter than standard case fan with Smart Fan feature for Speed Detection includes 3 to 4 pin adapter and 4 case fan screws Retail Box Manufacturer Lifetime Warranty
$13.00 Add to Cart

Vantec Thermalflow Fan 12CM [VAN-TF12025] [TF12025]
Vantec ThermoFlow Double Ball Bearing 12Cm Case Fan Temperature control sensor adjusts the fan speed automatically to keep the noise level at the lowest while changing the speed. It minimizes power consumptions and maximizes cooling performance.
$20.00 Add to Cart

Vantec Tornado Fan 8CM [VAN-TD8038H] [TD8038H]
Vantec Tornado Double Ball Bearing Case Fan 100% more airflow than a standard case fan includes 4 case fan screws Retail Box Manufacturer Lifetime Warranty
$20.00 Add to Cart
Click to expand...

Question:

Would the 3-fan drive cooler in an empty drive bay help at all or would that disrupt the cooling flow?

Thanks,

-Dan
 
Well if it is any thing like the MSI K8N Neo Platinum then its the MSI K8T Master2 FAR mobos BIOS when I first got my motherboard speed fan said that my processor was 265F+ and I am watercooling, I have a probe on the waterblock also I know that it is making good contact because it reseated the block 3 or more times. So I think that it is just the BIOS not reading right.
 
You want to be sure of that before settling with it Kirk, dual optys aint cheap.

Just get a decent fan with reasonable airflow and not too noisy. Many people consider above 30db to be too noisy although I like it to be lower than that. Panaflos are good fans.

The drive bay cooler is not likely to help that much at all. Additionally, if your case is a mess adding more fans won't cool it down much at all. Get some decent airflow in there, that's much more important than adding high power fans.

If your startup temps really are around 60C I'd say you didn't mount your heatsinks well at all. That seems a bit weird because even with thermal paste I wouldn't expect them to be that bad. Make sure they're on straight, or as mentioned get some arctic silver and stick that on there.
 
emorphien said:
You want to be sure of that before settling with it Kirk, dual optys aint cheap.

Just get a decent fan with reasonable airflow and not too noisy. Many people consider above 30db to be too noisy although I like it to be lower than that. Panaflos are good fans.

The drive bay cooler is not likely to help that much at all. Additionally, if your case is a mess adding more fans won't cool it down much at all. Get some decent airflow in there, that's much more important than adding high power fans.

If your startup temps really are around 60C I'd say you didn't mount your heatsinks well at all. That seems a bit weird because even with thermal paste I wouldn't expect them to be that bad. Make sure they're on straight, or as mentioned get some arctic silver and stick that on there.
Click to expand...


I dont doubt that they are not cheep, I was just saying that if the bios is anything link my board that the bios is not reporting the correct temps.

Also is the board stable, if it is what I have been saying may be true.
 
Everything has been rock solid. No crashes or lockups of any kind, even running two instances of F@H nonstop for a week straight in the background (so always under 100% load on both CPUs).

-Dan
 
kirk said:
Also is the board stable, if it is what I have been saying may be true.
Click to expand...
Those temps aren't out of spec necessarily, so stability may or may not be affected. However that's no way to treat opertons and may shorten their life.

Regardless it is possible that the motherboard is not giving accurate readings, however that's something i'd want to be sure of before settling on that as a cause.


You may want to open the case and blow a big fan in there. Do temps improve a lot? any?
 
This is driving me out of my [CENSORED] mind!!!.

I did some tests.

Under 100% load on both CPUs for 10 minutes.

Case closed, CPU1=70C CPU2=73C

Side off case, CPU1=65C CPU2=67C

Side off case, small fan blowing on CPUS, CPU1=62C, CPU2=65C

So I go out and get a bunch of Zip strips and pin the various cables off to the side so there's a nice clean open (for the most part) air path around and over the CPUs. I picked up some Arctic 5, followed the instructions on Arctic's web site, removed all vestiges of thermal pad from both CPU and heatsink, applied paste, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Now I realize that apparently it takes a few days for Arctic 5 and other pastes to achieve equilibrium, so one should not expect full cooling effect immediately.

That being said, with case closed, after 10 minutes under full load, CPU1=70C, CPU2=73C.

I'm back to where I [EXPLETIVE DELETED] started! Apparently cleaing the air path and applying Arctic 5 have done nothing. Nada. Diddly squat. Zippo. Zilch. Goose-egg. Dry hump.

AUGH!

This is the type of [REMOVED, YOU NAUGHTY BOY!] I don't have time to mickey mouse with, that invariably makes me think "I shoulda just bought a Dell and been done with it". [Not really, but I'm exasparated as *BAWOOGAH!* ]

-Dan
 
maybe your mobo just can't report temps right... or those heatsinks suck in a major way.

Its not supposed to be a bad motherboard but i would not like the proprietary heatsink dealy.
 
At this point I would guess that the mobo is reading temps wrong. That just isn't right. I would try some motherboard forums out there and see if anyone knows.
 
Seems the Arctic Silver is settling in a tad. I'm seeing 60C/60C under full load with side of case off and fan blowing.

I can't help but think that the reporting is off. I did a power-down from long-term full load about 20 minutes ago and immediately felt the heatsinks at the base: just slightly warm to the touch; nowhere near anything I'd consider "hot".

-Dan
 
heavyharmonies said:
ACK!

Meant C instead of F. Damned Lysdexia!

Read as C....

*grumble*
Click to expand...

well then holy shit that's high temps, do something!! Try the following:
A)Clean the dust out in your case
B)Re-mount your heatsinks (after taking the HS's off, clean both the CPU surfaces and the HS surfaces w/ some 99% Rubbing Alcohol, it's like $2.57US from WalMart)
C)Check to make sure all fans are working in your case
D)See if you can re-wire anything so that there's more airflow in your case
E)Can you lower ambient (room) temps any?
 
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