• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Q6600 Temps

S

ssg10587

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 3, 2008
Messages
245
I have had my q6600 at 3.2 for a while now and the temps are about 38 46 44 38. Usually the middle cores are high while 1 and 4 are lower. I was just curious if these are good temps to be at for this overclock.

Things I have done so far:

- Cleaned my nirvana nv120 heatsink fan. The fan part actually popped off while I was holding it out to clean the dust behind it but I epoxied it back. This did not seem to effect the cooling at all. Got lower temps after I cleaned.

-Cleaned my whole case for dust and ordered the cables to free up some air space. I will try to get a picture.

-I have a 120mm silverstone fan on the drive bay pointing at the gpu which has the aftermarket cooler on it. I also have a pci exhaust fan right below the gpu.

Questions:

1) I have this case:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=n82e16811129024

Would it be worth it to upgrade to an antec 900?

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=n82e16811129021

I like the case look and the price is not too bad. Also the 200mm exhaust fan seems like it would help with cooling.

2) Anything else to help cool it off. Only thing I can think is reapply heatsink paste for cpu. It has been on there for about 1.5 years I think.

3) I have the case currently on the floor next to me since the apartment I am in for my internship is small as hell. Would putting the case on a higher surface help? Ambient temp in my room is probably around 65-70F.

Any other suggestions I am open to. I am way sick of the Sonata III but if I could get the temps lower I would not mind since summer is coming up. I actually would not mind ocing it more to like 3.4. I have gotten it to boot but the temps are a little high and stress testing it drives it to 75-80C pretty quickly.
 
The case is probably not the issue, it's your heatsink and fan perhaps. Your Nirvana is plugged into the CPU PWM header right? I've found that header does not properly speed up a fan for overclocking purposes. It will often allow the CPU to get really hot.

I assume " 38 46 44 38" are idle temps. That will never be indicative of your load temps. Those are average idle temps for most people and doesn't really tell us anything. If you are hitting 70-80C on load, that is what you really need to button down. I idle @ 40° and that's with 1.5v vcore!

You also haven't mentioned what voltages you are using. Just the standard 1.29V? What kind of heatsink paste do you have applied? Putting the case higher up would be worse as hot air rises.

I have a Thermalright Ultra 120 and this review says your heatsink/fan should have similar performance.
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/nirvana_011608124500/16414.png

Yet I overclock to 3.6GHz and my temperatures stay in the 50s at load because I have my CPU fan on a fan controller and I max it to 2100 RPM when gaming.

I understand the feeling of being sick of the case though. Does enough cold air get to your CPU with the Sonata?
 
Last edited:
Yes those temps are idle. I think my heatsink fluid is just what came standard with the nv120. Also my vcore is about 1.28 now, I lowered it to hopefully lessen the heat going through the case.

Honestly I tested it a while back with burn test and it go to about 70 I think and I never really tested it again. I have no desire to make it stable as long as it runs games and can do what I normally do with the computer.

The cold air thing may be the issue. I am basically in the corner of a room. If you picture the bed as a rectangle in the middle of the room, I would be in the top left corner. It is also by a heat vent which may be a problem but since it is pretty warm where I am, the heat has not gone on very often.

I am bored at work and its friday so here is a paint picture of my room:

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/1570/roomk.png

EDIT: So with the window closed, I am going to guess air circulation in my room sucks so my guess on the cold air would be not much.

The type of thermal paste for the nv120 is not too specific, it just says grade AA thermal paste. I could probably do better.
 
Last edited:
I dunno about the OP but I have an OC'ed Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz as well and have been leaving a monitor or two running the last couple of nights while playing some long WoW sessions and I've been hitting just over 70C on load. Hrm time for me to get one of those giant heatsinks to replace the Zalman Fata1ity crap I got at the time of purchase.
 
Unless your fan is already spinning up to maximum speed on load, I'm thinking you may benefit more from a decent fan controller than a new case, but a new case always is nice and pretty.
 
The fan is running at maximum speed all the time. I tested it and checked while playing a game as well as stress testing. The thermal compound + crappy apartment with bad airflow is probably the culprit. Thanks for the help Spare, I want a new case just for looks and the 200mm exhaust fan on top would be nice. You are right, I probably would be better off buying better thermal compound and when I move into my new apartment, I will check. That will have a much more wide open room.

EDIT: That is another issue I have with dual monitors and not being able to overclock correctly on my 4850. Only thing I am pissed off at ATI for. I am assuming they did not fix the display crash with 2 monitors + overclock.
 
ssg10587 said:
The fan is running at maximum speed all the time. I tested it and checked while playing a game as well as stress testing. The thermal compound + crappy apartment with bad airflow is probably the culprit. Thanks for the help Spare, I want a new case just for looks and the 200mm exhaust fan on top would be nice. You are right, I probably would be better off buying better thermal compound and when I move into my new apartment, I will check. That will have a much more wide open room.

EDIT: That is another issue I have with dual monitors and not being able to overclock correctly on my 4850. Only thing I am pissed off at ATI for. I am assuming they did not fix the display crash with 2 monitors + overclock.
Click to expand...

Hmm, the Zerotherm stuff did pretty well in this test, I don't know if it's the same.
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=138&Itemid=1
 
lol yep that is it. Well has the same logo on it. Guess that solves that, must just be bad airflow.
 
yea those are actually normal temps my buddy runs a 680i watercooling kit on his at the same oc and has the same idle temps!
 
#1 I am not going to lap becasue it will lose my warrenty which proabably does not matter now, but I also do not want to make a mistake and mess up the chip. Also I do not really care that much about the temps to risk it.

#2 My loads temps are around 72-73 which seems pretty hot to me. My nirvana nv 120 seems to work fine so I do not think that would be it. I will look into a new cooler. Also the airflow in my room is trash so that may add to it. My case is a sonata III not an antec 900.
 
run p95 and show what it is at.

have you tried to reseat the cooler?

i say that because you have almost a 10c difference between cores.
 
ssg10587 said:
#1 I am not going to lap becasue it will lose my warrenty which proabably does not matter now, but I also do not want to make a mistake and mess up the chip. Also I do not really care that much about the temps to risk it.

#2 My loads temps are around 72-73 which seems pretty hot to me. My nirvana nv 120 seems to work fine so I do not think that would be it. I will look into a new cooler. Also the airflow in my room is trash so that may add to it. My case is a sonata III not an antec 900.
Click to expand...

OP.....just a thought on something you might have overlooked? do you have the correct tjmax set in your temp program??
 
ssg10587 said:
#1 I am not going to lap becasue it will lose my warrenty which proabably does not matter now, but I also do not want to make a mistake and mess up the chip. Also I do not really care that much about the temps to risk it.

#2 My loads temps are around 72-73 which seems pretty hot to me. My nirvana nv 120 seems to work fine so I do not think that would be it. I will look into a new cooler. Also the airflow in my room is trash so that may add to it. My case is a sonata III not an antec 900.
Click to expand...



ssg10587 said:
says

temp: 43 44 35 37
dist tjmax: 57 56 65 63
Thermal status ok ok ok ok
Click to expand...

realtemp should automatically set the correct tjmax. Well do you still get load temps of 72-73??
 
The idle temps are those 40 numbers.

For load using realtemp it is :

69 66 59 55
30 30 42 43

The paste I am using is in the first page. Read and you will see.
 
Think I fixed it. New paste was what it needed. Had not reapplied in 1.8 years and idle temps went down to about 35 38 38 32. Load temps are 51 59 59 51

New airflow in the new apartment will hopefully help too. Did I apply it right, its been a while?

1) Cleaned with 91% rubbing alcohol
2) did small dot and used credit card to put it thinly across
3) put heatsink back

Pretty sure I did but just in case I missed something.
 
That works. You have the proof right there.

I use the "rice size blob in the middle and let the HS pressure spread it out" method.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top