Typical Idle Temps With Stock Cooling?

[schamberlin]

Hi overclockers,

 

I've built a new PC, and I'm preparing to overclock for the first time. OCCT shows load temps of about 68 with the stock CPU cooler, before I've even attempted to overclock anything! Is that typical with the stock Intel CPU cooler? It sounds *way* high to me. At idle, the temps are about 46 on core 0, and 37 on core 1. Would I see dramatically lower temps with a better cooler, or do I likely have some other cooling problem I need to address? I'm using a "LAN party" case, so the airflow may not be the best, but I made an effort to tie up all the cables neatly, and it's got two decent case fans.

 

System specs:

3.0GHz C2D E8400 E0 stepping

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 (has a two-slot cooler)

4GB A-Data DDR2-800 RAM

Maxtor 200GB hard drive

Generic DVD-RW drive

Biostar G31-M7 TE motherboard

Apevia X-QPack 2 case

Apevia 500W PSU

[hardnrg]

Download and use RealTemp, as it reads 45nm CPU sensors properly

[maj0rgamer]

68 is a bit high, but it doesn't seem like cause for concern under a normal stock cooler. I would suggest you get a better cooler before doing any overclocking...there are many on the market to choose from (arctic cooling freezer 64 pro is a decent and cheap one to look into), just make sure it matches your model cpu and socket, plus you may wanna do some googling to make sure it will fit in your case and on your motherboard. Cutting that temp in half would be a good idea, and should be possible with a better cooler and perhaps some extra case or even pci-slot ad on fan(s).

 

do you have room for anymore case fans?

 

what kind of temps is the graphics card running?

 

welcome to occ by the way

Edited December 7, 2008 by Maj0r Gamer

[schamberlin]

I tried RealTemp, and it reports 5 degrees cooler across the board. If that can be believed, then it's hitting about 63 under load. But Core Temp, OCCT, and the motherboard BIOS all report the same temperature, which is 5 degrees higher than what RealTemp says.

 

Catalyst Control Center reports 41 for the GPU at idle. I wasn't planning to bother with overclocking the GPU yet.

 

No room for more case fans. The case is pretty tight: only a little bigger than a Shuttle barebones box.

 

Sorry for the noob question, but what's a "safe" CPU temp? At what point would you decide that your CPU was running too hot? One OC guide I read said anything over 60 is too high. If that's true, then I need at least a 3 degree improvement from a new cooler (or 8, depending on which temperature you believe) just to reach that point without any overclocking. Then once I overclock it'll jump higher still.

[maj0rgamer]

i wouldn't want mine over 50C personally...but i still think you should be able to get it lower with some work...50C is still warm in my personal opinion.

 

if i were in your position i would consider a nice new cpu cooler and perhaps even a pci fan to help blow hot air out of your case if you can find one that will position properly. You could also consider modding your case

 

if the gpu isn't going over 60C under load then this problem appears to be completely related to your cpu cooler and that's a really good thing (if you could post up what kind of reading you're getting under load it would give a better idea of what's going on in the case ). A simple upgrade to the cpu cooler could then fix your problems in that situation.

Edited December 7, 2008 by Maj0r Gamer

[Timmy94]

Set realtemps tjmax to 100 and it will report the same as the others, my e8400 on stock gets 39 idle and 51-53 load if it helps

[Waco]

i wouldn't want mine over 50C personally...but i still think you should be able to get it lower with some work...50C is still warm in my personal opinion.

50 C is nothing. 60 C is slightly warm. 70 C is on the verge of being too hot. Anything over 70 C sustained is too hot.

 

Intel wouldn't sell a CPU/cooler combo that ran too hot at stock speeds.

[schamberlin]

GPU temp is about 51 C while playing a game in full-screen. That seems reasonable, I guess.

 

I guess I'll start shopping for a better CPU cooler. It needs to be a pretty small one, since there's not a lot of room in that X-QPack 2 case!

[Waco]

GPU temp is about 51 C while playing a game in full-screen. That seems reasonable, I guess.

That's quite cool.

[suburban36]

I had a problem with overheating of my E8400 Temp. I discovered that it was not the CPU but the reporting on the motherboard with later versions of the CPU. The fix - Upgrade the BIOS. Relatively easy and took a few minutes. This corrected the problem but If I want to go back to the Pentium D 925, then I have to select and older bios. Apparently the board is affected by the CPU in stalled. It is an ASUS MB. Try checking the BIOS Versions available to see if this was a reported problem. (I have an ASUS board not certain of other brand issues) I have an over sized cooler and I run around 40-41C idle and around 50-52 under load.

[maj0rgamer]

GPU temp is about 51 C while playing a game in full-screen. That seems reasonable, I guess.

 

I guess I'll start shopping for a better CPU cooler. It needs to be a pretty small one, since there's not a lot of room in that X-QPack 2 case!

 

 

yeah, with a gpu temp like that it doesn't seem like it's much of a situation with the cooling in the case. If you wanna overclock, a nice new cpu cooler should put you right about where you wanna be

 

you may wanna check out that bios situation as well though.

[schamberlin]

you may wanna check out that bios situation as well though.

 

The motherboard (Biostar G31-M7 TE) is flashed to the latest BIOS as of two days ago.

 

GPU temp could potentially go higher, but I'm not sure how to exercise it. Catalyst Control Center reported an "activity level" (I forget what it is called exactly) of only 35% or so while playing my test game where it got to 51 C.