Major temperature problems with E6600

[jackrob]

Hello everyone, I have a brand new PC and the temperature of the CPU is really bad. I have called Intel and they can only help me after I've had the CPU for 30 days (which is still another week off...).

In the meantime, I need to try to figure out what the problem is, incase they don't help me very well. And I need to know if I should be getting a replacement CPU or HSF or what.. I really have no idea what I should do, so I really need advice from you guys.

My CPU and everything else in my PC, is running at stock speeds. Using an "Arctic Cooling Pro 7" with Akasa 5022 Pro+ Grade Themal Compound. Fan is at about 1400RPM which goes much faster when the PC is under load. I also have two silent 120mm case fans, which dont move a whole lot of air, but are better than nothing. Nothing is Overclocked. Here are my temps:

Intel TAT:
52 Idle
64 Full Load on both cores.

SpeedFan:
38 Idle
52 Full Load (using intel TAT to provide the load)

Those temperatures are when my room is toasty warm. When the temperature of my room is cooler, all those temps go down by several degrees, but its still too hot, and my room is really cold then. The temps with Intel's Stock Cooler where about the same.

I have re-fitted the CPU and Heatsink about 10 times, and done a thorough cleaning of the Compound every time, and reapplied it each time. One time I used a bit more than usual. One time I used very little. The temps only really vary by a few degrees each time. The best I have had it, was about 3 degrees cooler than I listed above. The HSF has its little white pins sticking through the other side of the motherboard, so it seems like its fitted properly.

So please help me and suggest what to do. To return the CPU to where I bought it from, I will be without a PC, and they will charge me if they test it and find that its within reasonable temperatures. I could just buy a new HSF and see if that was the problem, but I can't see anything wrong with this one, and it would be a waste of money to buy another one, only to get the same temperatures.

I really have no idea what to do

p.s. My "CoreTemp" temperatures are about the same as Intel TAT. My BIOS reports temperatures similar to "SpeedFan".

 

[StopSign]

In the bios, disable fan control so it runs at full speed all the time. I have the Freezer 7 Pro as well and I think top speed is 2700 RPM.

 

[Bealer]

Hmm. I had similar issues with my E6300. I even went to the point of buying a Scythe Ninja to replace my Freezer 7 Pro. I mounted it loads of times, different amounts of AS5 etc... even lapped the IHS on my CPU. Still no better.

Firstly, what Vcore is your CPU running at?
This was the solution for me. My motherboard defaulted to 1.325v, but according to Intels website the E6300 should be able to run within the range of 0.8v to 1.35v (or thereabouts). I'd imagine the E6600 has a similar range. You'll need to check it out.

I managed to get mine down to 1.125v overclocked to 2.8Ghz (from 1.86Ghz). Obviously if I didn't have the overclock I'd be able to drop it lower. Still it changed my temps from 48C idle, 65C load down to 39C idle, 53C load. If I went under 1.125v it became unstable and Linux/Windows would just crash. Basically the CPU wasn't getting enough power to run, so I eventually found that 1.125v was the lowest stable value I could have. The less volts the less heat your CPU will generate.

I also found mounting a fan on the side of the case, blowing in just above the graphics card helps move the air around the base of the CPU's heatsink. My northbridge was getting very hot so needed this to stop heat build up.

 

[jackrob]

Originally posted by: StopSign
In the bios, disable fan control so it runs at full speed all the time. I have the Freezer 7 Pro as well and I think top speed is 2700 RPM.

Is running it at full speed normal? Is that what everyone does with this cooler? And is that what is necessary? Its just that at full speed, it sounds like a hurricane in my case. Really noisy. If running it at top speed is necessary to get normal temps, I would have to get a new cooler, because this one is just too noisy at full speed.

Originally posted by: Bealer
Firstly, what Vcore is your CPU running at?

According to PC Wizard, my CPU's Voltage is 1.230 V.

The voltage is just what everything defaulted to in the BIOS, because I haven't tried to OverClock anything or change any voltages or anything. The fan is at 1340RPM but is set to go up when the load increases, so 1340RPM is at idle. PC Wizard also tells me my temperature at idle is 35 C. But according to Intel TAT, its currently 51 C just idle and with nothing but my web browser runnning.

p.s. My motherboard is a Gigabyte DS4 by the way (incase that helps).

ALSO: Intel TAT reports my CPU as a "Pentium D". I have researched to try to find a way to get that fixed, but I couldn't find a solution. I dont think it is causing a wrong temp reading though, because "CoreTemp" is reading the same kind of temperatures.

---------edit----------
According to Everest: My CPU Voltage is 1.163V
BIOS Says its at 1.23 V

 

[Noubourne]

The temps are right off the chip, so they'll be higher than Speedfan, which I think reads off a mobo sensor (not direct, not accurate).

A 10-15C delta between idle and load is pretty common, and not too bad. To me that indicates a fairly good HSF mount. There are probably some HSFs that will do you better, but not a TON better. It's not a dangerous temperature if that's what you're concerned about. What makes you think it is?

Who told you those are bad temperatures? Only an enthusiast would want temps lower than that, and they would want that for overclocking headroom or bragging rights, neither of which seem of much interest to you. The heatsink you have is probably keeping it cooler than Intel's stock heatsink, and they put those (or worse!) on the vast majority of OEM computers!

 

[jackrob]

Originally posted by: Noubourne
The temps are right off the chip, so they'll be higher than Speedfan, which I think reads off a mobo sensor (not direct, not accurate).

A 10-15C delta between idle and load is pretty common, and not too bad. To me that indicates a fairly good HSF mount. There are probably some HSFs that will do you better, but not a TON better. It's not a dangerous temperature if that's what you're concerned about. What makes you think it is?

Who told you those are bad temperatures? Only an enthusiast would want temps lower than that, and they would want that for overclocking headroom or bragging rights, neither of which seem of much interest to you. The heatsink you have is probably keeping it cooler than Intel's stock heatsink, and they put those (or worse!) on the vast majority of OEM computers!

God, this could be some of the best news I've had for a long time

I've actually had several people on the internet telling me the temperatures are "far too hot" Also, I have been scouring the internet and looking for other peoples' temperatures. And it seems that most enthusiasts (even just using air cooling), have overclocked CPU's like mine, at 10 degrees lower. Even Intel-TAT readings. Infact, it was only last night I was reading some guy listinging his temps as 57 degrees under load. I thought, "Woohoo! Mine is only a few degrees higher than that!", and then I realised.... he was overclocked to 3.6 Ghz And was only using an air fan too.

My Arctic Cooling 7 Pro isn't amazing, but its meant to atleast be good. And currently it isn't really much better than the intel cooler I had on. (2 degrees cooler but a bit quieter).

But also I heard that even overclockers wouldn't want their chip to go over 61.5 degrees, and mine is reaching 64 without an OC. And I wanted to OverClock it eventually, but if its hotter than everyone elses OC'd chip at stock speeds... AND its got an after-market cooler on already, its making me concerned something is not working properly or that the chip is a bad hot one or something

 

[Bealer]

I wouldn't use the Auto setting with the DS4. I've got a DS3 and it'll set it to what it feels is right. It's stock rating is 1.325v.

Maybe try set the power settings to manual (leave them as Auto if you wish), but try dropping the VCore. Keep dropping it until the sytem isn't stable. It'll either lockup or crash, then knock it up one or two levels and you should be ok.

As I said before mine CPU at stock was 6%C or so under load. I dropped the VCore right down to 1.125v (instead of 1.325v) and lost around 10C, plus the difference between idle and loads was much less.

I've always read mixed things about core temps. Some say it shouldn't go over 62C, others say you can hit 85C before it'll start throttling. Personally I found 65C far too hot. Mid 50's under load is about right for a C2D in my opinion.

 

[jackrob]

Ok cool. Thank you all so much for the replies!

I will try lowering the voltage and hopefully it will still run at its stock speeds ok, just with a lower voltage.

If I lose about 10 degrees too, that should be great! If not, I might think of replacing this Arctic Cooling 7 Pro, with one which hopefully runs faster but can still be quiet. This one can run faster but it just gets so noisy at full speed I'll see how it goes anyway. I got some new things to try now anyway thanks to you guys.

Thanks again!

 

[jackrob]

I think I should ask one more question.

Instead of just lowering my voltage, and seeing as you dont think my temps are that bad, do you think I should maybe just overclock it now?

Does overclocking make the CPU hotter - even if you don't raise the voltage? If not.. (or if not by much) I could maybe just overclock using the same voltage I'm at now. That way, it would be running slightly hot like it is now, but atleast it would be running really fast thanks to the overclock.

Does any of that make sense? If not... I'll just lower the Voltage. But I really want to Overclock the CPU eventually - and I dont know really know how overclocking works (never done it before). So I was hoping to do it and not really go far above 60 degrees. Im already at 60 degrees with a good cooler, so I dont know how I'm supposed to be able to overclock?

 

[Bealer]

Yeah it will do. For now I'd concentrate on getting your temps down at stock speed. Once you have them down to a good level, then consider overclocking.

You should try to get your temps at stock down to about 35-40C idle, and 45-50C load.

I'd try playing around with the above first though before replacing your Freezer 7 Pro. I did exactly the same and spent £35 on a Scythe Ninja, which when reflecting I may not have needed. Also make sure you have good airflow in and around the cpu. The Northbridge can get quite hot with the DS4 range. And make sure you have the latest BIOS revision too.

 

[mbeleni]

Your CPU is totally okay. The Core 2 Duos just run fairly hot. It's pretty difficult to damage a processor with excess heat... of course, higher temperatures do drastically shorten the lifespan but probably not shorter than the period of time you'll use the processor for until your next upgrade.

I'm running my E6600 at 1.264 volts, it does help with lowering temperatures, and still supplies enough voltage for me to reach 3.0 ghz on an overclock.

My full-load temperatures are close to 80C on Orthos Blend and I'm not worried for the reasons stated in my first paragraph since I'm probably going to be replacing this processor in a year with a quad-core version. It is a compromise I made for total system quietness, the loudest thing I hear is the occasional clicking of my Raptor. And besides much of what I do (games) are single-threaded... thus the load ends up getting shared across two cores, drastically reducing my full-load temperatures. I normally game in the low 60C's and that's okay. I'll have to revise this statement when multicore games become commonplace but that isn't that case right now, and probably won't be until next year.

I wouldn't worry so much about your temperatures so long as your system is stable.

 

[jackrob]

Thanks guys! I think what I might try, is lowering the voltage to 1.20 instead of 1.23, maybe a bit lower. And then just see how far it will overclock at that voltage. And I'll just keep an eye on the temps. As long as it doesnt go much above say 65C under load, I think I'd be happy with that.

Im also going to fit the heatsink and fan again one last time, with a bit less thermal paste on. Because one of the times I fitted it, it was reaching full load of 61. At the moment its more like 64, so I know I can shave off a few degrees atleast.