System Temperatures

I have just built a new pc consisting of the following:

Windows Vista 64-Bit
Intel Core i7 950
Corsair Dominator GT 6GB (Running at 2000MHz)
NVIDIA Geforce 280
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5

I was playing some games for about an hour and I decided to feel the side of the case, which I thought felt pretty hot.
Because of this I decided to check the temperatures in the BIOS which are as follows:

Room Temp. = Roughtly 21-24 degC

System Temp. = 58 degC
CPU Temp. = 59 degC
MCH Temp. 54 degC

CPU Fan speed = 3040 RPM
Power Fan Speed = 4060 RPM
System Fan Speed = 1140 RPM

The system has an exhaust fan at the back and an intake at the front. The individual components which have their own heatsink fans are; graphics, RAM, CPU and PSU. All with their stock fans & heatsinks.

Are these temperatures normal for this kind of system? and if not what can be done about them.


Just as a side note when I was writing this post for the first time my system rebooted randomly. (First time its happened)
EDIT: Ok it seems to have started to randomly reboot for unknown reasons.

The temps posted look OK. Could you check how hot your GPU is under load by using something like furmark. Also, what PSU are you using?

The power supply is a BFG ES-800Watt. Model number BFGR800WESPSU.

Im don't have any experience with GPU temperature monitoring, the furmark program only seems to support vista 32-bit.

OK, I thought your PSU might have been underpowered or something - that would explain the reboots - its OK though. Furmark runs fine for me on Vista 64 - have you tried it? There should be an option in fur,ark to monitor temps so check it and a graph will appear at the bottom of the screen when it runs showing your GPU temp.

Wow that was :crazy:, never heared the fan go so fast. Quite scary actualy.

Anyway the GPU seemed to run up to 87 degC and stay stable at that temperature.
Not sure why this is but after about 80 degC it shot up from 20fps to over 100fps.

On a side note I have had only 2 random reboots so far and haven't had another yet *Fingers Crossed*, but I did get a crash to desktop on one of my games: Empire - Total War. Not sure if thats a Vista thing or hardware.

Again, those temps look OK - it's normal for the 280 to run hot and for the fan to get loud at high speed. Furmark makes the GPU work really hard, more than most games would so you're unlikely to see those temps/fan speeds in a game. I'm not sure what the fps difference could mean - I think NVidia cards (I know my ATI 4850 does) slow the GPU clock when idle (2D mode) to reduce power consumption but the change back up should be instantaneous, as soon as you started furmark. Maybe a background task was hogging the CPU or something. About the instability, I can only think it must be a low voltage somewhere - is anything overclocked?

No nothing is overclocked as such, the only thing I have changed in the BIOS is setting my RAM to 2000MHz, Timings to 8-8-8-24, QPI/VTT to 1.5V and DRAM Voltage to 1.64V.

I am getting alot of random reboots now when I alt+tab out of games and then try to go back into them, also sometimes when just starting games. But also when just browing websites.

Last time it powered down the pc not just rebooted, it also wouldnt let me turn the power on for a few seconds

The cpu temp of 59c idle (in bios) is very high. If not overclocked it should be considered extremely high. I wouldn't be surprised if it hits close to 100c under load.

See what temps you have under load by using orthos and cpuid hwmonitor:
http://sp2004.fre3.com/beta/beta2.htm
http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

1.5 vtt? I think the intel recommended max is 1.33v, which is what people use to get a 4ghz overclock. This would probably explain why your temps are so high. If not overclocking, stick it on auto/default.

that 59degC was straight after comming out of a game, so it wouldn't have had chance to cool down fully

And the QPI/VTT (Uncore) voltage is for the RAM frequency not the CPU if thats what your talking about

It is high, but nowhere near the max specified temperature so shouldn't cause your PC to crash. And I didn't about it before but yes, 1.5v QPI is way too high - I think that could cause crashes.

Systems can lose temperature very quickly (i.e. by the time you've rebooted to the BIOS...)

With i7's memory controller being on the CPU, voltage is your enemy... knock it back to 1.35v...

What cooler are you using?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by watercooled

It is high, but nowhere near the max specified temperature

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that is essentially the idle temperature though...

Under full load (i.e. proper tools, not playing games..) it would be much higher...

a VTT of 1.5 is borderline bricking the chip...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TAKTAK

With i7's memory controller being on the CPU, voltage is your enemy... knock it back to 1.35v...

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In fact, drop the QPI/VTT back to ~1.24v that should give you up to ~ 1.74v for the RAM (and you're on 1.6v)

You're correct in thinking that the VTT/QPI is related to the VDIMM, BUT, only in the fact that you need to stay within 0.5v of the vDIMM, or you'll decrease it's life span, i.e. your vDIMM is 1.64 so your QPI/VTT could be as low as 1.14v...

Quote:

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keep the CPU uncore voltage within 0.5V difference of
the DRAM voltage and there's no problem. Over this potential difference and you’ll greatly
increase the chance of CPU death

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http://www.overclockingwiki.org/foru...ead.php?t=4055

you also mention that you're getting random shutdowns, that is probably due to the thermtrip, whereby the CPU shuts itself down due to excessive temperature, in order to protect itself :)

if you knock the Uncore back, that should fix your heat and consequently, shutdown issues :)

is any of this making sense? because i keep editing it and changing bits around to make it readable :)

Ok well ill take your advice n will change the voltage after this post, I just finished the ORTHOS tests and here are the results.

Blend Test - CPU & RAM
CPU Stress Test


Yes that made perfect sense Taktak fantastic post actualy, thank you all. I will try setting the voltage lower and report back my findings.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GarethG

Ok well ill take your advice n will change the voltage after this post, I just finished the ORTHOS tests and here are the results.

Blend Test - CPU & RAM
CPU Stress Test

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Those temps aren't too bad for full load on the stock cooler TBH, i7s do run hot, but i would still knock back the QPI/VTT to be on the safe side :)

Also, i'd be tempted to buy a decent aftermarket cooler to lower the temps further, and also, quieten the system down a bit :)

Ok so I went back into the BIOS and changed QPI/VTT voltage to 1.24V and it gave me a BSOD while in the middle of the post screen. So I gradually increased the voltage untill it would stop giving me a BSOD, I found anything below 1.32V will give me one although it will get a little further past the post screen and all the way to desktop at 1.3V. But upon opening winamp it gave me a BSOD.

Currently the QPI/VTT is set to 1.32V and it gave me a random reboot upon opening winamp and iexporer 8.

I let the pc reboot and so far I havent rebooted again but it is still very early to say.

I will let the pc run with it at 1.32V and see if it is stable. Again I will keep you updated as events happen (or dont *toutch wood*)

Hopefully someone with more experience of i7's will comment, (i have none...) :)

Another point of call, burn memtest to a cd and run it, just to check that the RAM is OK :)

ok well it didnt take long for another reboot to occur, half way through browing a website and listening to music.

This time I have left the QPI/VTT voltage at 1.34V and I turned off X.M.P. but doing so introduced a memory frequency problem. Because it only lets me change the multiplier of the ram frequency at x14 it is about 1866MHz and at x16 its about 2224MHz. well I didnt want to push it over the rated 2000MHz so I put it to x14 even tho that defeats the point of this expensive RAM.

I also noticed there is a serperate QPI voltage, do you know what that one is for? the only way to change it is by turning on the X.M.P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GarethG

I also noticed there is a serperate QPI voltage, do you know what that one is for? the only way to change it is by turning on the X.M.P

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Unfortunately i have no idea :(, i'll try and point someone who will know in this direction :)

do you have a spare PSU that you could try with it? is the PSU brand spanking new or have you used it before?

[ TAKTAK ]:
so, get him to knock the uncore back to 1.4, and set RAM to 1866 @ 1.65?

christopher:
no
knock uncore back so it equates to 1866 speed
then change volts to 1.65 if thats what the ram uses natively
then scale the vtt accordingly
i.e 1.4 volts
also might be worth setting the TRFC on the ram to 75

Well I am still getting BSOD and random reboots.

I have tried setting the BIOS to default and enabling X.M.P.
This sets the RAM freq to 2002MHz 8-8-8-24 1T.
Althout CPU-Z says the timings are 10-9-9-27 1T, and FSB : DRAM ratio of 2:14

Setting X.M.P on also changed Vdimm to 1.5V and QPI/VTT to 1.2V. I had a BSOD error so I have manually changed QPI/VTT to 1.22V

Sorry taktak didn't see that post, was writing the last one at the time hehe.

Im don't fully understand what hes telling me to do there.
How would I be able to tell what uncore voltage equates to 1866MHz? It also sounds like hes saying VTT is totaly seperate to the uncore voltage?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GarethG

Sorry taktak didn't see that post, was writing the last one at the time hehe.

Im don't fully understand what hes telling me to do there.
How would I be able to tell what uncore voltage equates to 1866MHz? It also sounds like hes saying VTT is totaly seperate to the uncore voltage?

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I'm just about to get some more off him, he's just rebooted to write his values down :), i'll update this post in a moment :)

Right, these are some values from Gilgamesh (from http://gilgameshreviews.com/forums/) (he's using a DFi board, but overall values should be similar-ish, with a few things that don't apply to you):

CPU Features Sub Menu
Set VR Current Limit Max....................Disabled
Thermal Management Control.............Disabled
EIST Function....................................Disabled
CxE Function.....................................Disabled
Execute Disable Bit............................Disabled
Virtualisation Technology...................Disabled
***** Logical Processor Setting *****
Intel HT Technology...........................Enabled
Active Processor Cores.......................All
DRAM Timing Sub Menu
Memory Control Setting......................Auto
Memory LowGap................................1563M
DRAM Command Rate.........................2N
CAS Latency Time (tCL)......................9
RAS# to CAS# Delay (tRP)..................9
RAS# Precharge (tRP)........................9
Precharge Delay (tRAS)......................24
REF to ACT Delay (tRFC)....................Auto
Write to Pre Delay (tWR)....................Auto
Rank Write to Read (tWTR)................Auto
ACT to ACT Delay (tRRD)...................Auto
Row Cycle Time (tRC)........................Auto
Read CAS# Precharge (tRTP).............Auto
Four ACT WIN Time (tFAW)...............Auto
Voltage Setting Sub Menu
O.C. Shut Down Free.........................Enabled
CPU VID Control................................Auto
Power Saving....................................STD
Super VID.........................................OFF
Vcore Auto PSI..................................Disabled
OCP.................................................140A
DRAM Bus Voltage.............................1.650v
DRAM PWM Switch Frequency............Nominal Frequency
DRAM PWM Phase Control.................2 Phase Operation
CPU VTT Special Add........................Auto
CPU VTT Voltage..............................1.40v
VTT PWM Switch Frequency..............Nominal Frequency
VTT PWM Phase Control....................2 Phase Operation
CPU PLL Voltage................................1.80v
IOH/ICH 1.1v Voltage.........................1.11v
IOH Analog Voltage............................1.10v
ICH 1.5 Voltage.................................1.5v
ICH 1.05v Voltage..............................1.05v
DIMM 1/2 DQ/DQSTB Bus VREF...........0%
DIMM 3/4 DQ/DQSTB Bus VREF...........0%
DIMM 5/6 DQ/DQSTB Bus VREF...........0%
DIMM 1/2 ADDR/CMD Bus VREF...........0%
DIMM 3/4 ADDR/CMD Bus VREF...........0%
DIMM 5/6 ADDR/CMD Bus VREF...........0%
CPU Core DQ/DQSTB Bus VREF...........0%
CPU QPI Drive Strength......................Normal
IOH QPI Drive Strength......................Normal
Genie Main Menu (Cont)
Exit Setup Shut Down.......................Mode2
O.C. Fail Retry Counter.....................Enabled
O.C. Fail CMOS Reloaded..................Disabled
PPM Function...................................Enabled
Turbo Mode Function........................Disabled
x 1 Core Max Turbo Ratio..................22x
x 2 Core Max Turbo Ratio..................21x
x 3Core Max Turbo Ratio...................21x
x 4 Core Max Turbo Ratio..................21x
CPU Non-Turbo Clock Ratio...............20x
*BCLK/UCLR/QPI Controller Settings*
QPI Control Settings........................Enabled
QPI Link Fast Mode..........................Enabled
QPI Frequency GT/sec.....................Auto
CPU Base Clock (BCLK)...................133
Boot Up CPU Base Clock..................Auto
PCIE Clock.....................................100MHz
DRAM Frequency............................x14
Uncore Frequency..........................x28
CPU Spread Spectrum....................Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum...................Disabled

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gilgamesh

but hes getting bsods and reboots 'cos of his vtt, certainly
as i had the same
when vtt wasnt scaled in align with ram voltage

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you're an absolute godsend taktak :D

I will try some more settings and will keep you posted.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GarethG

you're an absolute godsend taktak :D

I will try some more settings and will keep you posted.

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Thank Gilgamesh not me :), TBH i'm rather confused with all the new i7 terms ATM :o

yeah you right I should thank gilgamesh :)

But you have been doing alot of information gathering for me which I wouldn't have found on my own :D


Anyway I have set as many of them settings as I can, I was able to set the following: Memory LowGap, memory control setting & uncore frequency. everything else I have set but I am trying with the timings 8-8-8-24 2T first.

If there are any problems ill post them here and I will also try the suggested timings of 9-9-9-24 2T.

Thanks again for all your help, realy would have got no where without it :bowdown: