unusual Q6600 core temperature readings

[Pebble]

Not sure if this is normal or not, I'm running a Q6600 at stock speeds, no overclocking, but the temperature of the cores seems to vary quite a bit (whether idle or at load). I've tried removing the heatsink, and re-applying the thermal paste in case it had not spread correctly, but still seems to be having the same issue. Its not the temperature value that I'm concenrted with, just the margin of difference between them.

The temps are generally as follow:
core idle load
0 38 59
1 36 56
2 32 52
3 34 52

I got these readings using HWMonitor, Core Temp, and Everest. They all showed pretty much the same, that cores #2 and #3 pretty much close together, but cores 0 and 1 range from 4-7 degress more. Is this usual or is something really wrong?

I've ran ORTHOS a few times (once for over 9hrs) and there has not been any stability issues (no crashing or errors reported by ORTHOS). As I understand it, the quads are basically 2 C2D dies togethers, is therefore possible that the first two cores were in some way not manufactured correctly?

When I removed the heatsink to re-seat it, I tightened the backets, just in case perhaps part of the heatsink was not pressing tighly enough against the CPU and hence leading to the difference in temperatures, but still it's not made a difference really.

Anyone know anything else I could try to even out the temps?

Thanks

[staffsMike]

It's normal mate, most of them differ by that amount in my experience

The temps are a bit crispy for stock though, is that the stock cooler?

[PeterStoba]

Mine does the same, it's normal!

Something to do with LGA775 heatsink mounting.

[Noxvayl]

From what I have read on the Q6600 the first two cores have priority over the other two for applications and processes so therefore get more work to do when a heap of processes are shoved through them. That would naturally lead to slightly higher temps. It doesn't mean its defective it just means that the other two cores aren't as busy that's all.

[Pebble]

Thanks for the quick response guys.

staffsMike: No its not the stock cooler, I eventually went for a Scythe Ninja CU, not really shure what I was thinking, was going for the Sycthe Ninja originally, then saw the copper version and I think I thought "ooh it looks pretty" :-) Probably wasn't worth the extra money, but what's done is done.

ExHail: I kept an eye on tye cpu utilisation, at idle it was maybe about 2-3% on either of the first cores, can't see that really pushing temps up so much. When I ran ORTHOS, I ran two copies of it, and set the cpu affinity via task manager, so the first ORTHOS was on core 0+1, the second on 2+3, all 4 cores were at 100% utilisation and it was still the large difference as shown by the numbers I listed.

So long as it's normal I feel a bit more relieved. Certainly a bit of a shame, and odd too, but if I can't do anything about it, then oh well :-( I'm generally happy with the temps on cores 2+3, was just a bit disappointed that cores 0+1 were getting so much higher.

Thanks again.

[GoNz0]

yeh it seems normal, i just water cooled mine and they recon you can tweak the temps by screwing down corners of the heatsink, made bugger all diffrence to mine

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