Overheating with Asus P5N32 Sli Motherboard?

[dp_001]

Hello,

I bought a Asus P5N32-SLI nForce 590 SLI Motherboard from you over the weekend which I recieved yesterday. Thanks for the quick service for that.

However I have come to fit it all in yesterday with My Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4ghz 4mb cache processor.

All fits well but however it seems to run far to HOT. Its running at 50 degrees with the stock heatsink. The southbridge seems to get hot as well.

I have installed a E6400 on the same board but with a nforce4 chipset and that runs at 35 degrees.

Is this normal to run at 50degrees on this motherboard. Is there something I need to configure in the bios.

Hope you can help. Thank you.

[dangel]

With Asus board's it's always a good idea to remove the heatpipe/heatsinks they've fitted and put some decent thermal paste in there. Most people report a major drop in temps after doing this and some say they think the heatsinks aren't making contact/haven't got thermal tape etc there.

[dp_001]

Its not got any of the asus heatsinks on there.

Ive put a decent amount of antec thermal compound on the chip and heatsink.

I cant even install windows on it. Everytime i try and install windows it freezes up during the installation process.

[dp_001]

Hi, I think I have figured out the problem with the board. Dead ram stick. One of the ram sticks does not function properly therefore that was the reason why the system was crashing.

However my only concern is that the temp of the processor is running between 45 - 50 degrees. Shouldnt it be somewhere in the 30's. I am using the stock heatsink that came with the processor.

Any ideas?

thanks

[dangel]

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?m...3&l2=11&l3=227
So you've removed all the heatpipes and heatsinks shown there? What the heck did you replace them with?

Dead RAM will certainly cause problems but you will find the chipset gets hot anyway. Can't help on processor temps but that's definitely within spec (i.e. it shouldn't crash at 50C) but sounds too high (to me anyway). Are these idle temps? CPU heatsink on ok?

Have u tested the RAM sticks (one at a time) with memtest? http://www.memtest.org/

[Andrzej]

When Asus released their RD580 MVP board in the middle of last year, the ATI chipset had passive cooling

At the same time, its 'sister' board with SLi used a 7,000rpm fan

If memory serves, the SLi chipset was drawing/using around double what the RD580 chipset was using (17w Vs 8w or thereabouts)

On that basis, you'd assume that an SLi chipset is always likely to run hotter

The questions must be:-
1) What is the ambient temperature around the box
2) What temperature should the CPU/chipset be running at
3) What is a 'dangerous' temperature for a CPU and/or chipset

Several years back, I saw Akasa's (then) Technical Director at CeBIT, running a dual-AMD processor demonstration in a perspex chassis, where - periodically - he would turn off the power to the CPU fans and let their temperature rise

The cooling within the chassis (airflow etc) was so good - that the chips just carried on running - no problem

Great demo - and shows you that operating temperatures for decent chips can get pretty high without causing an issue

[dp_001]

I have ran memtest on both the sticks seperatly.

one of the sticks is fine but the other has loads of fails/errors on it.

Managed to install windows using the single stick so looks like i will go back to manufactuer with corsair.

Machine is idle at 45degrees. I was thinkin of getting an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro heatsink for it as they have good reviews to drop the temp down.

[YOYOtech - Courtney]

Normal stock coolers supplied with CPU's are sometimes not adequate. After reading he problemd that you have been having it seems like the cpu fan is causing the high temp. Please ensure that the cooler is properly attached to the main board as sometimes this too can cause a heating problem.

[Andrzej]

You should listen to him, cos Courtney knows all about the benefits of strong clamping pressure

[YOYOtech - CK]

It can also make a difference what kind of thermal compound you are using. We recommend against toothpaste
On a more serious note, please contact us directly so that we can talk through your issues and see what a solution might look like.

[Prism]

I have got this board, also from Yoyotech, and also with an E6600 - and yeah I have found that it runs fairly hot with the stock cooler.

A few things to note about the temperature reading. Before I updated the bios to 6.03 I was getting a false 'low' reading on the CPU temp. After the update PC Probe reports ~ 52% which is the same as the bios reading, whereas the apparently more accurate Core Temp has it at ~ 62%. The case is very well ventilated and so I have decided to try out an after market cooler so try and improve this

Having said that I have had no actual problems with stability

One other thing I have to get to the bottom of with this board is the the top blue PCI-E slot is incredibly slow compared with the black slot. Could be a software/driver issue - unsure

[Andrzej]

...the top blue PCI-E slot is incredibly slow compared with the black slot...

I think I am right in saying that, in the past, Asus have shipped SLi boards with a 'blanking plate' for a non-used slot to prevent some kind of 'bounceback' on the bus - any chance you have some issue that would disappear when you add 2 cards in SLi mode ?

...Core Temp...

I have done a little research and it seems that the very fastest of Intel's new multi-core chips operate within a range of temperatures as follows:-
Completely Idle: +30 degrees
Solid load: + 70 degrees
Throttle point: 81 degrees

This was all measured using RightMark

The guy doing the testing said that he hit the throttle point quite easily with a stock cooler - and also with a Zalman CNPS9700NT

He seemed to think that if you want to run 6700/6800 systems at their maximum level - then you would need what he called 'exotic cooling'

You know - bathing the CPU in frozen Baccardi

[meansizzler]

What case do you have?.., you need one with at least a 120MM front intake fan and 120mm rear exhaust fan, also regarding the CPU cooler, why not go for something like the Asus VR Guard fan it's only £20 and should do a better job at cooling the CPU/Voltage Regulators, also a PSU with a bottom 120MM fan will help pull hot air out of your sytem..., as well as good cable management..

It's all about good airflow, if your case has good airflow then with stock cooling you should be getting under 50's at full load, and 40 degrees idle..

Also some of them Asus boards are known to have Nortbridge chipsets which run very hot, so having some airflow across them might help cool them down, something the stock cooler won't do but the Asus VR Guard cooler will..

I had a Pentium D 830, overclocked and pulling 150Watt's, now in a cramped case with stock cooling and little airflow that thing would run at 60 degrees idle, and probably 70 degrees full load, but put that in a case with a 120mm front fan, 120mm rear fan, psu with bottom 120mm fan and a decent cooler then that thing would run at 38 degrees idle and 55 degrees full load.., note your CPU uses less than half the power my CPU does..