Are these temps normal?

battletoad

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a friend of mine's pc switches off now and then while gaming. He has a Q8200 with a 9800gtx, running win7.

The cpu has load temps of 85-95 celcius over all cores according to speedfan. Is this normal?

Doubt its the gpu, i've set the pc to reboot as soon as it hits 90 celsius.

Event viewer also turns up nothing, no 'microprocessor free' error msg, the pc just switches off instantaneously.
 
That's very, very hot for a CPU. Is his CPU fan working properly? Does he have thermal paste on his CPU?

The max for a CPU should be around 85° Celsius. When idle it should be around 30-45.
 
That's very, very hot for a CPU. Is his CPU fan working properly? Does he have thermal paste on his CPU?

The max for a CPU should be around 85° Celsius. When idle it should be around 30-45.

Correction, it's hot for a Core 2 CPU. Core i7 can easily get there (particularly in a notebook).
 
That's very, very hot for a CPU. Is his CPU fan working properly? Does he have thermal paste on his CPU?

The max for a CPU should be around 85° Celsius. When idle it should be around 30-45.

85C??? For a CPU? If my CPU went over 65C during load I'd wet myself.

Q8200 has a TCase of 71.4C.

In other words yeah, 85-95C means that CPU is going to die, which is also why his PC keeps shutting down. As Nerhzelok says, check thermal paste, check to make sure fan is running and that the heatsink is meeting the CPU.

Those temperatures are definitely not normal.

The BIOS is what shuts the PC down--there'll be a setting somewhere that says that if CPU temp exceeds X-degrees-Celsius to turn off, which is why you won't see it in the event viewer.

Friend should be thanking his BIOS that his CPU is still working and hasn't melted his board :D

Correction, it's hot for a Core 2 CPU. Core i7 can easily get there (particularly in a notebook).

Bring out the nitrogen :twisted:
 
Yup just built myself an HTPC and the idle temp is 45 on both cores and I was unhappy. If you are idling at anything over 50C you are fusking up the chip... Either the fan isn't working or there is no thermal compound or the PC is overclocked.

I a nutshell it is a very unhappy processor!!!
 
Idle should be in the high 30's max ! (my 6 core idles at 25 odd with an very low rev fan), under serious load no more than 60's before I start to panic :)

Like Shayd said, your fan or thermal compound is fooked or it's OC'ed beyond tomorrow.. clean the fan and reseat with fresh compound and see if that will help... Dust is also a major factor that causes these problems.
 
My i7 860 max at 80'C with the Stock Intel cooler, so 95'C is definitely way too hot, unless the case's ambient temperature is also sky high due to the GTX and poor airflow.

Other than the thermal paste, ensure that the cooler is secured properly AND that the case has enough airflow over the CPU - preferably from the front bottom to back top of the case.
 
My i7 860 max at 80'C with the Stock Intel cooler, so 95'C is definitely way too hot, unless the case's ambient temperature is also sky high due to the GTX and poor airflow.

Other than the thermal paste, ensure that the cooler is secured properly AND that the case has enough airflow over the CPU - preferably from the front bottom to back top of the case.

i7 has a higher threshold than the quads. As the spec-sheet says, 71.4C is his CPU's max temp. It's a miracle the thing hasn't died yet.
 
thanks for the tips.

He does have a very tiny chassis tho. Would give him an old server-size chassis but he's a neat freak of note, still has dvds he wrote 3 yrs ago with no scratches!

Seems to me too little thermal paste on the heatsink (theres open area on the heatsink for more). We'll try that, hopefully the cpu not damaged.
 
i7 has a higher threshold than the quads. As the spec-sheet says, 71.4C is his CPU's max temp. It's a miracle the thing hasn't died yet.
Thanks for that info.

I've now gone and looked up the T_case value for my i7 860 and it's fairly similar at 72.7°C, compared to my i7 940 which has a very low T_case value of 67.9°C.
So basically Intel has sold me a cooler that doesn't suffice... :(

@Battletoad: if you're going to add thermal paste, I'd advise you to remove the old thermal paste if it's more than a few months old and to ensure that the layer of thermal paste that you've applied is extremely thin.
 
Thanks for that info.

I've now gone and looked up the T_case value for my i7 860 and it's fairly similar at 72.7°C, compared to my i7 940 which has a very low T_case value of 67.9°C.
So basically Intel has sold me a cooler that doesn't suffice...
:(

@Battletoad: if you're going to add thermal paste, I'd advise you to remove the old thermal paste if it's more than a few months old and to ensure that the layer of thermal paste that you've applied is extremely thin.

Whaaa? I was under the impression that i7s have a pretty high threshold.
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Also, from this article:
Maximum allowed temperature for Core i7 is 100°C. If it heats up more, the CPU will enable thermal throttling, i.e. the Vcore and clock frequency multiplier will be forced down to 12x. This feature protects the processor die against dangerous overheating.

So they can run hot and they have features to prevent it from "dangerous overheating" but I'd still be terrified of my CPU going over 65C :o
 
Can Speedfan's values be trusted? In my experience, every piece of software reports different temperatures. For instance, according to CoreTemp, my CPU temp is around 30 degrees vs SIW which reports around 37 degrees.
 
Ok based on past experience I'm going to suggest that one of the feet of the HSF isn't correctly mounted, so the fan isn't making correct contact with the CPU. There are no other circumstances that could cause the CPU to heat up to 85c. And yes speedfan is accurate, you could also try coretemp. But you need to sort it out NOW before using the PC any longer, or else you'll ruin your chip. Mounting 775s is a bit tricky - you have to be absolutely sure every foot clicks audibly, then give it another quarter turn to set it in place.
 
To everyone who has posted so far, dont think "My temps on chip X are 50° so 95 is too hot°." Each family of chips is different, no point comparing a Phenom (max temp 68°) to an LGA1366 i7 (max temp 98°) to a Core2 Quad (whose max temp is around 72 iirc). Use coretemp which tells you the max tempereature based on the chip you have installed to know for sure.
 
All these max temps that manufacturers state are crap. I once got an intel dual core to 126 degrees before it decided to shut down, and yet it still ran perfectly after that.
 
Extremely hot for a Q8200. I built a pc for my gf with the same cpu with stock cooler and even on a hot summer day it never exceeds 50 degrees full stress.
 
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