Phenom II 940 running a little hot

[wambulance]

I've got;

Phenom II 940 at 3Ghz on stock cooler
ASRock A780GXE
4 GB Gskill 1066 DDR2
EVGA 9800GT 512mb
500GB WD SATA
250GB WD SATA
540watt PSU
1x 120mm exhaust fan at rear of case
2x 80mm case fan
Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound
AMD Cool N' Quiet bios option disabled

I've tried a variety of options, and so far the best temperatures I'm getting is 38C idle and 53C under 100% load with Everest stability test running for 12 minutes. The worst arrangement (placement of fans, etc) was 43C idle and 57C under load (which would have gone higher I'm sure but I shut it off). AMD says max temp for this chip is 62C. Core and CPU temperatures are almost identical, with an occasional 1-2C difference. The heatsink/fan is properly seated and I've used the right amount of thermal compound (about the size of 3 BBs in the center of the chip. Removing the heatsink reveals an even, thin layer across).

My best temperatures were achieved by removing the plastic funnel intake to my case that sits directly above the CPU fan and replacing that with a case fan that will intake air directly onto the CPU heatsink/fan. To me, 53C under full load is warmer than I should be, even for stock cooling. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I did notice something running everest, in that the CPU fan is fluctuating while under load from 1000RPM-3,000RPM, back and forth. Why it would slow to 1k is beyond me, and I wonder if this has to do with high load temps. Any advice or suggestions greatly appreciated. I've got a Zalman on its way from newegg.

[cksboy15]

The CPU fan changes the speed like that for those people that prefer the quieter systems. So the fan speeds up when the cpu works harder and slows down when the cpu isn't working so hard.

You can set the cpu fan toi full all out all the time, but I never tried to do that so I wouldn't know how.

Which Zalman did you buy?

[RicheemxX]

For a stock cooler those temps look pretty much inline with what I've seen. You've already ordered a new hs/fan so there isn't much need to worry about it until you get that on there. If you still have issues after that then that is when you'd need to question your temps.

[wambulance]

here's the fan I ordered a couple of days ago;

Newegg.com - ZALMAN 9500A 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler - CPU Fans & Heatsinks

As for the fan throttling, I don't have any software or settings that should allow for this. Cool N' Quiet is turned off, and at idle the fan is at around 3k RPM. It doesn't drop unless under load which is odd. It could be that Everest isn't reporting correctly. Dunno. I can't hear any change in pitch but I probably wouldn't anyway as I have an 80mm turning some 3400RPM making enough noise on its own :P

Rich; okie doke. I'll post here the new temps once the Zalman is in.

[KarmaKiller]

Temps look pretty right on IMO. And you can give Speedfan a try, see if your able to adjust your fan. You can keep it to whatever RPM you like.

[wambulance]

Aye, have speedfan but the default on all fans was 100%. Anyway, if that Zalman drops the temp enough I'm gonna try some overclocking. 3.8Ghz on air is possible, so I've read.

[Ultima]

I find it remarkable that AMD would give the chip a max temp of 62C??

Usually cpu's can be a lot higher at max, more like 80C, but maybe that's just the old chips

[RobRich]

I find it remarkable that AMD would give the chip a max temp of 62C??

The Phenom II 940 is already rated for a blistering 125 watts at stock frequency, and there is only so much surface area per core for thermal dissapation, thus the lower suggested max temp rating compared to other lower wattage processors.

[wambulance]

Ok, got the Zalman on (scroll up for link) and here are the results;

Idle: 36C
100% full load on all 4 cores using everest after 10 minutes: 50C

So in application, I've dropped load temp by 3C

However...
We must also consider that my previous arrangement at 53C load had the stock HSF with a case fan only a couple of inches away blowing directly on it. With the Zalman, this arrangement is not possible due to size. Because of the size, I cannot have the case fan blowing on the HSF only a couple of inches away.

Therefore, all things being equal theoretically I've dropped temperature by 7C, but in application it has been dropped by 3C. I may try some overclocking and see how it does. Having said that, other components have lowered in temperature by 1-2C (HDD, video, ambient temperature). I attribute this to 1. lower case temperature because case fan is not spreading heat throughout the case and 2. the Zalman has the fan aligned with the exhaust fan, so that the airflow off of the Zalman is exiting where the rear exhaust fan is placed, as opposed to the stock HSF which blows air perpendicular to exhaust fan placement.