Q8200 temperature issues.

Hey guys,

First off Happy New Year!

I had an issue with my machine, it stopped POSTing so after some quick tests I decided to bite the bullet and buy a new motherboard/CPU combo. I purchased an ASRock G31M-GS R2.0 motherboard and a Q8200 Intel processor. My machine runs like a beast now. Not that it wasn't before, but jumping from a dual core to a quad core definitely has it's advantages.

All that aside, I'm not liking the temperatures I'm seeing with this processor. Idle the cores sit around 30 degrees celcius (Which isn't bad in my opinion) but under load that skyrockets and the cores hit temperatures around 65c, some of the cores going up as high as 84 as well. That seems way too high to me. I understand the TJ. Max is 100 and that the Q8200 actually have issues reporting the correct temperatures, but I'm a little worried.

Anyone have any suggestions? Would be appreciated. I'm not looking to overclock at all, but it would be nice if I didn't have to worry about the temperatures at all. My dual core ran at 55c at it's absolute highest.

We'll see....

Budget, noise level, are you willing to remove the motherboard again to install a cooler, and do you have tall heat-spreaders on your RAM?

I don't care about the noise level. As for budget, well this put me back a pretty penny and I don't really want to spend anymore if I don't have to. I haven't double-checked the stock fan/heatsink yet to ensure it's on properly but I did use a different thermal paste. Arctic Silver. The fan that came with my dual core was awesome. This looks similar if not identical to it. I would have expected the same quality of cooling out of it.

If I had to, I suppose I could spend another $50. But only if I absolutely had to.

We'll see....

One of these.

The AC Freezer 7 Pro is the bare minimum; it would be at best "adequate". The Xigmatek uses a direct-touch heatpipe arrangement, which some people don't like and others rave about. The Zalman will require a little more fiddling to get it on the board, but will be more secure once it's there. I would have recommended the Scythe Mugen-2 as first choice, but it appears to be out of stock at the moment =/.

Whichever you pick, do measure to be sure it will fit inside your case.

I'm assuming that you're running with the stock Intel heatsink. This isn't going to get your chip running cool. It will be within manufacturing tolerances, but I wouldn't call it comfortable.

Any of the heatsinks that Human Being links to are top notch, but I would say the Arctic Freezer 7 is much more than merely 'adequate'. That sucker will take care of all your air cooling needs. It's so good for the price that even Arctic Cooling themselves haven't been able to make a competitor.

You lob a good cooler on your new quaddie and it will thank you for it.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'll keep these at the back of my head. Interestingly enough, I think maybe the paste hadn't set entirely. Under load the cores temps max out at around 67c now. That's much better than before. If I notice it getting any higher than that again I'll look into a different heatsink/cooler/fan

Edit to fill in a few blanks: Those high temps I was talking about were last night when I first put it all together and was putzing around. Just checked the temps while playing CoX and watching Supernatural on my second monitor. 67c was the highest temp

We'll see....