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Hey guys, I've got my Phenom II X6, its just idling at the UEFI BIOS screen, looking at the temperature, its gone up from 50 degrees to 72 and climbing, the fan is sitting on max RPM at 6700, is this right? Do these things usually run this hot?

Thanks much.

AFAIK it's pretty typical that when the BIOS is running, the CPU is running near full-power because most of the advanced CPU power-management schemes are not able to operate. Not sure if this holds for UEFI but that sure sounds like what you're seeing. If the behavior disappears when a real OS is running, then that's probably the explanation, and if you don't have a real OS installed on the hard drive yet, try a bootable Linux CD with an OS mode (Knoppix, SuSE boot-from-CD, etc).

If the behavior is maintained during OS operation, you may have an undersized or improperly-installed heatsink.

Yeah, they're 125W+ processors after all.

But still, 72C sounds a bit toasty even at full speed. What cooler are you using?

FubbHead wrote:

Yeah, they're 125W+ processors after all.

But still, 72C sounds a bit toasty even at full speed. What cooler are you using?

OEM AMD one that came with it.

Its running at 3.3GHz and 1.456V going by BIOS, is that normal?

Apparently it is TurboCore'ing, ie. raising the core clocks since not all cores are utilized. CPU voltage shouldn't go above 1.4V though, IIRC.

A quick google suggests that the temps for a 1055T (which one is it you have?) on stock cooler and under load should be around 50-55C. And also that the recommended CPU max temp is 62C. So your temp is definitely too high. I would try reseating the heatsink if I were you, and make sure you have proper case ventilation, it's summer down there right?

Also, I don't know about the AMD OEM cooler, but some coolers comes with a plastic film over the pre-applied thermal paste, and if so, I hope you didn't miss to remove it. I've seen it happen on several occasions.

Not normal. Reapply heatsink, check for full contact between heatspreader and heatsink. CPUs don't produce much heat unless they're actually calculating something, even when they're running at full stock frequency.

Stock coolers are nice, but it looks like the piece of plastic that covers the thermal paste is still on. Remove that and put the cooler back on.

Better still, replace that stock HSF with a much better aftermarket one. Look here for better ideas on which aftermarket cooler you should get.

Something definitely isn't right. My X6 1090T only got up into the mid-50s with the stock cooler, even under full load (Folding@home). With a Coolermaster Hyper TX3 (budget heatpipe cooler) on it, it sits in the low to mid 40s (again under full load).

Your volts do seem a little high; my VCore is only 1.26V according to the motherboard sensor.

As others have noted, make sure the HSF is properly seated and that you removed the plastic film (if any) from the base.

Are you running the latest BIOS for your board?

I'm agreed with the others - something is very wrong here unless your ambient is crazy high. Check for good contact between the heatsink and the heatspreader and make sure it's clamped down all the way.

If those things check out okay - look into getting a BIOS update. That vcore sounds awful high for an X6 at stock.

The plastic isn't on the HSF still haha, I'm going to reseat it tonight.

I've got a water cooled CPU cooler coming as well.

Don't know why its at that high voltage, should I reset CMOS?

Yeah, try clearing the CMOS, and update to latest BIOS if you haven't already.

What motherboard is it?

mine is running at 40C right now. Stock cooler, 1090T, no oc.

I wouldn't worry too much about a after market cooler unless you plan on overclocking. Some nice thermal paste wouldn't hurt for how much it costs. Pretty much any brand works as long as you get away from the nasty white paste or TIM it comes with.

Something that may be worth looking into. Depending on how old your motherboard is and when then Phenom x6's came out, you may need to flash your bios to the latest one in order for your motherboard to work with the chip. X6s are relatively new and even if it works, it might not be fully compatible till the bios is flashed to the latest version.

Look through your bios and make sure cool'n'quiet is enabled as well as your more advanced power management features. As someone mentioned, does it run at this temperature in Windows or only in the bios? Some bioses peg CPUs for whatever reason, I've seen it happen before. Usually motherboards have features to monitor temperatures in Windows, otherwise you can simply listen to the fan and see if it comes down in speed when windows is finally loaded.

To add a bit of a safety net to things, all CPUs have throttling features built in in this day and age. If they get too hot they will start throttling themselves or they will shutdown completely. Not that this helps your problem or justifies its existence, it just takes a little less worry out of things.

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Could that be the issue?

I cleaned off the thermal paste with some methylated spirits on a chux, just waiting for the new cooler to arrive it comes pre pasted too, that was the PC shop Guy who did that thermal paste for me when I took it in for other reasons.

Ambient temps will be coming up to 40 to 48 degrees celcius in summer most likely on a few days as a Max in December, but its only about 25 degrees when I tested it yesterday.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?mai ... s_id=15098

Here is the cooler I ordered.

Could what be the issue? Maybe a little bit messy for my taste, should only be a thin layer, but I've seen worse .

So either it didn't have proper contact with CPU, or it's something else. You'll know which soon enough.

There is a big gap in there on that picture, where there was no paste on the processor or the heatsink.

Yeah, I don't see anything terribly wrong either. I'd check for a newer bios and update it if it's out of date.

AMD Damo wrote:

There is a big gap in there on that picture, where there was no paste on the processor or the heatsink.

Couldn't tell from the picture, but if so, that was probably it. If you have some thermal paste, testing that theory wouldn't take long, but if you're in no hurry you could just as well wait.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?M ... 20Extreme4

Thats the mobo there, might get the V1.50 update, how would I install it? I don't think it supports booting of USB.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?M ... me4&o=BIOS

Check "How to update" for "Instant flash". You should be able to do it from BIOS without the need to boot anything, if the info holds true for their UEFI BIOS as well. And if so, you only need a FAT32 formatted USB key with the firmware on it.

Other than the fact that there's a bit more thermal paste than needed, that looks OK to me. IMO the "gap" others have referred to shouldn't be an issue; it looks like there's still a thin layer of compound there. It is *possible* that the cooler is actually defective -- e.g., if one of the heatpipes has a leak and lost its working fluid it could explain the high temps even with the fan running full tilt.

AFAIK all recent mobos support loading BIOS updates from a thumbdrive and/or CD. There should be a menu option for it in the BIOS somewhere.

If your ambient really gets to 48C you're going to have trouble even with an aftermarket cooler. I'm assuming you meant outside temp, not the temp in the room where the computer is, right? I can't imagine spending more than a minute or two in a 48C room!

I put on the cooler and an extra 140mm fan, its slowly rising, its been on for about 30 minutes now, its stable at 57 degrees, much better than freakin' 75 in 5 minutes.

VCore is on 1.408V. I'm going to update the BIOS now.

Outside temp, yes but I don't have AC and the room my PC is in faces north unfortunately, so yes it can get to that room temperature.

EDIT: Updated the BIOS, sitting at 39.5 degrees now

Thanks much guys.

In BIOS? And which processor model is it?

The voltage sounds too much, but if the frequency comes up as higher in BIOS than the rated speed for your model, it is obviously Turbo Core'ing, and I don't know if that also raises voltage to accommodate the higher frequency.

57C is still toasty, but again, if it is working 100% as well as Turbo Core'ing in BIOS, than it is probably OK given the ambient temperature, and not representative of standard use temperature (ie. idle temperatures).

Its stable at 39.5 degrees now after the BIOS update.

Its a Phenom X6 1090T 3.3GHz

Ah, better. And the voltage came down as well?

Very slightly, to V1.408, so I'm assuming thats still rather high?

Probably because it's in BIOS and, as said earlier, the power-saving features aren't in action.

Using eg. CPU-Z in Windows, you will probably see it go between 1.125-1.4V when idle and under load respectively.

Is that temp in the BIOS, idling in the OS, or under load? Perhaps still a tad high for idling in the OS, but OK if in the BIOS.

Yes, 1.4V is a little on the high side, but depending on the specific model of processor it may still be within spec. If you feel like wading through all of AMD's power specification tables to find your specific CPU, they're here.

FWIW... I just noticed that my Phenom II X4 955 is sitting at 1.4V now; but my X6 1090T is at 1.25V. Both running stock settings at full load. So there's a fair bit of variation within the Phenom II line.

Just idling in the BIOS