CPU thermal reading drops 10 C after 1850 BIOS upgrade

[RAMBO]

I have an ASUS P8P67 PRO REV 3.1 V 1.xx, WIN 7 64bit, i5 2500k at stock, just updated to BIOS V1850, had V0105 (I updated BIOS from ASUS AI Suite 2 while in desktop). My CPU thermal readings were about 42 C at start up before the update and are now reading 32 C at start up. I am afraid that the thermal reader was damaged or corrupted, or is this just a better reading because of the update. What do you think of this drastic drop, is this a screw up? The motherboard thermal (30-32 C at start up) did not change, just the CPU. Readings taken from AI Suite both before and after.

[accord1999]

It could have been that the new bios enabled certain power-saving functions of the CPU which were previously disabled (such as C1E). For my SB 2600K, idle temperatures are generally in the low 30C when it is SpeedStep-ed down to 1.6GHz.

[just brew it!]

It's also possible that the update *corrected* a mis-calibration of the thermal sensor.

[luisnhamue]

yeah. I'm having d same problem with d p67a-gd55. Because d CPU area is totally cool with d cooler i hv.
I touched with my fingers.
but it reports 39ºC. The BIOS is d first one yet, i will update to d last one 2 see what happens.
I'm pretty sure the readings are wrong.

[derFunkenstein]

It's also possible that the update *corrected* a mis-calibration of the thermal sensor.

This is most likely it. I remember getting similar resutls from BIOS updates back in the Socket A era because they didn't get it right the first time.

[dale77]

It's also possible that the update *foobarred* a calibration of the thermal sensor.

[just brew it!]

It's also possible that the update *foobarred* a calibration of the thermal sensor.

Yup. But in general, BIOS updates fix more things than they break, so the odds are against it.

[RAMBO]

yeah. I'm having d same problem with d p67a-gd55. Because d CPU area is totally cool with d cooler i hv.
I touched with my fingers.
but it reports 39ºC. The BIOS is d first one yet, i will update to d last one 2 see what happens.
I'm pretty sure the readings are wrong.

I didn't touch anything just updated via the desktop utility in ASUS SUITE 2. Now my CPU reads lower then my mobo sometimes, it never did that before. The mobo was a good 4 to 8 C lower than my CPU before the update. Every once in a while it goes to 40 C under load for the CPU, the mobo stays at 36 or 38 C while under load. These temp fluctuations are getting me on edge. I did not set my BIOS settings to default when I updated, can't remember if they went to default after the update or not. If this is an error will it hurt my mobo or other components in my PC?

[just brew it!]

Depending on what component the mobo sensor is reading the temperature of (VRMs probably?) it may be perfectly normal for it to be higher than the CPU core temp. VRMs can run pretty hot, and the MOSFETs in the VRM circuits are designed to take a fair bit of abuse. Even if the CPU sensor *is* reading 10C low, there's no reason to panic because A) your CPU temp would still be OK regardless; and B) Intel's CPUs have built-in thermal throttling.

It is generally a good idea to clear the CMOS settings after a BIOS update. If you think this may not have happened automatically, it wouldn't be a bad idea to do that (and then manually redo any tweaks you had made to the BIOS settings).

[imtheunknown176]

I have a P8P67 Pro. My CPU temperature in the BIOS (still using the older version) is around 40C. The AI suite reads around 33C at idle in windows which seems like a normal idle temperature for my cooling setup. I always assumed there was some issue in BIOS, as I have seen the same thing elsewhere on P8P67 mobos. Apparently they did something to fix the BIOS temperature issue in the newest version. Weird that they don't seem to have version information apart from "improved system stability."