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I seem to have a weird issue with my CPU possibly achieving strangely high temperatures right after booting.

The problem is, I get different temp results on several different pieces of software. Is there a sure-fire way to know which of these is right?

I have a Athlon X4 880K CPU. Should mention I cleaned the PC when I noticed these numbers, but they didn't change.

Measuring temps with 4 different softwares

Mokubai
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The Last Melody
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    A (current) clock speed of ~4200MHz (and 32% utilisation) doesn't look like idling to me, though. Suggestion: Boot up the system, manually set all the fans to 100%. Then, let the system idle around (check the utilisation and clock speed with Windows' Task Manager) for a few minutes. Open HWMonitor and look at the values for a few minutes. Then, fire up some stress test. Look at the values again. This should give you a fair idea of the minimum and maximum values your system will achieve - and about which value is trustworthy. – flolilo Nov 04 '17 at 13:44
  • Turns out Antivirus was running a scan... Made me feel real smart – The Last Melody Nov 04 '17 at 14:02

1 Answers1

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First things first: Make sure that you have correctly applied the thermal paste (not too little, not too much, no air bubbles,...) and make sure that your CPU's fan is running (and is specified for your CPU).

Also note the "SOLUTION UPDATE" in this related question called "CPU Temperature sensor wrong?" that shows that heat sinks also can fail with increasing age.

Anecdote: I have two boards from the same (usually high-praised) manufacturer with different generation chipsets that both show wrong CPU temperatures - even after RMAing them. It's clear to me that the CPU is right and the motherboard is wrong because of the temperature curves:

  • In idle and with the fans set to 100%, the CPUs state that they are around 5-10°C warmer than the ambient temperature, while the motherboards believe them to have 55°C.
  • At full load (e.g. prime95) and with the fans set to 100%, the CPUs slowly heat up and get to around 80°C, while the motherboards jump around between 55°C and 57°C.

Conclusion / Answer: Believe the more realistic temperature curve. Usually, the motherboard's manufacturer's software will rely on the values from the motherboard, only, so cross-check it with tools like Speedfan, HWMonitor, etc.p.p. and their read-outs. Note that fans set to 100% are important for these tests, as an automatic fan speed will influence the CPU's temperature and vice versa.

Alternative answer: You could try to use a relatively precise laser thermometer and read the temperature of the CPU's heat sink on a place very close to the CPU - it will not tell you the CPU's temperature, but it will be (considerably) cooler than the CPU itself. So if your heat sink is 70°C warm, then your CPU will have a temperature of >=70°C. Now you know which software to trust in. Note that it might make sense to chose a lower fan-speed for this test (not too low, though!), as less fan movement will cool the heat sink down less, therefore making your readings more accurate.

Further problems with wrong CPU temperatures: The motherboard relies on its own values when it comes to controlling the fans, therefore, a value wrong value (e.g. between 55-57°C) is no good.

So if you face a similar problem, you might want to use a fan controller (software/hardware). When it comes to that, I prefer Speedfan: It is free, it supports almost every hardware, it does not eat up all your computer's resources, and it is very, very customisable. But that's just a suggestion: there are many tools out there that will do the job.

Note that Speedfan tends to overwhelm new users with all its values and options -but of course, there are guides in the internet on how to set it up, and in reality, it really isn't that complicated.

I will include a small, very incomplete step-by-step guide here:

  • CoreXY-temperatures are the ones from the CPU itself, while TempXY will mostly refer to values from the motherboard. You can rename all of them in the configuration-menu with F2 - use the motherboard's manufacturer's software and cross-check which value is which, then name them accordingly.
  • Uncheck all values that you don't need - it will make your life easier.
  • In the Temperatures-tab, you can configure which fan is assigned to which sensor - e.g. Core0 and Core1 should both have a tick on Fan CPU. Also, set up proper Desired and Warning temperatures - that way, the Automatic configuration will work.
  • Go to Advanced and select your motherboard. Change the PWM XYZ modes to Manual (and check Remember it). Now, Speedfan can control the fans.

Even worse problems occur if the CPU states higher temperatures than it actually has and if you use your computer for CPU-intensive tasks (rendering videos/3D, maybe gaming,...), because it will throttle down earlier than it would have to, in an attempt to protect itself from overheating. In my limited experience, I have not yet seen a case of bad CPU temperature readouts, and the only way to get around that thermal throttling would be to replace the CPU.

flolilo
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  • So, from the beginning, it seems the ones showing 70-80C while idling is off then? Am doing the Prime95 Stress test, will see how temperature develops. – The Last Melody Nov 04 '17 at 13:24
  • After running Prime95 and SpeedFan, I am liable to believe Speccy and HWMonitor don't play well with my CPU. Speedfan made me wonder tho, what does it mean by "Core", compared to the temp1 (assumed CPU)? Why are there two measurements for the same thing? – The Last Melody Nov 04 '17 at 13:41
  • @TheLastMelody i commented on your "idle value" below your question. As to Speedfan: I only have it running on ASUS systems with Intel CPUs, so a screenshot would help me to identify which value is which. Generally speaking, it will show you both the package- and per-core-temp of the CPU, and the CPU-temp the motherboard reads. (And, of course, many, many other things ;-) ). Normally, they are grouped by harware, e.g. CPU, motherboard, HDD, GPU,... – flolilo Nov 04 '17 at 13:50
  • Here's a Speedfan screenshot: [link](https://imgur.com/a/4aZBF) . As for the idle (current) value, it still seems to be stuck at 3900-4000 on all cores, but task manager shows 18-ish% usage – The Last Melody Nov 04 '17 at 14:07
  • I updated my answer, so it now includes the basic setup of Speedfan. As to your CPU usage: to me it sounds like there's a bigger problem beneath. That could come down to too many AV programs running at the same time, too many background tasks running (e.g. bloatware for each piece of your computer) or something malicious going on. With Firefox, Outlook and some easier background tasks open (and me typing here), my laptop idles at <3%@790MHz. That's how it should be IMHO. (Probably your AMD desktop CPU will have a higher idle clock). – flolilo Nov 04 '17 at 14:57
  • As it turns out, you apparently need to use other tools to measure AMD Bulldozer chips. Like AMD Overdrive and AIDA64, as those are known to measure properly on those chips. For example, SpeedFan is unable to measure the fan speed on my GPU, but AIDA does. And using AIDA and comparing temps, I noticed that SpeedFan shows temps, just not under the same names, but that was easily remedied. I guess the clock speed in HWMonitor has to do with the same thing? Reply to your last edit to follow. 1/2 – The Last Melody Nov 04 '17 at 22:03
  • This is the reply to your last edit: * Speedfan doesn't show separate cores, only CPU and CPU Diode. * I seem to be unable to find my MB on the chip list. Only a HDD, my GPU, ATI Video Card (no idea what this is supposed to be, since GPU is already listed) and my CPU(I think, it's in numbers). Thanks for hanging in there with me ^_^ 2/2 EDIT: Forgot this, [link](https://imgur.com/a/OlglZ) in the previous post – The Last Melody Nov 04 '17 at 22:09