Phenom II 955 BE temps & OC

[fr0wn3r]

Ello ppl!

I'm posting instead of my friend. Well, he asked me to oc for him his 955 BE, which is cooled by CM GeminII S. Ofc, I don't expect some max oc with that cooler...
I need some info on this CPU's temps. Can any of you please tell me what are idle/load temps for this CPU @ stock frequencies, considering it's summer.
Btw, I'm not familiar with AMD CPU's, last time I dealed with them was Duron core 1 GHz CPU I had during P3 era.

Anyway we did a little check of temps last night, while drinking before going out, using Everest and a few other programs and we noticed idle temp of 49-50 C. Well fast action was required and I replaced the TIM using AC MX-4 cleaned loads of dust and now idle temp is around 38 C. We found the old TIM almost curing everywhere and verly little of it was left on CPU heatsink.

Is this a good temp is my question now? Room temp was 23-26 C, case is CM 690 with stock cooling, meaning only one 120mm side fan cooling GPU, one 120mm at the back and one 120mm at the front.

Thanks for your replies.

[Panther_Seraphi]

38 at idle is still a little higher than i would like. Most AMDs dont like going near 60 and starting throwing some screwy fits around that temperature.

[fr0wn3r]

Yeah, that's what I thought... Damn, don't understand what's going on... Well, these days when it's really hot and ambient temp is around 30 C it idles at 41. Gonna check TIM again, dunno... Maybe I've put too much of it.

Thanks for the reply Panther! Appreciate it.

[BeepBeep2]

Your idle temps are completely fine. The dual cores idle around ~30, the quads are usually 35-40 on air. I got 31c idle on my 965BE with my water loop.
Load temps are what really matters.

I used to run a Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer with MX3...at 3.9 Ghz / 1.5v temps on idle were 41c and load 57. That was a horrible CPU...

Panther is right though, usually if someone has 4 Ghz at 65c load temp, their CPU would do a LOT more if they brought it under 55-60c. My CPU got screwy right at that 57c mark, and actually started scaling backwards.

[fr0wn3r]

Ok, this gave me some piece of my mind. Friend is on vacation but we will test the CPU on load next weekend when he comes back. Stock frequencies and under load. Any recommendations what we should use as load software and temp measurement for AMD platform?

[Panther_Seraphi]

Prime 95 is still allrite

[fr0wn3r]

Thought so.

Prime, ruler of the Universe!

Hope we don'e fry it, we noticed load temps while gaming and few programs in background rose to 56-57 C. Though that day was very hot. Would say it was 30 C in the room since he's living under the concrete roof of a building and isolation is really bad...

[Panther_Seraphi]

well 57 is past my comfort limit on AMD and I would now be looking for ways to bring that temp down.

[fr0wn3r]

Yeah... Just don't get it why it's so damn hot... It's not the best cooler but it should be enough for cooling 955 at stock frequencies, well better than stock cooler at least.
Two more days till friend gets back than we'll do some torture testing to see what's happening, ambient temps should be lower till then also. We'll see what we get at the end.

[Panther_Seraphi]

Is it a C2 or C3 revision 955 and what is the stock voltage at?


What speed is the fan on low or high or is it controlled by the MB.

Could you get a pic of it in situ to see if there is any airflow problems?

[BeepBeep2]

well 57 is past my comfort limit on AMD and I would now be looking for ways to bring that temp down.

Tell that to the guys loading X6's up in 60c range which is probably actual around 72

[fr0wn3r]

All I can say for now for sure is that fan is PWM controlled by MB. Not sure for CPU revision, would say it's C2 since it was bought early in 2009 I think but will check it. And since I assembled the PC, nope, no obstruction in airflow. Maybe a bit from the desk since he keeps his PC in a special compartment of it. Temps are going down here this weekend as I said and he will be back from vacation, so we will meet for sure for a beer or more and check all we need.

[Panther_Seraphi]

OK i wanted a shot of the inside of the computer so we could see how the airflow is inside it. Poor airflow can kill temps.