Thursday 17th June 2010
Kudos to Kustom PCs
Recently I have been having trouble with my i7 desktop/server box overheating. When I first built it, the sensors output looked like this:
$ sensors coretemp-isa-0000 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 0: +41.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0001 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 1: +36.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0002 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 2: +37.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0003 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 3: +36.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0004 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 4: +40.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0005 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 5: +37.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0006 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 6: +37.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0007 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 7: +36.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) it8720-isa-0290 Adapter: ISA adapter in0: +1.04 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in1: +1.52 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in2: +0.14 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in3: +3.02 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in4: +0.14 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in5: +0.10 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in6: +0.10 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in7: +2.16 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) Vbat: +3.07 V fan1: 2033 RPM (min = 10 RPM) fan2: 0 RPM (min = 0 RPM) fan3: 0 RPM (min = 0 RPM) fan4: 0 RPM (min = 0 RPM) temp1: +39.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) temp2: +26.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +60.0°C) temp3: +43.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) cpu0_vid: +2.050 V
In the last week or so, temperatures went up significantly, so much so in fact that the on-board temperature alarm had been going off when the machine is busy:
$ sensors coretemp-isa-0000 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 0: +61.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0001 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 1: +61.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0002 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 2: +60.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0003 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 3: +61.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0004 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 4: +61.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0005 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 5: +61.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0006 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 6: +60.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0007 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 7: +61.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) it8720-isa-0290 Adapter: ISA adapter in0: +1.04 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in1: +1.65 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in2: +0.18 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in3: +3.01 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in4: +0.30 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in5: +0.11 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in6: +0.16 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in7: +2.16 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) Vbat: +3.28 V fan1: 915 RPM (min = 10 RPM) fan2: 0 RPM (min = 0 RPM) fan3: 0 RPM (min = 0 RPM) fan4: 0 RPM (min = 0 RPM) temp1: +45.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) temp2: +48.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +60.0°C) temp3: +59.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) cpu0_vid: +2.050 V
The reason would appear to be that the CPU fan was going at less than half the speed it had been originally, and never sped up even when the CPU was very hot. So the first thing I did was to clean out the inside of the machine, get rid of all of the dust, unplug and reconnect the CPU fan etc. It made not a jot of difference. I figured one of two things were wrong: either the CPU fan was faulty or the motherboard (a Gigabyte EX58-UD5) was making it run too slowly. Given that the former has moving parts and the latter doesn't, I thought the CPU fan was the most likely culprit. The CPU was bought retail from Kustom PCs in Ayr - they had the best price at the time I bought it and the CPU cooler came with the CPU. I had purchased the motherboard elsewhere. I emailed their Technical Support and quickly got a response back from Graeme, who was going to check what speed the stock cooler ran on a machine there. He found that it should indeed be running faster and mailed me a replacement cooler the next working day. Today I changed the cooler (a fiddly job since I had to extract the motherboard from the case in order to be able to safely apply enough pressure on the cooler retaining clips to get them to go in properly) and the new fan ran at the expected speed:
$ sensors coretemp-isa-0000 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 0: +44.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0001 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 1: +46.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0002 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 2: +43.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0003 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 3: +39.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0004 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 4: +44.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0005 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 5: +46.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0006 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 6: +44.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) coretemp-isa-0007 Adapter: ISA adapter Core 7: +39.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C) it8720-isa-0290 Adapter: ISA adapter in0: +1.04 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in1: +1.65 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in2: +0.16 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in3: +3.01 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in4: +0.16 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in5: +0.11 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in6: +0.10 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) in7: +2.16 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) Vbat: +3.26 V fan1: 2027 RPM (min = 10 RPM) fan2: 0 RPM (min = 0 RPM) fan3: 0 RPM (min = 0 RPM) fan4: 0 RPM (min = 0 RPM) temp1: +40.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermistor temp2: +30.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +64.0°C) sensor = thermal diode temp3: +48.0°C (low = +127.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermistor
So, kudos to Kustom PCs for their excellent customer service. I will have no hesitation in buying from them again. They didn't want the faulty cooler back either by the way.