Can anyone help out with confusing temperature readings?

Long story short: The fan on my Dell Vostro 1720 was starting to make strange noises so I picked up a new one from eBay, to replace the fan needed I to remove the heat-sync and thus decided while I was doing that I may as well replace the thermal paste (I got some Arctic Silver 5, Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver.. | Ebuyer.com)

After fitting the new fan and changing the paste I turned the laptop on and began using it, after about 3 hours I noticed it *seemed* a little hotter than normal - I purchased Everest and started looking at the temps of my Core2Duo P8600.

Everest on average reported the following while the computer was idle.

CPU Temp: 59c
Core1 Temp: 49c
Core2 Temp: 50c

I'm confused as to what the temp of my cpu actually is.... is it 59c (CPU temp) or 49c (Core1 Temp)? I know Intels can survive up to 100c but just wanted to make sure my cpu was not too hot.

Also do these temperatures seem ok? using the stress test for 20mins the CPU Temp went up to 71c at max

Thanks in advance.

 

An idle temp of 59c is a little high, but nothing to worry about, the 20min stress test with a maximum of 71c is very good, all looks fine to me.

 

Those idle temps seem too high, do you know what they were before? Sorry for the obvious question, but is the fan actually working like the old one (while it was good)? I have a P8400 and while idle it only sits a few degrees above ambient temperature. Note that if the DTS isn't calibrated it could well be reading lower than the real temperature while idle. Check some of your other temperatures like the hard disk to see if the internal temperature of the notebook is abnormally high.

What did you use for stress testing? Linpack can be run using something like IntelBurn or Linx with 1024MB of mem selected and say 5 runs to get a good idea of stress temperatures.

 

Thanks guys, I did not check what they where before which is why I'm confused now. I don't want to be running my cpu at a high temp if I can get it lower.

The new fan seems to be on more than the old one, thermal paste looks like the culprit here, I fear I may have used too much - may look into getting some more and starting again.

 

The artic silver website recommends a simple entire core spread, for mobile core 2 duo processors.

http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appmeth/int/ss/intel_app_method_surface_spread_v1.1.pdf

 

Thanks, yeah I think I have used too much.

I have just ordered Akasa AK-MX004 from eBuyer ( Akasa AK-MX004 High Performance thermal compound and.. | Ebuyer.com) and will replace the thermal paste in the morning when it arrives, hopefully the Arctic Silver will come off easily!

 

Yet again any posting of CPU/GPU temperatures without ambient room temperature doesn't mean anything.

If your ambient room temperature is 50C and your idle is 49C then that means it is really cool. If your ambient room temperature is 20C and your idle is 49C then you have a major problem.

 

You beat me to it (and in bold no less); and that was my first thought as well.

 

That is only part of it. Each cooling system is different as well. You can really only compare it against your own previous temps.

 

Nonetheless still affected by ambient room temperatures. And that isn't putting anything into perspective. If he lives in a very warm country/state then him temperatures may not be bad, thus why ambient room temperature is critical to determining if his CPU is indeed overheating.

 

Dude, I didn't say it wasn't!

 

First of all I'm new here, so was unaware I had to post Room Temperature.

Secondly I had already stated above your post that I had solved my problem (too much thermal paste)

Apologies if I have misunderstood your post, however I found it a little rude.

Anyway thanks to Tinderbox (UK) and Dufus for providing helpful posts, without knowing room temperature I must add

 

I wasn't trying to be rude, just we can't help you without all the information. Almost all thermal paste have a burn in period, so be wary of that.

 

Just to update the thread, I changed the thermal paste this morning and the laptop is now running at a much lower temperature (49c idle).

Thanks for your help guys.

 

What is your ambient room temperature? Also what processor is it?

 

Succinct perhaps, but hardly rude.

Although your question can be answered, it is done so only generally, and taking a great deal for granted. but knowing the ambient temperature it would take out the guessing, and have a great deal more value.

If might help some others to know this OP.

 

Well I could see how that might come across as

If the OP thought ambient was important he would have likely posted it so in that case maybe just asking the OP "what's your room temperature?" would suffice. I've made posts that have come across the wrong way (taken differently than how I meant them), it happens. Maybe even this post.

Regarding the room temperature though, don't you think the idle temperatures were too high for room temperature to be in the equation? I live in a hot country where room temperature is quite often above 30C and I could not even imagine someone sitting and using a laptop in a room of 40C let alone 50C. Out of interest what would you consider an acceptable idle CPU temperature with a room temp of 35C using a C2D P8600?

IMHO Trottel was right on the money. There are a lot of factors to try and determine whether the OP is running hotter than normal for him. TBH I still feel that it may be a little warmer than normal (just guessing) but at least it's cooler than it was.

BTW the OP did say what the processor was in his first post.