Huron River Quad One Core Significantly Cooler Than Others

Quick question: My fourth core idles 7-8C cooler than the others, which are always within 1-2C of each other. Under load it is 11C cooler than Core#1.

This seems like a lot. Am I overreacting or is this worth RMA'ing to have the heatsink reseated/whatever?


TIA

 

As long as all cores are within safe temps, I wouldn't worry about it. On my wife's dual-core desktop, core 1 runs about 5-6 degrees hotter than core 2 at full load, been that way since I put it together and never had any issues.

 

It's fine, there's always that one errant core that runs a little cooler/hotter than all the others. It's happened with every dual-core/quad-core I've come across. Reseating the HS probably wouldn't make a difference in terms of making the errant core more in line with the others.

 

OK, next question. Core 1 got up to 87C while playing Bad Company 2. Seems pretty hot too me, though less than the Tj max of 100C. Should I be worried?

 

That's fine, it's a notebook and it tends to get pretty hot while under intensive use. It's designed to handle such temperatures and as long it's not getting near the automatic throttle temperature you are fine. Mobile chips are designed to take more heat than desktop chips.

If you want you can visit the HP forum and survey other folks with the same hardware and see how their temps look like while gaming if you want reassurance.

 

Isn't it due to location of the thermistors?

 

I disagree. Both my Toshiba and Asus never exceed 62C load temperatures for the CPU.

You're right - a notebook is designed to take much more heat than a desktop. But, with a cooling system that cant keep a processor at a reasonable temperature, I'd be worried more about the GPU, which is exponentially more prone to failure as the temperature is increased. In short, you're potentially shortening the life of your components by a significant amount, if preventative measures aren't taken.

 

This happens mostly because of uneven distribution of the thermal paste. I was observing the same on my Core 2 Duo where one of the cores was consistently hotter than the other and I re-applied the thermal paste carefully and they now report almost the same temps (+/- 1C).


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Not to mention the temperature sensors are fairly inaccurate.

 

not mention again that he uses a hp dv6, which we all know have a great job of not cooling anything

 

Well, it's pretty obvious that not all notebooks cool themselves equally, that being said, that is why mobile chips are resistant to higher temperatures.

 

They are not any more resistant than desktop or server processors. It's all the same silicon.

 

You also got an HP notebook which are notorious for poor cooling system designs and overall overheating.

 

My dv6 was exactly like that, including going to 87C while gaming. Now, my GPU goes to 90C and one of my cores says it reaches 104C*! While others are quick to blame HP, I know that there are people with dv6's which max out at 75C. I vote RMA, or better yet, return it if you still can and buy from a manufacturer that gives a damn about quality control.



*I'm not sure how accurate that is, since it doesn't seem to be throttling at all.