Samsung Series 7 Chronos one core running much hotter than other in Prime95

Hi all,

Having a bit of an odd problem with my Samsung Series 7 Chronos. It is running a Core i5 3210M CPU (two core four thread), and when using Prime95, one core is running about 10-15C hotter than the other, and going over 90C, causing the CPU to throttle.

Does anybody know why this might be happening?

Thanks in advance.

 

I *may* have solved this myself. The thermal paste appears to have been shot. I've repasted the machine and now the hottest core is still maxing in the low 90s on Prime95, with around and 8C difference between the cores, but it's taking a lot longer to get to that point.

However I also have a further issue: the card reader is detecting SD cards, but reading 'no media'. These SD cards are confirmed good, working in another laptop. Does anybody know how to fix that?

 

1. There has been this long discussion about uneven core temperatures which pointed to uneven contact by the heatsink. On that basis I would have suggested removal of heatsink, repacting and replacement, which you have already figured out for yourself.

2. Regarding the SD card, I wonder if one of the contacts in the slot isn't making contact with the card resulting in the card's presence being detected but no data connection being established. I would try to make a small hook to poke into the slot and lift the contacts. You can try looking into the slot for any visible problems. The alternative is a USB card reader. The USB 3.0 versions are now reasonably cheap and likely to be faster than the built-in card reader.

John