Intel i7 CPU overheats

[Aurum]

We have several PCs folding and the AMDs work great. E.g., my AMD FX-8350 can run at Full power and stay at 49C. No issues whatsoever. But, my Intel i7 overheats (>90C) even on Low power. The i7 seems ok if F@H is turned off. Does anybody understand why the i7 overheats and if there's anything that I can do to prevent it??? TIA

[Nert]

Hi Aurum,

I'm no expert on any of this stuff. I do know that folding does generate a lot of heat and you need to have good cooling components. Air flow through the case and around the processor are very important as is the cooler on the processor. Here's some comparative info. from my rig: I'm running GPU and CPU on an i7 4790K with Widows 10. Utilization for all 4 cores is close to 100% (according to Core Temp). Core temps are 44 - 49 degrees C. with water cooling (Nepton 120 XL).

I'm wondering if there isn't something wrong with the cooling or airflow of your system. Did you build the system yourself ? What other hardware is in there ?

[bruce]

I'm not an expert either, but in addition to the above, two more things come to mind.
* When did you last clean the dust out of the heat sink and other passages that need a good airflow?
* Is it time to replace whatever dried-out silicon grease that provides a thermal bond between the CPU and the HeatSink? (The latest Arctic product is highly recommended.)

[Ricky]

I had the same problem with my old i7-920 desktop. I also found the "motherboard temperature" had gone up sharply along with the CPU. I would blow the dust from the case periodically over the years. My problem started about a year ago, so I replaced the heat sink, but it didn't help much. I went into the BIOS, and under-clocked it to get it to fold cool enough (65C). While this kept the temperature under control, the performance was very much effected. I retired the computer this summer. I still have this desktop, and would like to know if this is a common problem, and whether there is a good solution. The computer was in use for 7 years, maybe the bypass capacitors on the motherboard dried out.

[Grandpa_01]

Is this on a laptop ? or are you Over Clocked ? if the answer to those questions is no then it should not be overheating unless you have a dust problem in your heatsink and or restricted air flow to the case. If the heatsink has never been removed from the cpu the thermal paste should be ok but there may be some warpage that has occurred over time that a new coat of thermal past would most likely cure. Clean the old thermal past off before applying new.

@Ricky did you try resetting the bios to default settings it sounds like the voltage may have somehow been increased on you computer.

[jrweiss]

There are MANY different i7 CPUs in several generations. Which i7 do you have?

The 4th generation i7 (e.g., i7-4770K) has more heat issues than other generations. Some of them have a different thermal conductive compound inside the case which causes them to run hotter. TDP (Thermal Design Power) varies from 35 to 84 Watts, but all use the same stock heat sink & fan. Stock VID (core voltage) may run from 1.65-1.86V at max load. If you have an 84 Watt CPU with the marginal internal thermal compound, stock cooler, and bad thermal paste between the CPU and cooler baseplate, you may run into problems.

As others have indicated, replacing the thermal paste is a good first step. While you have the case open, get rid of all dust. Look at the fan configurations and assess the air flow. The flow should be generally from bottom to top, front to rear. Total intake fan capacity should be slightly higher than total exhaust fan capacity (include GPU and PSU fans if they contribute to exhaust and are in the main case volume; some newer cases isolate the PSU). Redirect and/or augment air flow if it looks misdirected or insufficient. Cheap fans may not push a lot of air, so look at air flow specs for each. Get a good aftermarket CPU cooler if you have a high-wattage CPU.

[Ricky]

@Grandpa_01,
I dropped the CPU voltage as part of the BIOS under-clock adjustments. The numerous BIOS adjustments worked as far as keeping the CPU below 67C, but the performance suffered quite a bit. The motherboard manufacturer provides an overclocking program that automatically adjusts the board's parameters based on demand (EPU 6 Engine). With the factory's BIOS settings set manually to it's lowest performance setting, I could get a cool CPU and satisfactory performance in FAH. The problem with it though; it would occasionally crash. After it's crash, the CPU temp would eventually get to 97C.

The changes I did with the BIOS was an attempt to get the same performance and temperatures as the manufacturer's program would have. But I could not find the right settings. I put in a ticket with them requesting what precise settings in BIOS would be the same as the program's lowest setting and they suggested that I get the latest BIOS download. I gave up at this point.

For many years, the computer performed well. In the last year it started to overheat just watching videos. The new heat sink helped very little. It should be noted that the north bridge was also getting hot at the same time. I assume it was the north bridge, the monitor program referred to it as 'motherboard'.

[Grandpa_01]

EPU 6 so it is a Asus board, I never liked the auto over clock features of the older Asus boards they relied on supplying way to much voltage to achieve a stable OC. In other words it was a lazy system. The board or CPU could possibly be damaged after the years you ran it using EPU, but it may not be to bad. I would reset it to default bios settings and do a manual OC on it. It has been many years since I OCed a 920 so I can not remember what settings were important now but I did have several back in those days that were on Asus boards and the all ran in the 4Gz range with far less voltage than what the EPU engine supplied.

There were allot of good guides for OCing a 920 back then just do a Google search for Overclocking a 920, who knows you may be able to get that box up and folding again.