Is This Computer Reporting The Wrong Temperature?


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Yesterday a new computer that I'd bought for a friend arrived, nothing fancy, mainly just for general browsing and a bit of LoL, everything was running great till I noticed in the BIOS that the it was reporting that the CPU temperature was fluctuating between 69 and 100 degrees. It has an AMD A8-5600K and was using the stock fan. I thought it was a bit strange since it should probably idle about 30-40 degrees, I had a new cooler on the way anyways so I didn't think much of it. I got the new cooler today, installed it and the same thing happens. I downloaded Speccy and watched the temps, about 40 seconds after the computer has been turned on the temperature can be about 90 degrees, then slowly go down to 58 but as soon as it hits that it usually jumps straight up to 88-90 again and starts going down and then randomly it hits 103 and then jumps straight from it down to 49. I left the computer on for about half an hour of it doing this and put my hand next to the vent, cold air was coming out. So I'm guessing that the wrong temperature is being reported? And if not what could be causing it to get so hot as the stock cooler should definitely keep it cooler than that! 

 

For reference I'm using this cooler, I know it's not the best but it's pretty quiet and should be more than powerful enough to cool the CPU through what he's using it for. 

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/500936-gelid-gel-slim-silence-aplus-cooling-fan-gel-slim-silence-apl

 

Thanks :)

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Either the temperature sensor is malfunctioning or something iffy is happening with the coolers. Did you reapply thermal paste after switching the coolers?

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I enabled the smart fan in the BIOS and set the target temperate for 50 degrees and set the minimum fan speed to 50%, the fan is definitely going slower as it's now almost completely silent and it's reporting the exact same temperatures so yeah, I think it's just reading the temperature wrong. Is there any way to fix this? No updates available for the BIOS.

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Either the temperature sensor is malfunctioning or something iffy is happening with the coolers. Did you reapply thermal paste after switching the coolers?

This cooler came with pre-applied paste, cleaned off the existing paste and stuck the new cooler on.

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I enabled the smart fan in the BIOS and set the target temperate for 50 degrees and set the minimum fan speed to 50%, the fan is definitely going slower as it's now almost completely silent and it's reporting the exact same temperatures so yeah, I think it's just reading the temperature wrong. Is there any way to fix this? No updates available for the BIOS.

 

If it's the motherboard own sensor that is malfunctioning, I have no idea. Probably was damaged when assembling? Sorry. Since it's a new machine, maybe RMA? It shouldn't be a major issue but it's a malfunction on a new machine.

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If it's the motherboard own sensor that is malfunctioning, I have no idea. Probably was damaged when assembling? Sorry. Since it's a new machine, maybe RMA? It shouldn't be a major issue but it's a malfunction on a new machine.

Yupp, that's all that I could think of. I'll leave it on until I go to bed and see if I can actually feel it get hotter, if not I'll just leave it as I got it for a birthday present for him and I want him to get it on time. If it does start to feel really hot then I'll stick the old cooler back on it and send it back :) Thanks for the advice.

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Yupp, that's all that I could think of. I'll leave it on until I go to bed and see if I can actually feel it get hotter, if not I'll just leave it as I got it for a birthday present for him and I want him to get it on time. If it does start to feel really hot then I'll stick the old cooler back on it and send it back :) Thanks for the advice.

Where was my birthday present computer?!

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If it's a new motherboard the OEM may have a beta BIOS available either on the website or through direct contact.  You'd be better off asking them.

It's a MSI FM2-A55M-E33 I can't see any beta versions but even if I could I think I'd want to stay with a final build as it's for a friend. Thanks for the suggestion though :)

 

 

Where was my birthday present computer?!

You mean you didn't get it!? Damn the Canadian postal service, I sent it months ago :(

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You mean you didn't get it!? Damn the Canadian postal service, I sent it months ago :(

 

Damn, this always happens.. it's why I can't have nice things.. the post office always takes them.

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Hello,

You mentioned it hitting 100 degress; I think at that temp any modern motherboard automatically shuts down for security reasons. Strange yours didnt.

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Hello,

You mentioned it hitting 100 degress; I think at that temp any modern motherboard automatically shuts down for security reasons. Strange yours didnt.

I seen it hit about 117 degrees at one point, the mobo temperature was only 38 degrees though so the CPU temp sensor has to be malfunctioning :)

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Damn, this always happens.. it's why I can't have nice things.. the post office always takes them.

I got a "final notice" on the 7th January 2014 telling me a package I was expecting would be held at the nearest post office until 31st December 2013 and then returned...

 

Never got any other notices...and delivering the note a week after the item was returned was really useful for me. Thanks Canada Post!

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The CPU temperature sensor is an on-die register (i.e. unrelated to the motherboard). It is highly unlikely that the reported temperature is incorrect/faulty. Isolated single function failures like that simply do not occur in manufacturing. Something else has to be wrong (e.g. bad connection to the heatsink, bad chip, etc.)

 

see: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/howitworks.html

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The CPU temperature sensor is an on-die register (i.e. unrelated to the motherboard). It is highly unlikely that the reported temperature is incorrect/faulty. Isolated single function failures like that simply do not occur in manufacturing. Something else has to be wrong (e.g. bad connection to the heatsink, bad chip, etc.)

 

see: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/howitworks.html

 

Considering that everything is well placed (cpu, cooler and thermal paste) then i would guess that this is a mainboard or CPU issue; either the mainboard isn't reading the temps well (those temps are provided by the CPU northbridge) or is the CPU reporting bad temps (unlikely). The fact that this CPU can only go to 74? until shutdown and you have reported temps above that one is proving that the issue is one of those.

I would start to try to RMA the board for a new one and if the new board does report the same temp fluctuation than contact AMD for RMA the CPU.

 

Also while contacting MSI for RMA that board explain the issue to them, has it might be an internal know issue.

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Considering that everything is well placed (cpu, cooler and thermal paste) then i would guess that this is a mainboard or CPU issue; either the mainboard isn't reading the temps well (those temps are provided by the CPU northbridge) or is the CPU reporting bad temps (unlikely). The fact that this CPU can only go to 74? until shutdown and you have reported temps above that one is proving that the issue is one of those.

 

You are misunderstanding the terminology: CPU Northbridge does not refer to a physically separate northbridge chipset. It refers to the specific portion of the APU die that has its own distinct power plane and clock. Most likely all performance monitoring capabilities and PMU registers are physically located there. This is on-die and is readable directly without any motherboard intervention or capabilities. So the motherboard could not possibly be involved in generating the temperature or misreading it.

 

Regarding the temperature sensor itself, the sensor you have available on APUs (and all AMD processors for that matter) is an aggregate 'sensor' that estimates the temperature of the overall package. This temperature does not reflect individual core temperatures and as such it will not automatically cause shutoff events. Design wise, fail-safes are tied to core temperatures and will throttle or kill individual cores. For whatever reason, it's normal for the aggregate sensor to read above the rated operation range and not cause shutoff. This could be for two reasons: (1) the implemented kill range is higher than the documented maximum, (2) the aggregate temperature is not accurate. The latter possibility is not unfeasible because temperature is very difficult aggregate quickly and accurately estimate. If the aggregate sensor is relatively slow to update, it may be unable to account for finer granularity temperature swings.

 

In short, what I said before still stands.

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The CPU temperature sensor is an on-die register (i.e. unrelated to the motherboard). It is highly unlikely that the reported temperature is incorrect/faulty. Isolated single function failures like that simply do not occur in manufacturing. Something else has to be wrong (e.g. bad connection to the heatsink, bad chip, etc.)

 

see: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/howitworks.html

 

Considering that everything is well placed (cpu, cooler and thermal paste) then i would guess that this is a mainboard or CPU issue; either the mainboard isn't reading the temps well (those temps are provided by the CPU northbridge) or is the CPU reporting bad temps (unlikely). The fact that this CPU can only go to 74? until shutdown and you have reported temps above that one is proving that the issue is one of those.

I would start to try to RMA the board for a new one and if the new board does report the same temp fluctuation than contact AMD for RMA the CPU.

 

Also while contacting MSI for RMA that board explain the issue to them, has it might be an internal know issue.

Thanks for the input, I've talked to my friend and he says he's more than happy to wait to get it so I sent an RMA request to eBuyer (who I bought it from) and they said they'll call me on Monday with collection details. Hopefully it shouldn't take too long to get a replacement sent out, just put the old cooler back in it and boxed it all up. Thanks for all of the help guys :)!

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Hello,

Could you please stop marking differnt "Best Answer"s? Lets see until the issue is solved THEN mark a Best Answer? :)

I think after changing his cooler twice, the jumping around of degrees from 50 to 117, and not auto shutting down when hitting 117, the sensors are incorrect. Its not a cooling issue because that 117 his processor would problably have already been destroyed...

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Hello,

Could you please stop marking differnt "Best Answer"s? Lets see until the issue is solved THEN mark a Best Answer? :)

I think after changing his cooler twice, the jumping around of degrees from 50 to 117, and not auto shutting down when hitting 117, the sensors are incorrect. Its not a cooling issue because that 117 his processor would problably have already been destroyed...

I marked the first answer as correct because I thought the same, that the temperatures that I was getting were just not possible for operation over a couple of hours but after talking to my friend and finding out that he didn't mind waiting I decided that RMA was the best option because even if it is just reporting the wrong temperature it is a brand new machine and everything should work perfectly. So the answer that I have picked now will stay as I think it's the most informative to other people looking for the answer to this question  :)

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Hello,

I marked the first answer as correct because I thought the same, that the temperatures that I was getting were just not possible for operation over a couple of hours but after talking to my friend and finding out that he didn't mind waiting I decided that RMA was the best option because even if it is just reporting the wrong temperature it is a brand new machine and everything should work perfectly. So the answer that I have picked now will stay as I think it's the most informative to other people looking for the answer to this question  :)

The thing is that your problem has not been fully solved. You should get your board RMAd, test it, and if it works, THEN mark the best solved post.

The problem is that once a thread is "answered" people wont look at it.

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Hello,

The thing is that your problem has not been fully solved. You should get your board RMAd, test it, and if it works, THEN mark the best solved post.

The problem is that once a thread is "answered" people wont look at it.

I know what you are saying but the whole computer needs to go back, if I hear what the fault was then I'll report back but it doesn't matter if no one looks in the thread again because it's being RMA'd so any other suggestions won't really help :)

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Hello,

The thing is that your problem has not been fully solved. You should get your board RMAd, test it, and if it works, THEN mark the best solved post.

The problem is that once a thread is "answered" people wont look at it.

 

The OP is never going to know the root cause of the issue. Either getting a replacement mainboard or getting a new processor might fix it. If the replacement board fixes the issue, we know the reported temperature wasn't incorrect, that's about it. If the processor is the issue, we don't know whether its sensor was incorrect or if the processor is simply overheating (though as I said I would not believe former, given that I know a bit about processor manufacturing and that errors on die never localize to specific single piece of functionality --> if the fabrication is bad the product will simply fail in many ways).

 

Note: as I said before 100C+ reported temperatures will not necessarily cause throttling and shutoff on AMD processors. Again, this is well known for the aggregate sensor (in benchmarking) if you check around. It's hardily the first reported incident. It's probably not indicative of the actual core temperatures. Which is generally a good argument for not having an aggregate estimate of temperature and instead exposing individual core temperatures as Intel does in their processors, but I digress and I'll shutup since technically I'm shilling intel.

 

I know what you are saying but the whole computer needs to go back, if I hear what the fault was then I'll report back but it doesn't matter if no one looks in the thread again because it's being RMA'd so any other suggestions won't really help :)

 

Does that mean you are RMAing the whole machine at once (motherboard, processor, etc.)?

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Does that mean you are RMAing the whole machine at once (motherboard, processor, etc.)?

Yeah, I bought a Zoostorm computer from eBuyer (they always seem to make computers cheaper than you can build them yourself, bargain parts I know but for light use they do the job) and they said that if I send them the machine back they will have a look at it and failing that it will go back to Zoostorm and they will send out a replacement, thought it would be the easiest route :)

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Yeah, I bought a Zoostorm computer from eBuyer (they always seem to make computers cheaper than you can build them yourself, bargain parts I know but for light use they do the job) and they said that if I send them the machine back they will have a look at it and failing that it will go back to Zoostorm and they will send out a replacement, thought it would be the easiest route :)

 

I see, well do report back here if you find out which components are replaced.  (Y)

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