New System, need advice

Recently I just built a new pc, and I have never done it before. So I finally put the thing together and now I am concerned about temperatures etc.

I built primarily for gaming, and whatever else comes my way. Anyhow let me give you the specs.

I have an Antec P180 case with an Antec 500w psu, a Gigabyte GeForce 8800gt, 4 gigs patriot ram, wolfdale e8400 core 2 duo, Gigabyte S-series GA-P35-DS3L Motherboard, and a Seagate 500gb HD and a Zalman CNPS9700 LED heatsink.

Now, the worry I have is temperatures, so I installed Everest Ult Edition.
Here are my current temperatures with the side of my case off, without running any apps, aside from ventrilo and aim and everest.

Field Value
Sensor Properties
Sensor Type ITE IT8718F (ISA 290h)
GPU Sensor Type Analog Devices ADT7473 (NV-I2C 2Eh)
Motherboard Name Gigabyte EP31 / EP35 / G33 / P31 / P35 Series
Chassis Intrusion Detected Yes

Temperatures
Motherboard 36 °C (97 °F)
CPU 19 °C (66 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1 40 °C (104 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2 43 °C (109 °F)
GPU 43 °C (109 °F)
GPU Memory 35 °C (95 °F)
GPU Ambient 30 °C (86 °F)
Seagate ST3500630SV 43 °C (108 °F)

Cooling Fans
Fan #4 2419 RPM

Voltage Values
CPU Core 1.14 V
+3.3 V 3.28 V
+12 V 12.06 V
+5 V Standby 5.13 V
VBAT Battery 3.17 V
DIMM 1.87 V
GPU Vcc 3.28 V

I am wondering if they are running at the right temperatures. Now I usually play a game that is pretty intensive called Age of Conan and my GPU goes up to about 58ish to 61ish. My HD will be around 46-48 and my CPU will be around 24-25 along with the cores at about 48 49ish. Am I running too hot or in danger of burning up?

Thanks ahead of time, for any help or responses, I spent more money than I had and I really wanna keep this comp running

 

First thing you need to know about Wolfdale is that the core temps are forked. Ignore them. Just look at the cpu temp. Both in bios & in windows. Google or find here speedfan.

You don't need to concern yourself about the core temps as long as there's no instability like random restart/shutdown.

BTW, you have a decent gaming build.

 

All your temps and voltages look fine, and actually quite cool :cool. However, I'm assuming these are temps taken at idle. Download and unzip HWmonitor. Run it, and minimize it. Then start a heavy gaming session for 30-60 minutes. Exit the game, and maximize HWmonitor. It will have recorded a log of the highest temps, the lowest temps, average temps. You can configure it before you start gaming to take temp readings at specific intervals and to save all this info in a log file. HWmonitor is a standalone program (no install needed) and it's totally free to use. My experiences with it have shown it to be very accurate. Give it a shot:
HWmonitor http://www.majorgeeks.com/HWMonitor_d5842.html

:major
[dlb]

(off topic, but the 500w power supply worries me a bit. IMHO 500w is a bit low for a gaming rig, but if everything is stable through the most demanding games, then don't sweat it.)

 

Playing with my case open and a stand up fan that is pointed at my case about a foot away blowing directly into it and these are my temps...

Now what worries me has been this weird smell I have been smelling. The inside of my case is a bit tight for powersupply cables as they do not have enough slack. I think I am gonna get a different psu for more cables and more power.

But ya, the smell, i cant tell if it is electrical or something getting too hot, but it is strong and obnoxious. Maybe it is the thermal paste of the stuff i used to remove thermal, i dont know.
Anyhow, I downloaded that thing and im gonna run it for an hour and repost.


Field Value
Sensor Properties
Sensor Type ITE IT8718F (ISA 290h)
GPU Sensor Type Analog Devices ADT7473 (NV-I2C 2Eh)
Motherboard Name Gigabyte EP31 / EP35 / G33 / P31 / P35 Series
Chassis Intrusion Detected Yes

Temperatures
Motherboard 34 °C (93 °F)
CPU 28 °C (81 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1 40 °C (104 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2 51 °C (118 °F)
GPU 60 °C (126 °F)
GPU Memory 50 °C (111 °F)
GPU Ambient 35 °C (91 °F)
Seagate ST3500630SV 37 °C (99 °F)

Cooling Fans
Fan #4 2411 RPM

Voltage Values
CPU Core 1.14 V
+3.3 V 3.28 V
+12 V 12.06 V
+5 V Standby 5.11 V
VBAT Battery 3.17 V
DIMM 1.86 V
GPU Vcc 3.27 V

 

Wow those temps rock for idle but agree fully with dlb even better would be to run either 3-4 instants of MemTest, look at the pic, which will test your RAM but also push your system CPU. Run for a complete pass ~20mins and then check the HWmonitor. ANother option to make sure everything is running well is either prime95 or Orthos.

MemTest for Windows

 

DLB here is my CPUID HM

I am not sure what to paste here, so I will just use a jpeg of it

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e101/digety/comp.jpg

 

I personally like those temps and here is a reference I use for upper threshold of temps and volts:

Processor Electrical Specifications

Scrolling down we can find your CPU with an upper Temp threshold of 72.4C on the IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader, basically top of chip).

Core 2 Duo E8400
(dual 3.0GHz - 6MB) ?V
(0.85V~1.3625V) 1.55V 75A 65W 72.4° C

Looking at what you posted we can see the upper temps you hit are 42C and 54C respectively for the Cores, the IHS will generally be 5-6C lower than that so I would be happy (refer to the pic I attached of my CPU the cores are from 32-36 but IHS is 25C). If you were getting to say 62.4C (within 10C) then I would start to get a bit anxious but you are clearly at least 17C below upper threshold and are doing fine. Just keep checking it from time to time (at least once a week).

 

Eagle are you saying that if one of my cores hits 62 I should begin to worry?
Why are my cores getting so hot when the cpu itself is not going over 30?
Sorry, I do not know much about how this works.

 

Not necessarily, but I would make sure the HS if on properly, lets see what some others say. You are still well below any upper threshold.

 

the HS = heatsink? if so that was a real bastard to put on, and its huge, if anything, more paste might be needed, otherwise i am pretty sure its mounted properly. I wish I could figure out what this irritating smell is though.

 

Should only ever need a very small amount of TIM (Thermal Interface Material) about the size of a BB.....smell that DOESN'T sound good.....turn it off and have a good look!!!

 

Oh boy, bad smells are never good. :confused

I think that you need to follow your nose a bit here, this may require some time. It is likely your PSU that you're smelling, turn your pc off after some fair use and give the back of your PSU a good whiff, strong? If so, RETURN IT!! The last thing you want is to fry your components because of a bad voltage regulator.

If you can’t figure it out, maybe, just maybe, remove your heatsync (HS .. haha) and Processor, give the underside of the processor a look, is it darker than it was before? Smell funny?

Best of Luck!

 

It is weird.
The default hs is what i was originally using, but it was a pos, so I replaced it with the zalman. However what I am thinking the smell might be is the thermal paste or the product i used to remove the original thermal paste perhaps. I could be wrong, however I dont smell anything from the psu. As for removing the hs... please no, for the love of all good, that thing was a job to get on... I suppose if it keeps going this route I will do so.

As for the statement of the size of a bb, are you serious? Every source I used instuctionally said to spread an even film across the top where the hs is going to be.

Yeah I wish I knew what was up, my idle temps are about 3 higher all around than they have been as of late. Do you think psu effects this?

 

Well a lot of geeks swear by this product for TIM:

ArticSilver5

Here the instructions for the application of a Core2Duo:

How to apply Arctic Silver 5
Intel Dual Core CPU W/Heatspreader

You will note they only place a thin strip down the middle and often give the HS a little twist to remove air. I have the CNPS9500 so I know they are a bugger to mount but it gets easier over time (the clip "bends" a little).

You have to be careful not to apply to much thermal paste as many carry metalic compounds and can create a circuit if the get into contact with the wrong components. I recommend you do the mission Im afraid.

 

Question about Hardware Monitor, the one you suggested I download.
A few times already I have noticed that my max temp of my GPU is something like -2147483648 F.
WTF is that? If my card f'd up that bad, wouldnt I see something in game or whatever it is im doing? Is my card going apesht or overheating or something? Or is it simply a censor error? This really worries me.

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e101/digety/wtfvideotemp.jpg

 

Not really sure about that one.....that temp is impossible so it could be a sensor error. Try this one as well and see what happens:

GPU-Z 0.23