Thermal sensor issue i7-7700k?

[CK7]

I have a brand new build; EVERYTHING NEW. i7-7700k is running at stock speeds. I have the RAM set to XMP for DDR4-2666. Motherboard is Asus Maximus IX Hero Z270.

I have found that the i7-7700k reports a momentary (a second or less) temperature spike +25 > 35 degrees Celsius anytime a program is opened, a webpage is opened, a background app runs etc. The temperature blip cascades through the cores in random order; not the same every time. This causes my heatsink fan to constantly cycle up and down. Temperatures otherwise report as steady, normal increases. Peak temperature under Prime95 blend test is 71 degrees Celsius.

Attempted solutions:

I have re-installed my heatsink and thermal paste with no change.

I have tried to manually set my fan speed in the bios. The only setting that avoids this issue is setting the temperature / fan at a constant (and loud) 80-100%. I've tried PWM and DC mode.

I have found a few user reports elsewhere on the web, all reasoning that it's just the way it is. I don't accept that. Opening a folder or browser should not spike temps +30 degrees. Not only is the fan cycling annoying, it puts undue stress on my fan; possibly shortening its lifespan.

What's the answer, if any? RMA?

[nx1]

we are on the same boat here friend.

i have never encountered those CPU spikes in every day tasks on earlier Intel CPU's. i didn't have 6700K, i did have

I7 2600K and i5 4690K.

lets leave the previous generations for a sec, do you think its normal that your CPU while in stock settings

will jump 20-30C ( from different users reports ) from doing nothing on the desktop ?

the thing is, im not talking about games or stressing the CPU. im talking about IDLE stuff

and w\e it can be fixed with a BIOS update. if Intel will relate to it and says - "that's the CPU, its safe and nothing we can do about it"

its fine by me, i will move on with my own decisions.

example : im pressing on my Firefox. it went from 31C to 58C for 2 seconds. the CPU fan is going WHOOOOOOOO

for a few seconds and than chilling. is this a normal situation for a modern CPU ? Intel, please relate to that.

if that things were happening on my early CPU's - i would have never switched my I7 2600K for another Intel CPU.

thank you.

[ASušt]

A question to you then.

Intel says (god, no, please no!) that it's totaly ok.

And you will live with fans go WHOOOOOSH every 5 seconds?

I have set a constant fan speed curve for now.

But if i will play doom all day - cooling will not be sufficient with this curve.

I can ramp my fans in BIOS settings...ok, but doom may not be the game of choice.

And I will spend my day playing solitare with all the fans WHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOSHING constantly at high rpm.

Maybe intel can provide a gas pedal for us to adjust fans' speed all the time?

[TGrab1]

Most processors see these spikes.

The 7700k seems to only have 2 states for me

idle (here it reduces frequencies)

Boost

So as soon as anything requires cpu usage it goes straight to the boost clock. This in turn generates a lot of heat on the cores which just jumped to maximum consumption. Then as soon as the task is done they go back to idle and the temps instantly fall. Part of this is because the cores are small so the voltage spike will of course almost instantly bring up there temps.. the same thing for the idle and coming down. Remember these dies are small and take very little to heat up. Also note there is not that much contact area between them and the IHS.. so the IHS doesn't even have a good chance to start absorbing much less dissipating this heat in that short period.

The next thing is that this CPU is hotter than others in the past. This is because of the smaller manufacturing process and the higher stock clock on them. So on an old 2600k which was soldered and has a bigger process your max temp was lower. So the spikes were much less noticeable.

Most CPU's will idle at roughly the same temperature depending on ambient.

So a cpu that is idling at say 30C but then jumps to 70 under load is much more noticeable than say one that goes from 30c to 55c during load. The 55c chip would also probably not trigger most motherboards to go into hysteria thinking the chip was about to overheat. That is another problem of the kaby. The temps are higher due to several reasons, but most motherboards still think 65-70 is too hot and start spinning up. When in truth 65-70 is pretty darn hot, but nowhere near the 100c maximum this chip is safe to operate at.

I just wish more motherboards had good bios settings for fan profiles on the cpu. My Asus luckily has excellent fan control stuff built in, but it doesn't look like other brands fair as well in that department.

[ASušt]

I want to hear news from intel sooo much.

[BMill15]

hey everyone again, still having temp spike issues, i was actually looking for some advice and help in my current situation, i realise my problems with the 7700k are not as extensive as some ( getting 32-36 idle and 65-70 under max load) with spikes like crazy of course. but i am now at the point where i am worried about replacing my cpu cooler fans ( weird worry i know) but i have pretty much exhausted all my money into my new build and need to add the final touches of RGB lighting to the computer. i have the antec 240mm Khuler which i am quite happy with ( not as good as the high end corsier but i went for price) but the lighting is just blue. now i didnt want to spend 100+ cash on decent 2400 RPM RGB fans ( Australia currency ) but i can get some nice 1400 RPM fans. this wasnt an issue for any of my other builds. now does anyone think that swapping out my 2400 RPM fans for 1400 RPM is going to affect my temps. im not worried about fan speeds changing consistantly as i run them all through an external controller, but i honestly cant tell if my temps are due to bad TIM or the cooler is needing the RPM to get the current temps this low. i know this is sorta a mundane question but the Processor is stock and im really over trying to figuer out what to do with this processor. i have read countless posts from you top notch blokes and gals about overclocking to reduce temps by setting manual control of voltages and whatnot but i honeslty dont have any experiance in overclocking and dont want to risk a processor i cant replace, any and all suggestions and info would be helpfull, thanks in advance everyone, keep up the great work intel cant accomplish!!

P.S intel need to get off there ass and do something about this issue, its clearly there and i think us ( forum goeres) are doing more work than they are to resolve this issue.

[TGrab1]

Brodi97 wrote:

hey everyone again, still having temp spike issues, i was actually looking for some advice and help in my current situation, i realise my problems with the 7700k are not as extensive as some ( getting 32-36 idle and 65-70 under max load) with spikes like crazy of course. but i am now at the point where i am worried about replacing my cpu cooler fans ( weird worry i know) but i have pretty much exhausted all my money into my new build and need to add the final touches of RGB lighting to the computer. i have the antec 240mm Khuler which i am quite happy with ( not as good as the high end corsier but i went for price) but the lighting is just blue. now i didnt want to spend 100+ cash on decent 2400 RPM RGB fans ( Australia currency ) but i can get some nice 1400 RPM fans. this wasnt an issue for any of my other builds. now does anyone think that swapping out my 2400 RPM fans for 1400 RPM is going to affect my temps. im not worried about fan speeds changing consistantly as i run them all through an external controller, but i honestly cant tell if my temps are due to bad TIM or the cooler is needing the RPM to get the current temps this low. i know this is sorta a mundane question but the Processor is stock and im really over trying to figuer out what to do with this processor. i have read countless posts from you top notch blokes and gals about overclocking to reduce temps by setting manual control of voltages and whatnot but i honeslty dont have any experiance in overclocking and dont want to risk a processor i cant replace, any and all suggestions and info would be helpfull, thanks in advance everyone, keep up the great work intel cant accomplish!!

P.S intel need to get off there *** and do something about this issue, its clearly there and i think us ( forum goeres) are doing more work than they are to resolve this issue.

I would have to say YES it will affect your temps. I cannot give you more details than that though without doing some more research. Things like CFM and static pressure of the fans makes a difference and also the FPI and thickness of the radiator.

In general though a lower rpm fan will move less air and less air over your radiator means less heat being dissipated. So in the end your average temp will go up by a % delta across the board. If you are going to upgrade just for the lighting you can still probably find fans in the color you are looking for. I however wouldn't advise downgrading your fans just for RBG goodness. If you just have to have RBG fans then use the blue ones for a few more weeks and save up for the 2400 RPM variant.

[BMill15]

ok thankyou man, i guess ill have to suck it up and buy 100 dollar plus fans ( i need 3)........ thanks for the advice again

[idata]

Hi,

This article is very good and may go a long way to reassuring some of you (as it has me): http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1800828/intel-temperature-guide.html?_ga=1.46991207.1146969398.1489451932 http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1800828/intel-temperature-guide.html?_ga=1.46991207.1146969398.1489451932

Here are some extracts (bold by me):

=======================

Core temperature: this is the temperature measured directly on the hot spots at the transistor junctions inside each Core by individual Digital Thermal Sensors (DTS). Although sensors are factory calibrated by Intel, the specification for DTS accuracy is +/- 5C. This means deviations between the highest and lowest Cores can be up to 10C, so "average" Core temperature is often quite realistic. Sensors are more accurate at high temperatures to protect against thermal damage, but due to calibration issues such as linearity, slope and range, idle temperatures may not be very accurate.

Core temperatures respond instantly to changes in load.

Intel's specification for DTS sensor response time is 256 milliseconds, or about 1/4th of a second. Since Windows has dozens of Processes and Services running in the background, it's normal to see rapid and random Core temperature fluctuations, especially during the first few minutes after startup.

On processors with more than 2 Cores, the inner Cores run warmer because they're insulated by the outer Cores.

====================

There's also a good explanation of the "TIM Issue", which of course has also been well covered in this topic.

Overall, I have to say that I think my concerns were not really valid as the spikes I'm seeing seem to be normal. Also, as I can run the CPU at 4.9GHz with temperatures under 80C with Prime95 Small FFT (version 265) in Adaptive mode (and higher in Manual mode), it all seems to be within spec. (Kraken X62 cooler)

Why Intel hasn't come out and explained this at the beginning of this topic is really hard to understand ... perhaps they can't be bothered even to look at or follow up the concerns expressed on this forum, which really isn't great at all.

Of course this isn't to say that some of you don't have genuinely faulty CPUs ... in which case it would seem that the TIM is the most likely culprit. The best thing to do then would be to RMA back the CPU (after making sure that your cooling solution is adequate and properly installed, of course). Unless you're into delidding, that is .

Cheers,

Robert

[ICitr]

Ra5040, thanks for this helpful input.

However, this doesn't respond to the problem at hand. If you extend what is being said, then all the people who have purchased any of the 7700 variants are all living with their fans constantly roaring up an down, and they're all fine with that. And, the small number here are especially picky people who are unreasonably bothered by loud and obnoxious computer systems. That in addition to all the many millions of other computer systems of any model who also don't have the case fans constantly roaring up and down.

What about the many people whose 7700s are not temperature spiking. Remember, the fan cycling is not a bug. The fan profiles are doing their job correctly. They're correctly revving up the fans when 70C is detected.

It really doesn't matter what the story is. For the same money, I'll take one of those non-spiking 7700Ks, thanks very much.

[ASušt]

Leave 1 from that box for me!

I didn't buy 80€ CPU cooler to hear it yell at me.

I would keep the ctock one @ max RPM instead.

I hope that Intel is quiet because they are actually looking hard for a solution, not wanting to write every day "We are working, hold on"

[idata]

I think these are two separate issues: the temperature spiking and the fans roaring up and down. If you accept that the spiking is in fact normal (which it appears to be as all of the 7700Ks do spike, mine included) then what you need to look at is the fan control. In my case I have a Kraken X62 and it controls all of the fans except for the intake fans, and these are controlled by the Asus motherboard. But none of the fans roar up and down at all ... and I can set curves for all of them to control how they respond to changes in temperature.

I don't know what motherboard you have or what fan control software you use, but I would be very surprised if you couldn't control the fans so that they don't roar up and down, either through the BIOS or through 3rd-party fan control software like Speedfan (which has built-in hysteresis control: http://www.almico.com/sfarticle.php?id=5 SpeedFan article: Advanced Fan Speed Control ).

So if I were you I would figure out how to control my fans as that seems to be your major issue, and then if you still think you're having a problem with the CPU, return it to Intel.

Hope that helps,

Robert

[idata]

I hope Intel are looking hard for a solution!

There are many reports online from users who have de-lidded the Intel processor and seen temperature drops, sometimes by as much as 20C.

I wonder if this problem is also affected by Intel chipsets in motherboards? For those who don't already know: my own Asus Maximus Gene VIII motherboard default BIOS settings with an Intel chipset will make my i7 6700k run way too hot and even fail Prime95 tests when XMP was enabled. After months of aggro, I found that changing two BIOS settings from their defaults magically fixed the problem and now I use XMP without any malfunctions or overheating issues. I can run Prime95 Small FFT's test and the CPU will only reach a maximum of 65C. The problem was the CPU voltage was too high i.e. over 1.4v!!!! Yes I always update the BIOS to the latest versions.

I won't say I don't like Intel, I love the speed my desktop and the onboard Intel Ethernet does produce lag-free online gaming. Not wanting to go off topic, the point I'm making is the defaults are causing these problems (spikes, overheating, malfunctions etc) and users are having to change things that should already be working properly out of the box. Surely the motherboard manufacturers would not knowingly have default BIOS settings which overheat/overvolt the CPU?

[cmack2]

hi Robert (ra5040),

your research to find this web article http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1800828/intel-temperature-guide.html%3F_ga%3D1.46991207.1146969398.1489451932 http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1800828/intel-temperature-guide.html?_ga=1.46991207.1146969398.1489451932 is most appreciated - lots of commonsense...

i believe your are using an ASUS mobo & AI Tweaker to adjust your settings...

would you please be kind enough - after all your effort so far... to provide us with very specific UEFI BIOS settings - in complete detail - so we can make our own sensible decisions...

detail is the key - it is not a black art - i am concerned my ASUS mobo is overvolted...

thanks for your time...

cheers, craig

australia

[idata]

Hello Craig,

First of all, I think we can expect a reply from Intel soon. I escalated my issue to Intel support and they said this:

"This behavior has been already escalated for this processor and is currently being reviewed by our engineers. As soon as there is an official answer in relation to this it will be posted in the aforementioned Intel Community Forum."

So although it seems to us that we are being entirely ignored, this doesn't appear to be the case.

As for my settings, I'm not an expert by any means and I doubt that my settings are anywhere near optimal. However I did read and follow this guide quite carefully: http://edgeup.asus.com/2017/01/31/kaby-lake-overclocking-guide/ The Kaby Lake overclocking guide - Edge Up

I first set the BIOS to default settings (ASUS Prime Z270-A) and I then overclocked to the following settings:

AI Overclock Tuner: Manual

BCLK Frequency: 100.000

AVX Instruction Core Ratio Negative Offset: 4

Sync All Cores: 49

CPU Core/Cache Voltage: Adaptive Mode

- Additional Turbo Mode CPU Core Voltage: 1.29

(I didn't set the IA AC Load Line and IA DC Load Line values to 0.01 as in the guide as this didn't seem to make any difference, and I don't understand why these values should be set ... but clarification on this would be useful).

I tested with Prime95 non-AVX-version and Prime95 AVX-version with Small FFT for at least an hour to make sure that the system was completely stable and temperatures under 80C. I also tested with AIDA64 and Intel Extreme Tuning Utility.

Once I was happy with that I enabled XMP, with the memories running at 3200MHz, and did the testing again. Everything was fine.

However I'm running the CPU at 4.8GHz, as 4.9GHZ is at the limit of what I'm comfortable with with the TIM issue. The only differences are:

AVX Instruction Core Ratio Negative Offset: 3

Sync All Cores: 48

Additional Turbo Mode CPU Core Voltage: 1.27

Cheers,

Robert

[cmack2]

thank you Robert for your prompt & detailed reply...

being nervous, i have reset my computer to stock settings @ the moment - with my H115i AIO cpu cooling i can effectively run every 'torture test' @ below 80 degrees C - gaming & intensive multimedia at far lower temps...

as we all know very well, the 7700K is sold & promoted as an unlocked CPU - also, as we all know, the mobo manufacturers are falling over themselves highlighting their particular overclocking performance - the only overclocking i have done thus far has been using my ASUS 'Fast Tuning' via Thermal Radar & EZ Tuning via UEFI BIOS (always using latest BIOS updates) - what is scary is that these ASUS 'intelligent' manufacturer overclock settings led to dangerous voltages & temperatures...

i feel - especially hearing the insightful comments from users of this forum, that the mobo manufacturers & Intel - could provide us all with more 'intel'...

we will collaboratively arrive @ a sensible solution - & we must remember this is all relatively newly released technology...

cheers, craig

[idata]

Hi Craig,

If you haven't done so already, you can buy an extended warranty from Intel for $30 which covers you for overclocking. I wouldn't have had the nerve to try without that

On my board there's a 5GHz easy overclock option ... but it's complete rubbish. Essentially all it does is set the multiplier to 50 and, not surprisingly, my CPU is not stable and hits high 80s if I try it.

With all of the pushing that the board manufacturers do re OC, ASUS had the nerve to tell me that overclocking might void my warranty when I had a question regarding setting the BIOS to XMP! I would like to see them try!

The best OC guide I've come across so far is the edgeup.asus.com Kaby Lake Overclocking Guide. But it doesn't explain a lot of the detailed settings unfortunately. It would really be very good if Intel provided a comprehensive guide ... especially as they sell unlocked CPUs and also an overclocking warranty. That would make the whole process a lot safer and less trial-and-error-ish.

There is this guide: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/how-to-overclock.html How to Overclock Your Unlocked Intel® Core™ Processor , which is better than nothing, but, again, rather sketchy, and not specific to the 7700K.

Cheers

Robert

[idata]

I just wanted to mention a bit of tuning with the Intel XTU, which is very good. As I mentioned, I have the base setup at 4.8GHz/1.27v/AVX3. Then in the XTU I set up a number of profiles, going to 5.0GHz/1.32v/AVX2. These are all stable with Prime95, both NonAVX and AVX, but at 5.0/1.32/AVX2, the temperatures are up around 80-83max (on small FFT). However applications like Photoshop run very well at that frequency, with temperatures in the mid 70s on compute-intensive tasks like upsizing. Other applications like Camtasia Studio also run well at that frequency (video rendering), but as Camtasia uses AVX instructions, the max frequency is throttled back to 4.8GHz because of the -2 AVX offset.

Applications that I don't match to a profile will run at the default of 4.8/1.27/AVX3, which is very safe on my system.

Regarding the stress testing: I've tested all of the profiles using the XTU stress test and the temperatures are in the 70s or below. With Prime95 they can go up to the low 80s, as I mentioned. My thinking here is that more generic tests like the Intel XTU stress test, AIDA64 etc., are good for long tests, while Prime95 is very good for short tests to make sure the system is stable under the heaviest loads, and that temperatures do not go crazy. But I don't think it necessary to run Prime95 for long periods (unless one is trying to find new primes, of course ). If the system is not stable, Prime 95 will fail quite quickly.

On that basis I feel happy enough to run my CPU at up to 5.0GHz, which is certainly an improvement on where I was a few days ago. I would think that going to 5.1GHz would be possible, but enough is enough, I think.

Cheers

Robert

[NNach1]

I'm just thinking out loud and maybe I am wrong but as both CPU and GPU are both coupled in the same chip, wouldn't the high temps of the CPU cores affect also the GPU temp? If that's true then I find it strange that CPU cores temperature is jumping at around 78-81 degrees at max load but the GPU is just rising with several degrees to around 58-59C.

[JAntt]

Same issue here too.

[DBux]

While waiting for an Intel answer, and because most of you have Asus MB... have any of you good settings on a Gigabyte MB? (mine is Z270X Gaming 7, last update F4). Thank you in advance.http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z270X-Gaming-7-rev-10

[WMeed]

Greetings , well i just bought an I7-7700K 3 days ago , i'm having same problems as everyone else in here , these crazy mysterious temp-spikes , i've done the test and it passed with max temp of 45° , funny thing is that my cpu can reach 51 on idle with these spikes ( which i've never experienced on any of my previous CPUs ) , 51° i used to have it runnin' a game on an I5 4470 .. anyways this situation is unacceptable and should be fix , either way i'd like to hear from you guys " Intel " if should i return this CPU because of this very bad issue that bother a lot of Intel users and downgrade to an old CPU or is there will be any fix .. heer's my SSU results