Massive lag

I'll try
--- Post updated ---

Looks like it, yea.

 

Yeah your PC is underclocking hugely. Theres a few threads on tech forums as to why this might happen

 

Hmm, have you checked the "Advanced Options" of the High Performance power plan? It's possible that the "maximum processor frequency" value may not be 100%, which it should be. After that I'm out of ideas.

 

Looks like it,

Can't believe I didn't check that. Fixed.

 

Wait, it worked? No more lag ingame? That's great to hear if so.

 

I wasn't even aware that this was an option in the Windows power management stuff! (Although I see it now.) @Sarahhasnolifehaha is this something you were adjusting and forgot about or what?

 

I only guessed that because I'm currently using that feature to intentionally underclock my 4790k. My CPU cooler isn't enough and the CPU (at stock-turbo 4.4GHz) will hit 80C under any intense load - namely BeamNG. My case doesn't support watercooling, nor does it support tall aircoolers, so I'm stuck at 3.0GHz until I figure something out. feelsbadman.jpg

 

http://noctua.at/en/products/cpu-cooler-retail/nh-l12/specification

 

It hits 80 degrees relatively quickly in BeamNG with only one car, which is far from full load, plus I never let it go higher by simply closing the program. In the future I will be looking at video encoding and other extremely CPU intensive multithreaded applications, not to mention I got the chip at the end of summer, so given full load across all 8 (logical) cores for a prolonged period of time during summer, it'd definitely hit 100C

Plus I really, really, really don't like hitting those temperatures, it's "safe" but really not recommended to be bumping off maximum safe speed. It's a bit like saying anything under redline is still "safe" for a car, but I really wouldn't feel safe having a car constantly pegged at 8500RPM. Not that I'm implying that CPUs can "wear out", but my analogy holds its point.

That's on my consideration list, along with this (http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/cpu-liquid-cooler/masterliquid-maker-92/). They'd be around the same price, I know the CM one would fit, but I can't be entirely sure the Noctua would fit. Either way, that purchase is a while off; I think you can understand not having $100+ lying around to throw at an already-function computer.

 

The Coolermaster product doesn't look very enticing. The Noctura thing is more my speed, but there are certainly products available for <$100 which would suit your needs.

... with that said: If the CPU isn't throttling and is operating at stock settings I personally wouldn't worry. If it's maintaining the turbo freq I *really* wouldn't worry - and I can't imagine why anyone else should worry either. FWIW I've also yet to see either an Intel or AMD CPU fail from overheating alone (and that's experience spanning many generations of CPU - older CPUs didn't have half the fancy protection current ones do).

Right now ambient is about 24c in the room my computer is in and my slightly slower CPU is operating under full load at about 75c. It's maintaining maximum boost (3.6Ghz w/ all 4 cores loaded as per Intel XTU). The stock cooler which Intel provides can keep up unless your ambient environment is way hotter than normal or you have almost no airflow through the chassis. Maybe that's the case for you since you mentioned you can't fit a big cooler, but otherwise it's just flushing money down the toilet to buy a powerful CPU and then downclock it because you feel that it's too hot.

EDIT: FWIW I was running a render today with a bit warmer ambient and also my GPU under full load. Intel XTU showed that my CPU was running at a constant ~85c while still maintaining maximum boost clock. Remember - eliminating the boost clock comes first, then thermal throttling comes later. If you've still got boost you've got a good margin.

 

I still can't agree with you. I would (and most others would) worry about a chip being near TJmax. Thermal throttling is not just a threshold where at worst you start losing performance, it's the point where the chip slows itself down to protect itself from failure. I really dislike having anything in my computer over 80 degrees, as over that temp will certainly reduce the lifespan of a microprocessor.

But I did a little experiment. I let the chip go full speed (4.4GHz boost) and put it under full load - CPU rendering in Blender. Twenty minutes later and the fan is screaming at full speed, lo and behold the chip is switching between full speed and low speed, settling around 3.0GHz.... at 94C - 98C.

So yeah, I need more cooling. The cooler I have is only a little better than stock, which by the way, will NOT keep a 4790K under TJmax.

Some proof behind me:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2706804/hot-cpu-running-4670k.html
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/desktop-pc/what-is-ideal-cpu-temperature-image-3498564/
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pc-operating-temperatures-hot-hot/

Anyway, I'll look into that Noctua, they're really pricey but they're certainly quality. You're probably right about the CM one, but I'll wait until it's released since it'll probably be cheaper.

 

Are you certain that you don't have the same retention pin issue that SneakyRed admitted to finally finding in post #13 of the first thread you linked to? It's a common problem and it's easy for it to happen!

Thanks for providing links (and doing the experiment!). Generally speaking, I'm ready to be proved wrong. If my response comes across as either pedantic or like this XKCD it's not intentional. And sorry for writing a novel here - I'm updating my own knowledge on the subject as I write.

Firstly I'll say that I generally don't trust the people on hardware websites (especially forums) as much as I trust Intel. Let's take a look at Intel's 4th Gen Core datasheet Vol. 1. The beginning of Chapter 5 has an easy to read section outlining things and 5.1.1 has a thermal profile which applies to both of our processors and section 5.5 has a chart with a footnote (5) which explicitly states that Maximum TCase Thermal Profile (y = 0.33 * Power + 45.0) is the specification that must be complied to for our CPUs. (oddly enough, your 88W TDP CPU seems to exceed the platform's TDP! maybe it was revised in another document)

So Intel backs you up, this formula indicates that I should keep my 84W CPU running at <72c.

With all that said... Oddly enough, I am running the same CPU as the author of the first link - and I'm running the stock cooler. Somehow he's getting 10c hotter than I am at the same ambient temp and I doubt that his loads are heavier! (turns out his HSF assembly was improperly mounted) In fact, I intentionally have my (medium sized) chassis setup with only a pair of slow 140mm intakes - very little airflow through the chassis. This build is now 2 years old and has been running with this configuration since it was assembled. I originally intended to build for low noise but never completed the build because the operating environment is already noisy. (The stock Intel HSF should have been replaced with a less noisy one.)

Furthermore if we look more closely at that document I linked to above... Chapter 5's intro section simply says that exceeding TCASE maximum "may affect the long-term reliability of the processor and system". It then goes on to describe, 2 paragraphs later, that Intel has implemented a thing called Adaptive Thermal Monitor. This thing kicks in at 100c for our CPUs. I'm not really sure what to think about that. I'm actually very confused by the phrasing used in section 5.7... in the first paragraph it's made clear that TCC's activation temp must be exceeded (100c in our case) for this feature to kick in... but the third paragraph goes on to say that an under-designed cooling solution which is unable to prevent excess TCC activation "may" cause the processor to exceed the maximum specified TCASE temperature. Who are they fooling? TCC activation is already > TCASE max.... weird.

Interesting notes from my dive into this document:

• (section 6.9) THERMTRIP# is 130c - which is higher than maximum storage temp (125c)! At 130c it will shut itself off to "protect itself".
• Oddly enough, if we read the item above that, PROCHOT#, we see this terminology: "its maximum safe operating temperature. This indicates that the processor Thermal Control Circuit (TCC) has been activated" - odd since this is at odds with what Intel was saying elsewhere in the document. More on this in my wrap-up.
• (section 5.10) Turbo Boost... "Turbo is invoked opportunistically and automatically as long as the processor is conforming to its temperature, power delivery, and current specification limits." ... following up on that in 5.10.1 we find this gem "Uncharacterized workloads may exist that could result in higher turbo frequencies and power. If that were to happen, the processor Thermal Control Circuitry (TCC) would protect the processor." ... right. Protect it at 100c? Guess so. I think that there's a rather large hysteresis implemented, but still.
• (Figure 21 in section 5.4) I think this is the figure (and chart below) demonstrating the big hysteresis - Intel allows the CPU to exceed the 'profile' by 20c!
• Another good one - "To prevent possible permanent silicon damage, Intel recommends removing power from the processor within ½ second of the Critical Temperature Flag being set." So more than 0.5s at 130c could possibly cause permanent damage.

While it's clear that I'm being "bad" by running my CPU >80c, I seem to be getting away with it. Folks at places like SPCR have been getting away with that sort of thing for a long time AFAIK. For now I'll go back to my own refrain: I have yet to see an Intel/AMD CPU fail or degrade below stock performance levels from heat. In some cases this includes years of abuse. For example I've seen Pentium 4 or Pentium D processors where the stock HSF assembly had one or more retention pins broken for months or years and the CPU was still fine. In my experience motherboard (system board / planar board) failure is much more likely from a hot CPU than CPU failure is.

All things considered I'm still very comfortable with what I'm doing for myself. I might think twice before filing a warranty claim, but otherwise everything seems basically workable - Intel clearly feels that bouncing off of 100c occasionally is workable and even implies that this will happen in OEM setups (section 5.7 third paragraph).

For you, clearly you're bouncing off of TCC (100c) using the first failsafe (TM2). That shouldn't be happening. I'd check, double check, remove, and re-seat my HSF assembly if I were you... assuming that you have chassis airflow. (If not... a bigger & better HSF won't do much either.)

 

Wowza, that's quite the post. This is why I love these forums, so many proper discussions where everyone learns things.

With the safe temperature range resolved, the only thing I have to say is that I know my cooler is mounted right because I admit, I gaffed it the first time and when I re-mounted it I was meticulous in installing it. To be fair, the push-pin system is godawful in every way especially when the cooler itself overhangs the pins, but in my case I still have decent idle temps (28C - 30C) and temperatures don't instantly shoot to the max like they did when my cooler was improperly installed, which leads me to believe the cooler itself is at fault. Especially with two 120mm fans exhausting right next to it.

My cooler is a Rocketfish ripoff of the Hyper TX3. From my knowledge the TX3 was a great mid-range air cooler, but I have growing suspicions that the Rocketfish variant's copper heatpipes are not actually heatpipes and are actually just copperplated solid aluminum bars. Or maybe it's the fact that the direct contact heatpipes have huge gaps that means very little touches the CPU. I wouldn't have used it had it not had it not proved itself with my i5; the included fan is excellent, the thermal paste was decent, and overall temps with the i5 were pretty good (65C max). Thinking back though, my i5 had every power saving feature enabled, I never gave it any serious workloads (that's what the i7 is for), and it's much lower voltage than the i7.

Anyway, I need a new cooler, case closed.

Regarding actual impact of high temperatures: you're probably right in that it's not really going to damage your computer. Plenty of folks run their chips at >80C, after all. I have a junker rig with a Celeron 440 and a broken CPU cooler and it's really never under TCase during operation (though I couldn't care less since I'd like an excuse to put it on the side of the road). Unfortunately for me, it's been a year and a half of semi-frequent use and it still hasn't croaked. Considering that I got it with the broken cooler, it'd definitely been operating at >90C for most of its life.



That's the Celeron rig in all its glory, possibly worthy of /r/shittybattlestations, but nevertheless it works.

-I've hijacked this thread enough; perhaps it should die.

 

Wait. Is that a Point Of Sale PC?

 

Pulled it out of an e-waste dump, so probably. No hard drive came with it, and it was stripped of most things (ram, disk drive, etc).

 

120mm exhausts by the CPU cooler? Probably air starving it mate.

 

It's an EVGA Hadron. Two exhausts at the top, the bottom and side panel are open mesh. My setup looks something like this, plus GPU and such:


(not my pic)

 

I agree, pushpins are terrible. Heatpipe direct touch has proved itself well on many coolers, but I don't know how well it works when it's done poorly. I wouldn't be too concerned about it really, the IHS probably helps... as long as there's some flat area on the heatpipes and sufficient mounting pressure. So maybe crappy pushpins + crappy flats + gaps = generally bad? But I doubt that's the real issues, see below.

There are a large number of factors which govern whether heatpipes have the desired effect. In your case I think it's safe to say that the heapipes are saturating (after all - they were effective with the lower powered CPU but seem unable to shift the required amount of energy for the more powerful CPU). Again, many reasons for that to be the case.

On your particular cooler the heatpipes are the only path for heat to travel from the base to the fins. Once they saturate thermal resistance will increase - I believe it will act much like copper pipes rather than the drastically lower number you'd normally get from functioning heatpipes. Once you hit that point with a tower style cooler you are significantly worse off (as compared to a 'traditional' heatsink) due to that weak link in the thermal path.

With two 120's there I'd suggest trying the retail CPU cooler. This may be counter-intuitive because the stock heatsink won't have as low a measured thermal resistance but the upside is that without heatpipes it cannot saturate! In other words I'd expect the measured thermal resistance above the point of your HSF's saturation to be higher than a the stock (traditional style) heatsink measured at the same wattage. After swapping I would be surprised if your top end temps were not reduced, especially with 2x 120mm exhausts moving a fair amount of air away from that area. I'm always ready to be wrong about something, but IMO it's worth trying if you have the cooler - this situation must be both a pain and frustrating as well. Wouldn't it be amusing if the new cooler you so badly needed was the OEM one? (It'll still be really noisy of course!)

I have some more thoughts which dovetail into my reply to SixSixSevenSeven's post:

There's a large plenum which the HSF uses for both intake and exhaust... so it can't be air starved. If anything might be air starved it would be the exhaust fans. I wouldn't be too worried about that though.

With that said, maybe there is an issue with either stagnant or recycled air around the cooler. This may even be what SixSixSevenSeven was getting at. Whether it's a major factor or not , improvements could likely be made by fashioning partitions. In extremely low airflow PCs this is sometimes done to ensure airflow in areas where the air would normally be completely stagnant. I think that there's plenty of airflow in this chassis, but ... nah, I looked closer at the Hadron, which I've examined before, and I just don't see it. Looks like a perfectly fine airflow pattern and I doubt that partitions would do much considering that the two 120's should be moving something in the range of 100-200cfm total (or more). So back to my comments above... try the stock OEM HSF if possible.

And yeah... maybe best to stop this terrible hijack. ;-)