# Intel E3 1230v2 idle temperature



## alie (Jan 27, 2015)

Hi,

Anyone having Intel Xeon E3 1230v2 under FreeBSD? if yes, please share your idle temperature with `sysctl`.

I do need the information to compare with my system since I do suspect made mistake with thermal paste when I compare with http://img.crimsonskulls.co.uk/VID2.png?t=1377614330. Yes I know its from Windows but I have no other sources.


```
root@muma-cache:/usr/home/alie # sysctl -a | egrep -E "cpu\.[0-9]+\.temp" && hwstat | egrep -E "CPU[0-9]"
dev.cpu.0.temperature: 33.0C
dev.cpu.1.temperature: 33.0C
dev.cpu.2.temperature: 39.0C
dev.cpu.3.temperature: 39.0C
dev.cpu.4.temperature: 31.0C
dev.cpu.5.temperature: 31.0C
dev.cpu.6.temperature: 38.0C
dev.cpu.7.temperature: 38.0C
  CPU0:  32.1  C
  CPU1:  32.1  C
  CPU2:  39.1  C
  CPU3:  39.1  C
  CPU4:  33.1  C
  CPU5:  33.1  C
  CPU6:  38.1  C
  CPU7:  38.1  C
```


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## worldi (Jan 27, 2015)

Could you share the case temperature and what cooler you use?


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## chrbr (Jan 27, 2015)

I think the thermal paste gains importance when heat has to be dissipated by the heat sink and the fan. When the CPU fan is off some heat is spread via the balls of the package. Some heat is dissipated via the heat sink, but it depends on the situation if there is some air flow generated by the difference in temperature. This air flow would of course support the dissipation. The power dissipation depends on the voltage. In the link the monitor shows 1.07V. I do not know if the nominal value is 1V or 1.1V, but it will make a difference. In the link there is even any indication about possible activity of a CPU fan. 

If you think that you have applied too much of the thermal paste it is no problem to remove that with a tissue or so. The thermal paste just should fill tiny gaps between the metal of the CPU and the metal of the heat sink. Too much of the paste is bad for the thermal flow and the heat dissipation.

I would really really worry if the core temperature indication under some load would be very high and the air flow of the CPU fan would remain rather cool. Then there would be a serious issue with respect to the heat dissipation. Please check the temperature under normal operating conditions. If this is ok verify that under heavy load. But may be you get additonal figures from other users which might be more helpful than this post.


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## SirDice (Jan 30, 2015)

As far as I know an idle temperature somewhere between 30 and 40 degrees Celsius should be fine. Most of my systems run at that temperature. I do have a few servers in a rack under my desk that run a little hotter, their CPU temperature usually hovers around 55-60 C. This is mostly because the heat isn't properly taken away and tends to build up under my desk. Higher ambient temperature simply means a higher CPU temperature too. I could add more (or bigger) fans but this gets too noisy. The higher temperature is still well within the specifications so I opted for a more silent (but hotter) solution. 

I'd be more worried about what the temperature does when you push the machine. If it gets anywhere near 80 C turn it off! I already killed a graphics card in my HTPC, that ran around 90-100 C when I was gaming. Needless to say it didn't take long for the card to stop functioning.


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## alie (Feb 1, 2015)

I am using Liquid Cooler "Cooler Master Nepton 140XL" with dual fans but unfortunately I didn't take note CPU temperature when the CPU used default heat sink and fan from Intel 

Yes I just noticed 36-39 C temperature due to ambient temperature because the system temperature was lower when its raining around 29-35C per core.

The system ran around 55-59 C when I was running `burnP6` for all CPU cores for 15 minutes which is acceptable.

I was trying to setup a machine with 6 HDDs for NAS and Video transcoding with Plex for my home use.


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