Concerned about the temperature of my Zotac

[Sanduleak]

Hello again family.

I have a Zotac Zbox SD-ID12, specifically the model that can be seen on this page:

http://www.zotac.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images-SRW.tpl&product_id=331&category_id=171&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=100295&lang=en

What worries me is that today I put the coretemp on it (mostly to play around, because it has never had a single failure) and the temperature of the two cores was 80º, so my alarms went off.

I've been reading around and it seems that the normal operating temperature of the atom is practically that, coretemp gives me Tj.Max 125º but even so I think it's a high temperature for such a small beast.

Should I worry? It should be noted that the computer is only used as a download center, BT, Emule and JDownloader, but yes, it is connected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (I bought it for that function thinking about low electricity consumption).

[incrediboy]

I think it's a higher temperature than normal, what kind of heatsink does it have?

[Sanduleak]

Well, I don't know what to call it, so I'll put a picture up to see if you can tell me what this type of heatsink is called:

[Franziskaner]

is the fan missing quotation marks or is it an optical illusion?
regards

[Sylver]

It seems that it was working right in that image, because it does give the feeling that it only has two blades
Apparently that piece is one of those ducts that lead the air to the outside of the box placed on the heatsink itself.
It may be that the fan or the alleged heatsink that is underneath have accumulated some dust and the cooling is more precarious than normal, it is an explanation for that somewhat high temperature, although one must always take into account that it is summer and the ambient temperature is something that all electronic devices suffer from.

Regards

[defaultuser]

@Franziskaner:

is the fan missing some parts or is it an optical illusion?
regards

That's what I'm thinking, is the fan spinning in the photo? Let's see if you can confirm that for us because the photo doesn't make it entirely clear.

As for the temperatures of that beast, it's true that it has pretty poor internal ventilation, almost like a laptop. The only thing you have to do is make sure the PC isn't inside a TV cabinet or anything like that, put it in the air on a table or something similar (not on something that emits heat) and forget about it, well as long as the fan is spinning and it's not missing any parts of course hehe.

This type of machine works perfectly in an office, in a home with a minimum of air conditioning, etc. Now if it's in a room that inevitably gets very hot and you put it in some cubicle, you risk ending up with a ruined motherboard or disk.

Because the temperature that the micro can withstand isn't really the problem, the problem is that it can end up heating up the rest of the system a lot, which has thermal limits that are much lower, and since the ventilation of the case is very poor, if it gets very hot, the micro will survive even at very high temperatures (thanks to its self-regulating active heatsink) but the disk would end up with average temperatures that would take years off its life, and the motherboard around the micro would be the same to a lesser extent.

In short, it's the typical symptoms of a laptop but less severe, so, keep it in a place where the air can easily circulate or in a cool place, keep the fluff out, and keep an eye on the average and maximum temperature of the hard drive too (as well as the CPU to know when the heatsink is getting clogged over time).

Sal2.

[Franziskaner]

that's what I say/think ;D. for me, the thing with the blades bothers me, I have photos where the blades (all of them) are seen or not seen, even photos with a "curtain" effect, but where one half is seen and the other isn't... it's true that the green LED is on, but...
regards
P.D. blessed are the defaultuser's eyes

[Sanduleak]

What you see must be an optical effect, but anyway that photo is not from my computer, but I found it searching on google, despite everything the layout is the same as in my case.

I doubt the dust issue, mostly because I've only had the computer for two weeks and I bought it new.

I did the test of leaving it off for a couple of hours and then turning it back on while having it on a well-ventilated and cool table and the result is the same, 78º at idle and 80º after five minutes of bitorrent.

Edit:

I just realized that using coretemp 64 (and not the generic one that I was using) gives me a reading of about 53º... does that make sense?

[Franziskaner]

I can only think of three possibilities:
A that those temps are normal (I don't believe it :ugly:)
B that the temp core is marking it wrong (of the three I've tested, it's the best)
C that the computer is poorly assembled (thermal paste, heatsink, fan)
I take it for granted that it has a warranty, right? I would go to the technical service with the MP
regards

[Franziskaner]

man …. if your micro (I haven't looked at it) is 64b architecture and you have a 64b OS installed, the normal thing is to install a 64b program, right?
to test, download the AIDA 32/64 depending on what you have installed
regards

[Sylver]

It wouldn't be the first time a team's temperature sensors were a bit fussy, which is entirely possible. :ugly:

Best regards

[Sanduleak]

Okay, I just saw something curious in a yank forum about the topic of temperature and the Atom D525.

coretemp returns unrealistic values ¶

The temperature value returned by the coretemp driver isn't absolute. It's a thermal margin from the critical limit, and the greater the margin, the worse the accuracy. It isn't really returning degrees Celsius. At high temperatures, the (small) thermal margin is almost expressed in degrees Celsius, but at low temperature, the (high) thermal margin is no longer expressed in actual degrees Celsius.

So, if the temperature value reported by coretemp is unrealistically low, all it means is that you are far away from the critical limit so your systems are running totally fine and cool and you don't have to worry at all. Unfortunately, there is no way to improve the readings, this is a hardware limitation.

Additionally, the critical limit value may be wrong on some CPU models. We may be able to address this problem over time, but again it's not really a problem in the first place. All that really matters is how far the measurement is from that limit. If the difference is above 40 pseudo degrees Celsius (again these are not real degrees Celsius!) then you're safe.

Apparently what coretemp does is calculate the temperature at which the processor is based on the maximum tolerances of the same, which explains why in one version of coretemp and in another the values read are different, because in one it detects as maximum temperature 125 and in another 100.

In any case it seems that I am a little above half of the maximum tolerated by my processor, which (whether you want it or not) calms me down a bit.

By the way, Aida64 gives me the same readings as the normal coretemp, around 75-80 degrees.

[incrediboy]

don't worry, apparently everyone is marking the temperature wrong and what affects you would be a normal temperature ;D

[Sanduleak]

Many thanks incrediboy (and the others too), I am a bit more relaxed because after all night downloading at full capacity the temperature is maintained at around 53-55 and if you put your hand on it it doesn't seem to be excessively hot (Yes, I know, taking the temperature this way is like putting your hand to a sick person's forehead and diagnosing typhus with that data alone, but one is that silly).

[krampak]

I just tested core temp on an Atom 330 and it shows 78ºC at idle so...

[defaultuser]

Haha, making sure the temperatures are right is such a hassle so often.
Those who have oc guides out there should add an appendix mentioning this particular issue of getting reliable readings.

@Sanduleak, beyond getting reliable temperature readings (which is a topic on its own), keep in mind that that micro can get really hot, if it has a lot of margin the engineers won't go crazy trying to cool it more because it's not necessary. And if it gets up to 70 or 80 real degrees the micro will be fine and it's normal, the only slightly bad thing about always being like that would be that the rest of the pc would also be hot, nothing more.
And considering that it could work perfectly near 100º if you push it, I would slowly approach the heatsink just in case, don't want it to be too hot.;D