Temperature, Freezing, and Crashes

I am 61C with a lap fan. 70C with laptop fans only.

B5 will have many optimizations that will help so just hold on.

Be patient? Surely  you jest!   

Wow I think my desktop is hot when it hits 40* C, lol okay I guess I don't need to be concerned if you guys are normally running at 60*-70* C lol.

I'm inclined to think that temps as high as 75C is a bit high for GC3, at least for newer computers. Mine is about a year and a half old, and tends to run GC3 in the 35-40C range on both the CPUs and the GPU (an Intel I7-4770 and a NVidia Geforce GT 640).

 As to the risks of such high temps, I have been told that, these days, CPUs and GPUs tend to try to protect themselves from overheating by reducing their clock speeds when some specified temperature is reached. You mentioned a specification of max temp of 72.5c. With what I was told (sorry about the second hand information) the maximum heat design point (specified as Tj Max, could we call that the melt-down point) of the CPU chip is probably about 20-25% higher than that. The 72.5C specification for max temp is probably where the CPU starts declocking itself to avoid heating up to the melt-down point. (Not that this totally removes all risk, of course, but it certainly helps a lot compared to CPUs prior to the introduction of this mechanic.)

I have also noticed that the CPU and GPU usage of CIV5 BNW is much less than GC3, but it looks like there are several factors here: First, as you mentioned, the devs haven't yet shipped optimization of the GC3 code (and, yes, I would guess that it will include CPU usage and other factors, not just memory usage). Another factor is that GC3 is written in 64-bit addressing mode and Civ5 is in 32-bit mode, which gives GC3 room for a lot more data to manage. Another factor is that GC3 is already taking much better advantage of the multiple processors than Civ5 does (as shown on my CPU monitor), which can also result in more temperature. Another factor; GC3 seems to load and run much faster than Civ5, especially turn completion -- for instance, Civ 5 seams to run the AI's turn (the opposition) separately from the user's turn and GC3 (the devs have touted this) runs a lot of the AI tasks in parallel with the user's turn, reducing the time "end of turn" takes, which means more CPU usage and more heat.

One perhaps interesting feature that I didn't mention is that using HWMonitor one can see fan speeds as well as core temperatures.    At no time did has my CPU or GPU fan speed (at least as reported by HWMonitor) changed from 50%. even though at least at one point I noted a max core temp of 73 C.   I would expect if the system really thought it was red-lining that  fan speeds would increase.    I believe, although I didn't have a monitor program running at the time, that that is why I got extra noise from running Civ5; the video card fan (a Radeon HD 5770, quite an old beast)  was running faster.  Strange that it didn't happen with GC3, but I have not heard any noise at all since putting in the Geforce GTX 750 Ti.

The other point is that I don't know enough to say whether different systems (especially laptops) don't have different specs on temperature, which is why I mentiioned checking a model number on the web for such info.

@Lucky Jack:   I am rather confident that optimization will be all around for GC3, but I was just wondering if there was anything specific they might be able to say at the moment.  I appreciate your comments on what the real world performance might be as compared to published specs.   The rig I am running right now, Dell xps 8100, is just about four years old.  Hopefully next year I will get a new one!

The built-in fan control would have me 70-80 before it got serious about cooling.

Using the HW to make my fans start sooner.

1st off I got a brand new pc when the 4th gen Intel processors came out and I only paid $800 for everything. 2nd  a 750Ti is not a very good card, it should be about the same as a GTX 660 and thats the recommended specs for Cities Skylines.  So to me that makes that card needing to be replaced a lot sooner then it would if u had just bought a higher end card and kept it for a few years.  

As for temps 70C is about the highest i would want any component in my computer to be but thats personal preference and the cooler it runs the longer it lasts.  I think the nvidia cards are good up until 90C but the intel processors are only good to about 75C     I use evga precision for my video card and set the fan speed percentage to match the GPU temp. Civ 5 is a badly coded game in that its limited how much system resources it can use and its not even 64 bit or PAE enabled that i know of. GS3 isnt even technically released yet but runs flawlessly on my machine. As of this moment of the only game I play that really stresses my rig much is cities skylines.  GS3 is a turn based game and it shouldnt take up much when its just setting there.

1. Where did you get your computer?  I know it is not optimal, but I have been buying Dells for 15-20 years because I have gotten fairly decent support/warranty service, and I am no longer at an age where putting togther a bunch of components works for me.

2. I know my Ti card isn't a great card, but it's a big step up from the Radeon HD that was the original equipment in my studio xps 8100.   Since I plan to buy a new computer next year, it seemed like a good stop gap.

3. The Tjmax listed for my cpu is 105 C, but that seems ridiculous.   When I looked up the mobo specs it was saying 72.5 C, quite a difference.

4. Sorry somwhat of a newbie but I am trying to figure out how to set the fan speeds --- the video card temps haven't seemed to be much of a problem yet it seems that the cpu is the issue for me, hitting low 70s in GC3 but about 10 c less with Civ5 (which I realize isn't a great comparison, but it's the best I can do atm).  I am trying to use SpeedFan but haven't gotten it configured yet.

Thanks for the comments!

1. I havent bought a pc in... welll since my mom bought our first pc in 1995, a Packard Bell with a 166 mhz proc. My grandma bought her pc  that came with a AMD k6-2 533mhz processor. Other then that I've built all of them. I replaced my 1st CD drive when i was 10. Knock on wood but I havent had a part fail yet since I started building them. Not even a hard drive.  Get a quality pc repair shop to build you one. The one I used to work at didnt charge anything to build it. Just parts a labor I believe. Even better would be to see if they would charge u of putting it together if you purchased the parts. 

2. I bought my GTX 680 used.  i was skeptical but when i saw this guys pc i knew he wasn't giving me the run around. I also saw it being used. This guy had 8 SSD's in raid and a server motherboard. Absolutely insane.  I even still have a warrenty on that card, its EVGA. 

3. That sounds right.  Tjmax is Integrated Heat Spreader max temp.  Your cores are higher then that typically. Look for intels temp monitor if u can find it. I think its been discontinued but can still be downloaded but Im probably wrong. Run that and look for throttling of the proc. I think ur proc is the I7 870 at 2.93ghz? Thats still a decent processor but its time to upgrade. All you would need it a new motherboard and processor and a fresh instlal of windows and you would be in business. 

4. You need EVGA precision and its on the fan curve tab. 

Thanks for the tip...it's a very nice tool.  However it only sets video card fan speeds; I am also looking around for something to manage other fans in the case, especially cpu.  Oh well, I think I am paying a price here for going for a proprietary Dell Mobo.

I have too problem with temperatures .. My laptop Dell 7720 , i7 and 8 GB RAm.. When i play Galciv 3 my motherboard and cpu have 90 degrees celsius!  Is weird.. When I play other game 3D a have max 70-75 Degrees. Why?

Quoting Azazell83, reply 11

I have too problem with temperatures .. My laptop Dell 7720 , i7 and 8 GB RAm.. When i play Galciv 3 my motherboard and cpu have 90 degrees celsius!  Is weird.. When I play other game 3D a have max 70-75 Degrees. Why?

End of Azazell83's quote

Interesting, I started the thread because my cpu was showing low 70s temps (while, for example, Civ5 bnw gives low to middle 60s).  (Dell studio xps 8100 desktop). 

One answer is to wait until (rough guess) next thursday and see if the substantial optimization indicated for it improves this.    

Another answer is that I used to play on a Dell Inspiron laptop; I wasn't knowledgeable enough to check temps then but I knew it was running very hot to the touch for some games.   So I got a lap fan that sits under the laptop and that seemed to help a lot.   Otherwise it was too hot to sit in my lap!  In that case I think the problem was I insisted on getting the biggest video card I could and being crammed into a laptop it produced a lot of heat.  But I don't know for sure.  The games always seemed to run ok though.

The third answer is that Galciv3 is coded to use your available cpu much more efficiently, which is good, but which means it is working harder (all cores are engaged, etc.) thus producing more heat.   This in turn suggests a replacement heat/sink cooling fan for the cpu, but that's a bit of a challenge for me with a desktop --- wouldn't know where to start with a laptop.

The most infuriating answer is the one I got so many times...  that laptops aren't meant to play game X, so you should get a desktop with better temperature control and better everything to play "modern" games.   Bleh to that!!

A possible answer is that you many be able to use utilities like SpeedFan (any fans)  or EVGA precision (video card fans) to adjust fan speeds to help cool.

Hopefully others will have more/better suggestions.

I`m not sure.. I using my Laptop in 2-3 years? And I still play on strategy games 4X or cRPG. I played Endless Legend for 500 hours! And laptop is a cooler!

@Azaell83  That's what I meant by infuriating.  The idea that a laptop automatically can't be a decent game machine is an old wive's tale.

Update:

I started this thread worried about core temps that were in the low to mid 70s even though the Tjmax is supposedly 105 C, because online someone stated that 72.5 C is the goal for the high temp for this motherboard.   I have spent some time trying to rearrange the extra cables in the case, inverting the case fan (some people say they want  negative pressure, some positive, whatever).   But I think I have discovered a  key issue.

Can we all say DOH! together.    

The Dell XPS case has a small vent area about 2 in by 5 in on the lower left side of the case from the front.   I had that side of the case a couple of inches from a wall, didn't think it mattered much.   The case fan and the Cosair PSU unit fan blow out into an open room.    There didn't seem to be a lot of airflow in or out of this side vent so whatever.    As another experiment though, I moved the computer (sits on the floor on a piece of finished wood because the floor is carpet) about 4-5 times further away from the obstruction.

I am now getting core temps (based on SpeedFam and Core Temp readings) roughly 8-10 C lower (after 3-4 hrs running GC3 this morning) 66 C MAX while running GC3 as I write this and over the last 2-3 days.   Hmm, I wonder if air circulation has anything to do with cooling.  Even a relatively small looking vent is evidently a big deal.

As long as you are remain below the Max temp spec of the processor you should be ok, however you might want to check your thermal management solution maybe put some new thermal grease between the CPU and heat sync I had some over heating issues a couple of wears back turned out the thermal grease had dried out and some what blown away when I air dusted the inside of the PC.

GC3 though makes intense use of multicore processors by design so it may cause your CPU to run hotter than many other games just because of higher usage, should not be an issue if your PC has a reasonable heat sink on the processor and good thermal grease between them.

Oh definitely GC3 runs hotter, but I as I say I think that is a good sign that the program is actually using the cores/hyperthreads fully.  I can see that by just using the windows task manager and clicking the performance tab.  All four windows show high usage with GC3.

Yes, the one thing I need to get my head around so that I can really start planning to build a new rig myself is playing with the heatsink, thermal paste and so on.   Everything else is just getting decent parts and plugging them in.   Just have to work my courage up, I have seen several youtube videos and there are a couple of different ways to do it and both seem to work.  Main thing seems to be to get the surfaces super clean before applying the paste, and not overdoing the paste.   

I was nervous about taking the heat sink of and applying new Thermal Paste too, but in practice it was actually really easy and fixed my overheating issues completely. You don't actually have an overheating issue as such, (your computer will normally shutdown if your processor does get too hot to protect it by the way), but you might well be able to improve the temperature it's running at.

Like I say once I worked up the courage to replace the Thermal Paste it actually was a fairly quick and easy job.

keep in mind that the amount of 'pre-applied' thermal paste given on a stock (comes with CPU) CPU fan/heatsink combo is insufficient.  Plus, that stock fan also is not good enough to cool the newer CPUs.  A small amount of thermal paste goes a long way, but the amount given is usually too little.

What it sounds like is you have (seems you found a few) air circulation issues and maybe need to clean the dust/etc off your fans and the CPU fan/heatsink (including video card if old enough).  As well, most mobo's can control the CPU fan speed programmatically. 

Somewhere in there it was mentioned that the fan was at 50% speed even though the CPU had a high temperature, which means you need to make a change there. Depending on the mobo, there might have been a driver/app on the install CD that will work.  If not, find one that works on your system and make sure that it's not set to 'dc power' levels (old case fans will only have that).  I personally have a RoG mobo, so I get the FAN Xpert program which allows for a few settings depending on what I want.  But generally, the fan speed should approach 100% as the CPU heats up.

Else, GC3 may use up a bit of CPU and RAM/video card, but it's not a heat generator by itself.  My rendering software will use all 8 cores at 100% plus a lot more resources than GC3 and it doesn't overheat my machine -- which has a 30$ CPU heatsink/fan combo.

Bamdorf, your concern over temperatures is less than necessary.

The 72.5C you get from your motherboard is the external temperature of the casing, not the internal sensor used for reporting your core temperature.  105C actually is the right number.

Typically, anything that is going to go wrong because of defect does so inside the warranty period, often within weeks.  The remote chance that you could have some thermally triggered issue at this point isn't something to base your life on, so GC3 utilizing your hardware a little more than it has been in the past and getting your CPU temperature up into the mid 70's or even 80's isn't relevant in the slightest.  Your CPU probably still has a couple decades of life in it.  Processors will "age" faster with higher heat levels, but even at that 105C, it's many years of expected function before the components degrade to a failure point.

It wont begin throttling until that 105C so your performance impact is going to be along the lines of .000000001% or something.  The throttle point is like 25-30C before the emergency shutdown point to avoid damage.  If you actually hit 105C, then you've got a major problem, as the throttling will kick in and utterly trash you.

Your only realistic concern with heat is that your case is able to efficiently export.  Unlike the CPU, other components in your system are much more vulnerable to heat problems, but you don't have this problem as your GPU isn't running hot.  Adjusting things inside and getting several degrees off your CPU does sound like your XPS case has a terribly vulnerable airflow design and wasn't circulating air away from the CPU well, but it's not a major problem unless you're baking your hard drives and circuit boards.

Very much appreciate the comments guys.  My monitoring programs suggest that other components (video card and HDD are well below the numbers I see for the CPU), so I really don't think I have much of an issue then.     BTW, my video card is  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti and is new (not a great card but a big upgrade to the original GPU).    

So I think playing with the cpu is indicated unless I just want to practice.  

If do want to fiddle I guess I should take the attitude what is the worst that can happen?   I have to get a new CPU?   A new Mobo?   Those might be good upgrades anyway, lol.   A whole new computer?   Whooo Hoooo!!  That might be the best of all possible worlds.   

at this point, waiting til next year is better for a full upgrade.

I have buy new computer PC and my laptop DELL 7720 into for sale. Maybe i buy i5 5660, 8gb and nvidia GT 750. And probably i will have smaller temperatures