Got 8350 today and motherboard gets hot

A

Ashbringer

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jan 25, 2010
Messages
5,522
I just got a AMD FX 8350 to replace my 4100 CPU, and everything seemed good until I ran Prime95. I ran the blend test to see the temperature, and stuff got hot. When I say stuff, I mean there's a heatsink next to the CPU that cools what I'm guessing are power regulators, and that got hot to the touch. Like finger tip burning hot. Before I could stop the test, the machine BSOD and rebooted.

My CPU is water cooled and running 38C at idle, with no overclock what so ever. With the test running, it shot the CPU straight up to 55C before the PC BSOD. The motherboard is an ASRock 770iCafe with the latest BIOS. Not sure what's under that heatsink, but I doubt it should be getting that hot.

WTF happened?
 
So what I figure is the things that get hot are the VRM's on the board. Which means this motherboard is not able to handle the 8350 CPU, even though with the BIOS update they say it can?
 
Are you using a fan to cool the heatsinks? That's what ASROCK recommends for the hotter FX chips.
Since you're water cooling, there may be inadequate airflow to the motherboard heatsinks.
 
I would say instead of a burn in test just try and do normal stuff game a little, if you do number crunching on that pc a better case with better fans also might not be a luxury. If your problem persists during normal usage then I would worry about it.

Maybe check how hot it gets after few hours of idle see if that still is problematic.
 
You mean the VRM heat sinks, the ones next to the CPU? It only has the stock heat sink, but there's plenty of air floor in the system. I don't see a way to get a fan on top of that heat sink itself, but I could put a fan on the case door to blow air directly at it, but I doubt that would solve the issue of the heatsink getting hot to the touch within seconds of Prime95.

To show you, I took a picture of what gets super hot. I circled it in red. Above it is a 140mm fan, and to the left is a 120mm fan. Both blow out.

 
I'm thinking of taking the rear 120mm case fan and reverse it to blow air in, and see if that helps for now. Otherwise I'm in the market for a better VRM heatsink. I was thinking the motherboard just can't handle it. I did run the FX 4100 at 4.2 Ghz for a year, and maybe that wasn't a good thing for this motherboards VRM's?
 
Tried reversing the fan, and put thermal compound under the heat sink for the VRM's, instead of this pad they had. It took longer to get hot, but it eventually gets hot enough to burn your fingers. I could run the test longer, but I don't know if I'm that brave. Most likely the VRM's shut down to prevent damage when they reach a certain temperature. Probably why it BSOD's.

Before I go unnecessarily buy a new motherboard, could this be caused by the power supply?
 
Go to BIOS, disable turbo core. Set LLC to disabled, undervolt the CPU. Try 1.325v and run Prime95 large FFT. If it doesn't BSOD, lower the voltage further and repeat. If it BSODs, raise a bit the voltage and repeat.

The 8350 is 140W really. Your motherboard is "white socket", it wasn't made since the start with FX CPUs in mind and can't handle it well.


See Asrock's warning about your board with 8350:

* For cooling the CPU and its surrounding components, please install a CPU cooler with a top-down blowing design.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/770iCafe/?cat=CPU

My mobo has the same VRM heatsink as yours, but at summer stays at 60-65C with the FX-6300 or the 1090T. The problem is your board being "white socket" has worse VRM circuitry, so the mofsets get hotter and the heatsink can't keep up.


Undervolt the CPU and if possible, put a fan to blow on the VRM or get a big, top-down flow cooler, so that it can cool the VRM too. I can recommend you the Scythe Rasetsu, if you can still find it. Or something similar. Needs to be big and blow the air towards the surface of the motherboard. Tower gcoolers do nothing to help cool the VRM.

The stock heatsink apparently isn't enough.

Undervolt, undervolt, undervolt.
 
Faethon said:
Go to BIOS, disable turbo core. Set LLC to disabled, undervolt the CPU. Try 1.325v and run Prime95 large FFT. If it doesn't BSOD, lower the voltage further and repeat. If it BSODs, raise a bit the voltage and repeat.

The 8350 is 140W really. Your motherboard is "white socket", it wasn't made since the start with FX CPUs in mind and can't handle it well.


See Asrock's warning about your board with 8350:

* For cooling the CPU and its surrounding components, please install a CPU cooler with a top-down blowing design.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/770iCafe/?cat=CPU

My mobo has the same VRM heatsink as yours, but at summer stays at 60-65C with the FX-6300 or the 1090T. The problem is your board being "white socket" has worse VRM circuitry, so the mofsets get hotter and the heatsink can't keep up.


Undervolt the CPU and if possible, put a fan to blow on the VRM or get a big, top-down flow cooler, so that it can cool the VRM too. I can recommend you the Scythe Rasetsu, if you can still find it. Or something similar. Needs to be big and blow the air towards the surface of the motherboard. Tower gcoolers do nothing to help cool the VRM.

The stock heatsink apparently isn't enough.

Undervolt, undervolt, undervolt.
Click to expand...
I've been doing a lot of research of the VRM heating issue, and it does seem to be a common problem. There's a pretty interesting list of motherboards that show VRM info. When I say I did my research, I really did look into it.

Now I'm not saying Faethon you're wrong. If I did undervolt, get better air cooling for the VRMs, and put a giant heat sink on them, I might solve the issue. But I would also be devaluing this awesome CPU. Fact is the motherboard claims to be able to handle the CPU, and it really can't. I've already decided to order the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P to replace my aging motherboard. The Gigabytes 8+2 power phase setup should be more then enough to handle this chip.

Been a big fan of ASRock, but when I discovered they only have a 1 year warranty, while Asus has 5 year, and everyone else has 3 year on their motherboards, the ASRock boards are beginning to look less then desirable. This PC isn't my only PC, and I've ran into a Gigabyte recently for my sisters HTPC I put together, and was very impressed with the build quality. The BIOS not so much, but clearly better build quality. It's also starting to look like one of those moments when you realize that buying a cheap motherboard is rather expensive, and my ASRock 770iCafe was cheap.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
As said above. I would never put an 8350 on a 770 board.

If possible I would look at getting an upgrading board to help support that 8350. At stock or under clocking it just doesnt show its ability.

EDIT: Spend the extra 40 dollars and get a 990FXA-UD3 Rev 4.0 instead of the 970.

Also technically its a 4+1 design with "doublers"(I think that's the term) but that is fairly common now.
 
Ashbringer said:
I've been doing a lot of research of the VRM heating issue, and it does seem to be a common problem. There's a pretty interesting list of motherboards that show VRM info. When I say I did my research, I really did look into it.
Click to expand...

For me, they shouldn't have released BIOS for that board with 8320, warning or no warning. This was bad marketing on their side.

But just so that you can understand the difference between a 4+1 "white socket" board and a 4+1 "black socket" board, this is it:

http://www.asrock.com/news/events/2011am3+/

By undervolting the CPU you wouldn't lose any performance. But you wouldn't overclock it. I told to undervolt, because my board, when i switched from AM3 to AM3+, had a tendency to overvolt a LOT, if LLC was left to auto. The default voltage was too much. So, guessing that maybe your board behaves the same? At my board at the end i had to use the CMOS jumper to "wipe" the old BIOS settings that had been left from the 1090T.
 
If you go to the AMD processor section Ash, you'll see that lots of people are mounting fans across their VRM sections when using a water cooler. Conventional air coolers circulate air across the VRM by blowing directly onto them. So more than likely your board is fine with your processor if you had a conventional air cooler installed.

But since you are using a water cooler, there isn't much natural air circulation. So what we do is rig up a fan or two to blow directly onto them. This will drop the temps on them tremendously. I've gone from 70c to 40c before just by installing the fan. Use any old fan; the stock CPU fan works great. :)
 
cageymaru said:
But since you are using a water cooler, there isn't much natural air circulation. So what we do is rig up a fan or two to blow directly onto them. This will drop the temps on them tremendously. I've gone from 70c to 40c before just by installing the fan. Use any old fan; the stock CPU fan works great. :)
Click to expand...
What I plan to do is put a fan on the case door, and it should blow air directly at the CPU and should be fine, but if it gets hot again then I'll be returning the Gigabyte. It'll be weird to open the case door with a fan on it, but better safe then sorry.

Faethon said:
By undervolting the CPU you wouldn't lose any performance. But you wouldn't overclock it. I told to undervolt, because my board, when i switched from AM3 to AM3+, had a tendency to overvolt a LOT, if LLC was left to auto. The default voltage was too much. So, guessing that maybe your board behaves the same? At my board at the end i had to use the CMOS jumper to "wipe" the old BIOS settings that had been left from the 1090T.
Click to expand...
I think the default voltage for the 8350 is 1.33, and that's what auto bios is set too. I've seen people go as low as 1.15 volts, but I haven't tried.
 
Ashbringer said:
I think the default voltage for the 8350 is 1.33, and that's what auto bios is set too. I've seen people go as low as 1.15 volts, but I haven't tried.
Click to expand...

1.325 on first boot. I've had a couple boards after restart reset voltage to 1.375.
 
Ashbringer said:
I think the default voltage for the 8350 is 1.33, and that's what auto bios is set too. I've seen people go as low as 1.15 volts, but I haven't tried.
Click to expand...

Well, i was just guessing. Go lower then... Start at 1.28v. My FX-6300 at stock 3,5GHz, needs 1.21v to be 100% stable to pass 5h of Prime 95 large FFT. At 1.18v it can pass Prime 95 largeFFT for about 2h but then at some point gives error in 1 core. Blend is easier to pass.
 
Just came up with an idea to cool the VRMs. Anyone know of a fan shroud that aims air down? The nearest thing I can find is something I've seen in Dells, used to cool the CPU. But instead of adding a new fan, you just use the existing one in the case, usually just above the VRMs.

Something like this, but fits 120mm and not sticking out so much.
41030.jpg


One of these wouldn't be bad either. Though it would prevent air flow in that fan, which isn't a really big deal.

$%28KGrHqR,!qYE-ZMj5lcLBPqUhtFI-w~~60_12.JPG


The Antec Spot Cool is also a good alternative. May go with this.
antec_01_thumb.jpg
 
Last edited:
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I would just get a newer motherboard that was designed for that CPU. Trying to continue to use old hardware eventually just stops being worth it, and you'd be better off just investing into something more modern. The 770 series came out in what, 2008?
 
I've already ordered a new board, but I'm going to make sure the VRM's are cool on that as well.
 
Ashbringer said:
I've already ordered a new board, but I'm going to make sure the VRM's are cool on that as well.
Click to expand...

I have the Antec Spot Cool (the 100mm version) and it works well. I don't use it though, cause for 6 core, it's not needed.
 
If your using a AMD 83XX cpu with an older 3+1 or 4+1 vrrm/mosfet phase motherboard then your only asking for trouble. Very few will last over the long haul.
 
Priller said:
Which board did you go with?


I use a waterblock to cool my VRMs/Northbridge.
Click to expand...
I went with the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P, cause it's an 8+2. Even though Pillar pointed out it's a 4+1 with doublers, which is still better then most boards anyway. Though the Asus 6+2 boards maybe better, as they have digital VRM's vs the analog this board has.

Thing is there's another Gigabyte that's called 970A-UD3, which is similar in name to the 970A-UD3P I bought. So it maybe confused between the two, and it might be a true 8+2. Right now there's so little info on this board, I can't say for sure. All reviews on the board so far are positive, but the board is fairly new so take it with a grain of salt.

My choice with Gigabyte is because of an FM1 board I used for my sister's HTPC. I was impressed with the build quality. Asus maybe better, but only if you spend more money. There's also a bigger list of motherboards from Gigabyte that are approved from Overclock.net then any other board. I do expect the BIOS to suck, cause the FM1 Gigabyte was terrible, but I'm willing to deal with it.
 
Got the new motherboard today, along with the new Antec Spot cooler. Fired it up and ran Prime95 with no super hot VRM temps. At least not hot enough to burn my finger tips within 2-3 seconds. It still gets hot though, at least too hot for my liking, so the Antec Spot cool was used to keep it cooler. CPU temp is at 47C after 15 minutes of blend test. Also you don't hear this strange hum like I would with the Asrock motherboard. My HTPC also makes this humming noise when Prime95 is on, so it maybe an ASRock thing.

 
Last edited:
maybe replace the VRM heatsink w/ something like this? I used one for my old 990FXA-UD3 board, you may need to mod the mounting for it but once you get it in there it cuts the VRM temps by a lot compared to the stock heatsink. if not, just replace the motherboard altogether.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top