Solved Help! Core temp critical when making Macrium image

Edit. I think I need to mount this fan controller outside my case and come up with some way to protect it from getting shorted out accidentally., electrical tape maybe. I'm good at southern engineering. If not my husband is an expert. He uses duck tape and baling wire for everything.

glasskuter said:

If I want to control the exhaust fan as well, I believe I would have to use 2 of these devices, one for each fan header.
What do you think? Yes? No? Maybe?

Amazon.com

Click to expand...

It looks like it comes with fan splitters and from what I am reading you can control multiple fans using the one device. So technically it appears you can control the CPU fan as well as the case fan too. ??? The one question I have is how does/will Dell fans be controlled with this device. With their proprietary crap it's sometimes hard to tell how aftermarket stuff will work.
It would seem the best location is on the outside of the case but then you'd have to route the cables through some exterior holes in the case to the fans. Case Mod??

BamaInArk said:

The one question I have is how does/will Dell fans be controlled with this device. With their proprietary crap it's sometimes hard to tell how aftermarket stuff will work.

Click to expand...

Like I said, this machine originally had a pancake cooler so I bought this Noctua setup 2 years ago. I ran into all of Dell's proprietary crap and the fan errors are what made me remove it and buy the Dell premium cooler/fan. It was only later I read about Noctua's splitter as a means of getting past the fan error as long as a stock fan is on the 4 pin side of the splitter. One came with the Noctua cooler so I used it to connect a second intake fan to the same header as the exhaust.. Back when my fan speed worked correctly, both fans would speed up at the same time.

Since a Noctua fan was all I had as a replacement fan for my CPU, if I connect it directly to the CPU fan header, I get a fan error. During this troubleshooting I wired my exhaust fan directly to its own header so I could use the splitter on the CPU header, put my stock intake fan to the 4 pin splitter lead and Noctua fan to 3 pin side of splitter so I get no fan error. Of course, since I have no fan control at the moment, both fans continuously run at their base speed. When I do a fan control over-ride, both fans speed up.
As soon as I get the replacement CPU fan, the machine will be back to 100% stock parts. Hopefully though, my idea in post #40 will work to give me improved cooling since I no longer have automatic fan control. I'd hate to buy another mobo at this point since I do not know where exactly this problem lies. It could just as easily be the cpu, but all things point to bios/mobo IMO.

glasskuter said:

What do you think? Yes? No? Maybe?

Click to expand...

Maybe one of these...



You'll still have to plug a fan into the CPU fan header on your motherboard, or the computer won't boot.
Just get a low rpm fan (for quietness), that you don't really need, and plug it into the CPU fan header.

Then plug the case fans and the CPU cooler fans, into this gadget.


On Amazon just search for fan controllers. You may get some other ideas.

If you get some extension cables for the fans, you could run them out to a device like this (outside the case)...




P.S. If you'd start building your own computers... you could get a case with a 5.25" bay, and put one of these in it...

Here's a couple builds... aiming for low budget...




Building computers is like adult Legos.

glasskuter said:

(snip)
I'd hate to buy another mobo at this point since I do not know where exactly this problem lies. It could just as easily be the cpu, but all things point to bios/mobo IMO.

Click to expand...

Too bad that the Dell Optiplex 7080's motherboard is nonstandard.

I would have entertained the idea of swapping in an industry-standard board just to get less limited BIOS settings. If I was sufficiently annoyed.

Bu then, my first and last Dell was purchased in late 1995. I don't dislike them, I've just gone DIY. No matter how much more cost-effective appliance PCs like Dell may be.

bobkn said:

Too bad that the Dell Optiplex 7080's motherboard is nonstandard.

Click to expand...

It's not that this mobo is nonstandard. It's Dell's bios downgrade policy that is non-standard.

@Ghot I'm too old now but if I had it to do over I would darn sure be building my own.

That the MB is nonstandard would bug me.

From eBay:

I thought some of you might be interested in the end of my overheating saga that has no resolution. Here is a complete rundown. I have 0, zilch, nada fan control. Either the mobo itself is flakey or Dell has passed down a bad bios.

Here is what I have done to troubleshoot this.
1. When I boot the PC all fans run with no temporary change in speed at all. In the past I would get a burst of speed at power on.

2. With 0 load I rock along around 35 deg. During normal operation I can happily run a few things at once and not go over 50-55. Once I hit 10% load it's at 75.
I have used Aida and CPU-Z for testing with hyperthreading both on and off. I get to 100 within 4-5 seconds with no change in fan speed.

3. I replaced the fan in my Dell Premium Cooler with a Noctua fan.

4. I replaced the original cooler fan with a like fan.

5. I replaced the Dell cooler and fan with a complete Noctua cooler setup.
.
6. This unit has 2 fan headers. I tried swapping the CPU fan to case fan header and case fan to CPU header.

7. I replaced case fan.

Between each step, I ran stress test and the fans never alter speed, so I had to stop the test because temps were at 100.

I looked into the app FanControl that someone suggested. Everything I read was positive but being hardware dumb, it is WAAAY over my head. I don't know if it even works on an OEM board.

I remembered an old app called SpeedFan but it hasn't been updated for several years. Again I don't know if it would work on this proprietary mobo.

I can not downgrade the bios because Dell will let you do so ONLY if the bios you are downgrading from did not address any Intel security issue. I've had 4 bios updates in 4 months so if it is a bad bios I have no idea which one broke it.
I tried to talk to Dell about this but since my warranty was out they wouldn't talk to me without me paying them big bucks.

So here I am. I can chance buying a replacement mobo but even if I do and the problem turns out to be a bios update I have no idea which one it is. Any like mobo I buy would be refurbished.

I could also buy a fan controller but if I understand it right I would have to have my fans revved up all the time. I don't understand enough to even talk intelligently about it.

Since I truly am out of my element in most of this, maybe the best thing for me to do is keep on trucking as is without putting any load on the system. I can always shut it down when temp registers as hot and before it gets critical. I'm just one that wants things to work as they're supposed to.

I sincerely appreciate all your suggestions and I'll slap some kudos on your remarks as the forum lets me.

That's quite a saga. I'm sorry there seems to be no real resolution for it.

It's unfortunate when you get down to having to swap parts for a chance of fixing an issue. With this situation it could be the motherboard or just as easily be the CPU itself. You might can find a cheap 10th gen CPU on eBay to try. Something much slower than the 10900 currently being used.
Also looks like you can find that motherboard for less than $50 on eBay.

BamaInArk said:

motherboard for less than $50 on eBay.

Click to expand...

Yes I saw that and have been considering it. But it's a real gamble that I wouldn't be spending good money after bad. I already have a ton invested in this machine above what I originally paid for it.. And like I mentioned, I may well be right back where I started when I flashed the bios on a different board. As fast as they have been coming from Dell I have no idea which one might be the culprit if it is the bios. Or as you mentioned it may just as well be the cpu.. With my income and health bills being what it is, I can't afford to rebuild this entire machine right now, even with used parts.

I was just hoping against hope you guys would know of a work-around solution.

On a side note, I shouldn't be worrying about it. I just got a call that I had won 1.3 million dollars from Publishers Clearing House. All I have to do is send them 1% to pay the taxes. I'm on the way to the bank to mortgage my house now. When I collect it, you guys can find me lazing on the coast of France , sans a computer. When you see the red bikini, that will be me.

@antspants I'll wheel by your place while on my trip. I expect shrimp on the barbie.

glasskuter said:

I expect shrimp on the barbie

Click to expand...

I'm a bit of a shrimp, I've never met Barbie. But I'm willing to try anything?

glasskuter said:

When you see the red bikini, that will be me.

Click to expand...

I expect Polka Dots!

I've had it with this no fan control Dell/overheating mess. After 2 weeks I finally got this crappy computer back together and working...sort of.
These are Final Findings so I won't pursue this thread further, but someone else may come across this same problem.

Using either the balanced or hi-performance power plan, with Hyperthreading ON, Speedstep ON, and TurboBoost ON, this CPU never hyperthreads but runs at base 2.8 gz under 100% load at 100 temp with no fan control at all. It should jump up to 5.0 ghz easily.
Base 2.8gz is ALL I can get out of it now, but HT has worked in the past and my cooler kept temps under control when it did. (By the way, the CPU was drawing its maximum power draw of 40W during the stress tests so it's not lack of power)

With Speedstep ON, TurboBoost OFF, speed never changes, temps reach 100 under load.

With Speedstep OFF, Turbo ON, I still run at 2.8 gz but temps under full load across all cores run arount 75 for extended period, idle at 33, normal operation at around 38-40. This is what I'm going to have to live with along with lack of HT.
The downside is with SpeedStep off the computer will not automatically go into sleep mode.

Conclusion-It could be a bad bios/mobo, but I'm tilted like the leaning tower toward it being the CPU. To hell with it. I ain't gonna spend one more dime on it. At least I'm not overheating anymore. I'm going to ride it like it is as long as it will carry me which I bet won't be long before the CPU quits completely. Luckily, my computing demands aren't what they used to be. I want what I want whether I need it or not. But mostly it's I want things to work like they're supposed to and it sure ticks this old woman off when it doesn't.
Thanks guys.
(I need a shot of tequila .....or 2)
That's it.

Maybe this is a "Let them eat cake!" suggestion, but it appears that you have the skills needed to be a DIYer.

That's one way to avoid having to deal with Dell.

No doubt you're looking to add another hobby.