Can my bios CPU temperature be wrong?

[Black Panther]

I've had this E8400 for nearly 2 years now, I overclocked it to 4Ghz the same day I installed it and it's always been like that since then. Stable with linpack, orthos.
Played tons of games, always stable.

It idles between 30-35 degrees, and at load it's 55-58 degrees. So far so good.
I checked the temps (and just checked them now) with coretemp, realtemp, speccy and hwinfo.

I never bothered to check the reading in the bios.

Now it happened that my mobo's battery needs replacing. These past 3 days, the date and time were going berserk and I had to reset my OC every time.

So while I was in the bios I checked the CPU temperature and it was 62 degrees.
Obviously with no load, because it's in the bios screen.

Immediately I went to check with coretemp, realtemp, speccy and hwinfo and my cpu was 32 degrees. Even in speccy and hwinfo where it's the general cpu temperature not just the cores.

I restarted and went back to bios and it was 62 degrees. Went back to check in windows and it was a nice 32 degrees again.

I just need some reassurance. Is it possible for the bios temperature to be wrong? I mean if it was right at 62 degrees idle then heaven knows what temperature it would be reaching in-game and my pc would just shut off...

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Most definitely. There are many factors such as quality of the sensor and then the reading mechanism. And then add software and you can get values all over the chart and the only way to know for sure is with a high end temp probe.

The question actually is can it be right?

P.S. I'm tired of you fretting over this old dual core! If I was a richer man I'd buy you a whole new rig!

 

[white phantom]

personally it may just be a simple heat sensor failure or false reading for some reason, if possible try to get a laser thermometer and double check but i would bet the sensors went bad

 

[cadaveca]

CPU is typically at some weird load state when in BIOS, temps are always higher than OS idle. Not sure why, but that's just what I've seen.

Also, alot of time BIOS may just report "case" temps, rather than actual core temp. Which one is shown is going to vary from board to board.

 

[eidairaman1]

remove all power to the machine, aka switch psu off or unplug it, do the proper Clear CMOS procedure, unplug HD from the motherboard. Power the board up without the HD attached. Run the Default settings for your machine not overclocked values, check the bios temperature at initial boot up and then after 5, then, 10 minutes of operation at the default clock speed. record down your test result, then shut it down and then hook the HD back up to the machine using default clock speeds and check the bios temps again and then record those and then go into windows and record the values there. check all your data you got. Then if it seems fine in bios and windows re-implement the OC and rinse and repeat the above steps with the OC values. If all seems fine id get a temperature gun.

CPU is typically at some weird load state when in BIOS, temps are always higher than OS idle. Not sure why, but that's just what I've seen.

Also, alot of time BIOS may just report "case" temps, rather than actual core temp. Which one is shown is going to vary from board to board.

My Sig rig with a mod bios had the values flipped for system and CPU temperature, id shoot the CPU and the temp would be lower than the reported temp in bios and vice versa for the system temp, system temp on the board was ran by the NB.

 

[Black Panther]

P.S. I'm tired of you fretting over this old dual core! If I was a richer man I'd buy you a whole new rig!

Thing is I love this cpu, it runs my games fine... and also I would never buy a pre-built. I'd do it myself but then I don't really have the time right now, I prefer to spend my time either on the net or gaming rather than building and overclocking from scratch once more. I will be doing so though when I have no choice.

Just so you get an idea, I originally had a pre-built system with a Pentium Willamette chip 1.6Ghz, FX440 graphics and 256MB RAM. I upgraded to 512MB RAM and FX5500 graphics. In 2007 I discovered Oblivion, and after registering here and reading and reading I decided to build my pc for the first time, bought a E4300, P5B mobo, 2GB RAM and 8600GTS. Then I oc'd the E4300 to 3Ghz. Then I got an 8800GT....
Then even later I got this E8400, got it to 4Ghz, added 2GB more of RAM and got the 5970 and a 800W Corsair. In the meantime I changed monitors from 1280x1024 to 1680x1050 to 2560x1440... And got a SSD for my OS and games.

The only parts I'm using from my original built are the mobo... and its battery

Next step is a total upgrade - mobo, ram, cpu...
I'm just waiting for the right time when my games need it.

personally it may just be a simple heat sensor failure or false reading for some reason, if possible try to get a laser thermometer and double check but i would bet the sensors went bad

But if the sensors are failing in the bios, aren't those the same sensors which read temperatures in software like realtemp and hwinfo?

 

[Widjaja]

I know that as already mentioned, while in BIOS the CPU does seem to have some sort of load on it in all systems I have cared to spend a decent amount of time in BIOS with.

But still rather strange that the temperature would be that high in BIOS.
Especially if it is straight off cold boot.

I have a similar problem with my machine.
Temperatures in core temp & Occt are all ten degrees higher than in Real Temp.