cpu temp showing two different temps

[WalkingBread]

so i recently was troubleshooting a buddy's pc that would shut down on him after being on for 15 minutes or so. its a Athalon x4 860k cpu that was on a MSI grenade MB. the motherboard was doing some weird stuff during boot so i decided to replace it first. the problem didnt go away. I also replaced the case and the PSU. Then i relized that his Disc usage was always at 100% and his cpu would peak to 100% often when at idle. so i reformatted the pc and updated it before testing anything else. the case i put it in had a kraken x31 in it for a old graphics card, so i decided to give him a upgrade with a CLC. the CAM software that runs the pumps and such are where i sounded the alarms. In the CAM software it listed CPU temp as 65C at idle, but it had the liquid temp at 32C. to double check the temps before saying the CPU needs to be replaced i downloaded open hardware monitor and CPU temp. Both hardware monitor and CPU temp show between 20-30C for idle(it constantly was changing). i started running stress tests to see if i could get the cpu to throttle and force a shut down, during a CPU burn in, CAM showed the cpu at 90-100C, where as it hit high 60's on both cpu temp and open hardware monitor. i ran it for a hour with no change, i decided to run the test for almost 24 hours with no problems. is the CAM software showing the wrong temps? or should i replace the CPU?

[JoostinOnline]

What were you getting temps of?  You say "CPU Temp" but that could mean any of the four cores or the package.

[Naeaes]

It's the software. It's always the software.

[WalkingBread]

oh cpu temp and Open harware monitor show each core, and thats why i give the ranges of temps, because the range varied slightly between each core, but CAM just shows one temp.

[WalkingBread]

Just now, Naeaes said:

It's the software. It's always the software.

so your saying the CAM software is just showing a higher temp because something is wrong with it? and that its actually running at the more beleivable temp?

[Naeaes]

3 minutes ago, WalkingBread said:

so your saying the CAM software is just showing a higher temp because something is wrong with it? and that its actually running at the more beleivable temp?

Yes. The exact place where the temperature sensors are, vary between processors. How many there are varies too. You can have one on the motherboard right under the CPU, there can be one on the CPU PCB, in each core, on the IHS and so on. It's a bit of a mess and that's why it's not at all uncommon for softwares not being fully compatible with every processor model on this earth. Over my years in RMA service I've seen pretty much every program go haywire at some point. Free programs are worse than paid bot none is 100% reliable. The best way to get though it all is to do what you did, try several programs and trust the figures that match between programs. 

 

For full disclosure, I'll give you that the CPU temp being way higher than the coolant temp could indicate a contact issue. But since the figures aren't duplicated on the other softwares, I do not think that it's the case here.

[WalkingBread]

15 minutes ago, Naeaes said:

For full disclosure, I'll give you that the CPU temp being way higher than the coolant temp could indicate a contact issue. But since the figures aren't duplicated on the other softwares, I do not think that it's the case here.

for this exact reason i pulled everything apart and double checked it to make sure everything was tightened properly.