cpu 78c hot with cnps7700alcu???

[n604]

my new comp:

asus p5p800s
p4 3.2ghz 540 lga775
zalman cnps7700 alcu

mother board and hdd temps never go above 30c

my CPU temp:
in 1-2 seconds it jumps from 48 idle to 58, then in the next 5 seconds it jumps to 68, then it kinda slowly goes up to 78... and the CPU is only used at 40-60%... with winamp visualization..

is this normal? i wouldnt want my cpu temp to go above like 65c!!!

fan is at full speed...
i also tried it both with the fanmate on, and off

its pretty cold in my case... when i put my hand around the 7700 theres wind all over the place... and its not even warm.. its kinda cold.. i cant sense any heat... only a little bit coming from the ati 9200se when i put my hands 1/2 inch from it...

the side panel of the case is off all the time..
i got a nexus fan in the back for exhaust, but when i turn it off it doesnt effect the temps that much.
also the psu fan is pulling the air out from inside...
and i got an aerocool fan in the front blowing at the hdd...
not too many cables.

here are some pics:
http://mysite.verizon.net/ndroid/comp1.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/ndroid/comp2.jpg

here is a forum where a lot of people are having the same problem:
http://www.zalmanforums.com/showthread.php?t=769

i dont use artic silver 5. i just use the regular zalman thermal greese i got with the heatsink.
but would artic silver fix a problem like this? my cpu temp jumps like 30c in a matter of seconds, when i occupy the cpu.

i tried applying gentle pressure on the cooler while some apps were stressing the cpu... nothing really happened.. the temps didnt drop.. the cooler is strongly screwed into the brackets, so it cant even move a milimeter... so pushing down on it doesnt help i guess...

i have the latest bios updates. these versions support asus Q-fan control. i just enabled it to see if it does any magic, but it doesnt effect the fan speed at all.. also i heard in speedfan i can speed up the cpu cooler fan, but i couldnt figure out how... right now i'm not using the zalman fanmate , so the speed is constantly around 1800rpm...

i'm still confused about the thermal greese thingy.. how much should i apply? i put a paper thin layer.. it was all grey, but i could still see the writings on top of the cpu.. kinda transparent...
its evenly spread...

a question. does it make a huge difference if i use alcohol to wipe off the left over greese from a previous install? i did not use alcohol.. but i used very soft cotton things (kinda like tampons.. lol).. and it completely cleaned off every bit of greese my eye could see.. (and i have a good eye)
maybe the alcohol cleans the microscopic pieces?

i re-installed this 7700 cooler 3 times already... no luck.
i checked many forums, a lot of people complain about this cooler.
and at the same time a lot of people love it... and have good results with it..

what am i doing wrong?

i loved my 7000alcu cooler on my other p4 northwood 3.2ghz...
temps never go above 43c under full load. this is why i got the 7700 for this new cpu



i'm already giving up on this after 2 weeks of nightmares
any help is apprechiated. thanks.

[Cricket]

the side panel of the case is off all the time.Why? With the case side off you don't have any control of the air flow through the case. The air is just going where ever it wants, which is probably right out the side. Have you run the computer with the side on just to see what happens?

:) Cricket

[FLG]

Hmmm crickes right but still dosent account for the very high cpu temp

When the temps are this high do you notice any slow downs or freezing? My guess is the bios is reading the temps wrong, id go back to the old bios just to see. Intel safeguards the cpu from overheating by down clocking it if temps get too high...and because of that i dobut it will reach 78c according to the cpu, but the mobo might be reading temps wrong.

Also are you sure you did not apply too mutch thermal grease, too mutch is as bad as too little and will work against you by decreasing the dissapation of heat. You only want a very fine haze of thermal compound.

[n604]

let me rephrase... the side of the case is off most of the time... but i do test it often with the side on.... the temps dont really change much... +3c maybe... the airflow inside is pretty good both ways...

i'll try it with different versions of bios, and see what happens..

at this point i dont really know whats "too much" or "too little" thermal grease... i reinstalled the cooler 3 times.. with 3 different dozages of thermal greese to see how it reacts.. i wish there were some pictures on the net (other than the artic silver site), where they show the right ammount...

when any of you install heat sinks on cpus, please take pics of the cpu with the thermal grease on for us who are not sure about the right ammount...
thanks

still wondering what i'm (and the other people on the zalman forum for which i provided the link to) doing wrong to get these high temps?
is it really that very common that the sensor readings are inaccurate? can it be fixed somehow?

thanks for the help.
keep the ideas coming...

[Jaggannath]

is it really that very common that the sensor readings are inaccurate? can it be fixed somehow?

yes and no respectively. If you want an accurate reading, try taking a normal thermometer and doing it yourself

[Cricket]

How is the computer running? Is it stable? Is it unstable? Is it performing up to your expectations? If it is, don't worry about the temps...by constantly watching the temps (which may not even be accurate) you're giving yourself undo stress over nothing. You don't gauge computer performance by it's temperatures.

:) Cricket

[n604]

i dont know if its stable or not.
its a newly built pc. i haven't really used it yet.
i got worried with the temps, so all i ran was winamp visualization to put stress on the cpu...

it never crashed yet, because i stopped winamp when temps were up at 78c...

[Cricket]

If that CPU really got to 78C it would have definitely throttled itself back to a slower speed to reduce temps. Did you notice the computer slowing down? Get a benchmark program and put it through it's paces. If the computer performs like it should, the temps probably aren't accurate.

:) Cricket

[ror_b211]

http://sp2004.fre3.com/ - My favourite prime test program

http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php -Tells you stuff about your PC (will tell you if the CPU is throttling)

www.futuremark.com/ -Benchmarking programs, mainly 3dMark

[n604]

alright... i tested the cpu with prime 95 for one hour.
this is how it went:

at the torture test options i chose the third one:
blend (test some of everything, lots of ram tested)

i got 1.5 gb of RAM.. prime 95 was stressing it around 1.37gb
the cpu was constantly stressed around 50%-52%
the cpu temp was at 77-80c throughout the whole hour
the computer never crashed.

so does this mean its stable?

wonder what would happen if the cpu is stressed more, like at around 80%?

5here is the log from prime 95:
http://mysite.verizon.net/ndroid/prime95test.jpg

here is the screen from cpu z:
http://mysite.verizon.net/ndroid/cpuz.jpg

[n604]

sorry for the delay
i'm in europe, it took a long time to get the arctic silver 5.

half an hour ago my temps were: 50c idle, 75c loaded

my new temps are: 35c idle, 45c loaded !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

now i dont know what the hell solved this, maybe its the magical arctic silver 5...

but this time i used alcohol to clean off the zalman greese (looked the same to me when i cleaned it without the alcohol)...

also there is still a slight chance that the mounting was not right... (even though i installed it like 5 times...)

now i'm not taking off the heatsink anymore!!! finally its working... it took me a month of nightmares...

thanks everybody for all the great help...

[seanarmenta]

for what it's worth...i have the same ZALMAN heatsink fan...running a p4 3GHz on an ASUS P5RD1-V...

and i don't know a whole lot LOL i'm new to all this myself, but just from my own experimentation, i found that using the ASUS Q Fan feature actually yields higher temps. i just turned it off, and my temps are solid at 46-47 deg. but with Q Fan enabled, temps go to 60+ deg. i have the fanmate turned all the way clockwise.

don't know if that means a whole lot :)