CPU overheating

[lost45]

I've been doing everything i can to keep my CPU temp down, but durring gaming it has been getting up to 62-63 degrees and starts to throttle. I picked up a new fan, tried out arctic silver compound, have about 6 case fan's running with a nice enermax psu specifically designed to lower case temp's.

On average my case temperate is around 38-44 degrees. My GPU is a steady 52 (x850xt pe). Durring low to minimal use my CPU temp is sitting at 35-36 deg. If i fire up any 3d program my temp quickly spikes to 63 or 64ish.

I used about 1/4th of a dime worth of thermal paste, is it posible that i used too much? Any other sugestions to bring down my core temp without spending hundreds of dollars on liquid cooling or a crazy cpu fan?

Running a P4 3.4 gig prescot 775.
MSI Neo 916 mobo
enermax 3 in 1-24p PSU
ati x850xt PE
Raptor Case 1 front fan, two side fans, two rear fans. All fans were replaced with thermaltake quiet berring case fans.

[newbuilder14]

Are you experiencing any instabilities? My Pentium 4 runs just as hot as yours, but my system is still stable. The Pentium 4 is built to sustain such temps. It's just that the architecture was not designed on a thermal friendly basis, especially when Intel started using Netburst technology. Hope this helps.

[Alaron]

Prescott CPUs did run hot.

Yes, it is possible that to use too much thermal paste. There should be a very thin layer between the chip and heatsink. Anymore and you're actually insulating the chip instead of helping the heat transfer. 1/4 of a dime is probably ok though, I just wanted to clarify that question for you.

How are your case fans setup? 6 is more then enough. Remember that rear fans exhaust and front fans intake.

[Cricket]

Are you using a Thermally Advantaged Tested Case?

The thing to remember when you're applying thermal compound is that all it needs to do is fill in the microscopic imperfections of the two mating surfaces (CPU thermal spreader and the heatsink)...the two metal surfaces must still make physical contact with each other. Using too much thermal compound will prevent the surfaces from making actual contact and you'll end up with higher temps.

Cricket

[Powertrip]

if you've got some time on your hands do a prime 95 maximum heat for 1 hour and write down your cpu core temp,

Then pop your fan and heat sync off and carefully pull your CPU out. give everything a good cleaning and reinstall the CPU without any thermal compound. run a prime95 maximum heat for 1 hour and write down your core CPU temp keeping everthing you can constant (including room temp and case position).

Then you can add your thermal compound and compare to see if your are gaining or losing. Just watch that your CPU don't spike to high during the prime 95's. and a thin layer of thermal compound is ideal use like your air miles or health card to spread it lol.

[dogdude16]

pentium 4's do run hot but i think it might be because of your 6 cases fans. thats more than enough and they might be making a weird air flow though your case making pockets of hot air to stay in there. you want a front fan to take in and back fan to take out . you might want two in the back and mabye two in the front.

how are your fans set up right now?

[lost45]

Current fan setup is one front intake, two side intakes, the two on the rear are output and the PSU output.

CPU fan and GPU fan on top of that.

Going to remove the CPU fan today and try a smaller ammount of thermal paste and see what happens with that, see if i need furthur testing after that.

[flanzig1]

When you spread the thermal paste on the CPU, you want just a haze showing. Should just about read the lettering on the CPU.

[lost45]

think the paste was the problem. I cleaned off the fan and CPU, cleaned my case fans, and redid the paste with much less than before. My temps are now running at about 46 deg in game.

[andper10]

Yes, that sounds better, my 3.0 Ghz P4 Prescott rarely goes over 49 C during games with the stock HSF and thermal pad (btw, I have 4 case fans: one 120mm exhaust, one 120mm front intake in three 5.25" drive bays, one 80mm front intake blowing on my HD, and a side fan pulling heat off my video card).