Is this too hot?

[Mesaeus]

Okay, I'm going to suggest something silly, but what the heck, right ? On the one Athlon64 I installed, there was some kind of plastic cover over the bottom of the heatsink, where you make contact with the cpu. It was real easy to peel it off (it was meant to be peeled off before you install the heatsink), but I can imagine that someone, somewhere in the world forgot to do this (or didn't even see this thin plastic strip was there). Please tell me you removed this

[General Lee]

I can report that I did, in fact, remove the plastic thing from the heatsink prior to installing it. That would be like putting the frozen pizza in the oven without removing the plastic bag !

Update:

I have WinXP installed & everythng seems to work OK so far . The temperature reading in my BIOS is still telling me 75C .
What is a good program that will fit on a floppy that can display CPU temperature while I'm in Windows?

[Hags]

well i agree that 75 is way too hot, providing the bios is sensing the outer temp, mine runs at a onstant 35-37 degrees celcius, even when playin doom 3 and ut 2004, during the summer, and i onyl have 2 case fans.....msi's core center is a great cpu temp/voltage monitoring windows utility, however, and it only takes up half of a floppy, try http://www.msicomputer.com/support/sup_FreeDL2.asp

[FLG]

ahh, I think i may have the solution...or so i hope.

In the bios check the processor voltage, if its over 1.5v then your overvolting the cpu..good for oc'ing...bad for temps. Too mutch voltage will really heat things up without the proper cooling (way too mutch will fry the proc).

Hope this solves the problem

[w33tq]

Originally Posted by General Lee I can report that I did, in fact, remove the plastic thing from the heatsink prior to installing it. That would be like putting the frozen pizza in the oven without removing the plastic bag !

/me has done this (the pizza cooking at least)... I forgot to take the cardboard off the bottom ... whole pizza went up in flames ... what a mess to clean out the oven.. First time i got to use the fire extinguisher.... :-D

[General Lee]

Originally Posted by Nooblark well, this is a stupid comment but no1 else made.. make sure the hs fan in blowing into the heatsink, not out..

Actually the fan is blowing air away from the heatsink. I think this is how all heatsink/fans are set up so as to remove the heat rather than just blow it around. Somehow blowing air on to that chunk of aluminum doesn't seem right.

Besides it was put together by 'professionals' right? 'Professionals' in a slave-labor laboratory in Maylasia .

[w33tq]

Originally Posted by General Lee Actually the fan is blowing air away from the heatsink. I think this is how all heatsink/fans are set up so as to remove the heat rather than just blow it around. Somehow blowing air on to that chunk of aluminum doesn't seem right. Besides it was put together by 'professionals' right? 'Professionals' in a slave-labor laboratory in Maylasia .

erm.... my heatsink fan blows into the heatsink... and i think that's how it's supposed to be.

[Preston]

Originally Posted by General Lee Actually the fan is blowing air away from the heatsink.

Perhaps that is part of the problem...I thought the heatsink fan blew ON the heatsink, not away....

[w33tq]

another thing.... when i look at my heatsink.. it's not just a chunk of copper.. ithere are layers... and the air flows between them to cool it down

[General Lee]

Originally Posted by FLG In the bios check the processor voltage, if its over 1.5v then your overvolting the cpu..good for oc'ing...bad for temps. Too mutch voltage will really heat things up without the proper cooling (way too mutch will fry the proc).

My CPU voltage is set to 1.5V . Is this OK? Should I lower it to see what happens?

[w33tq]

i wouldn't lower it.. that's probably the default setting for your processor to run at that speed... I doubt it would hurt the CPU, but you may crash... might even have to reset the bios if it doesn't start up... But wait for someone else's advice, i'm still a noober with some of this stuff...

[General Lee]

w33tq,

Does the CPU fan spin clockwise? I watched it as it stopped but could not tell. The way the blades look it seems as though they should spin clockwise. If so then I would think the air would be blowing away from the heatsink.

But then what do I know? My rig is hot enough to cook on at the moment !

[Preston]

Originally Posted by General Lee w33tq, Does the CPU fan spin clockwise? I watched it as it stopped but could not tell. The way the blades look it seems as though they should spin clockwise. If so then I would think the air would be blowing away from the heatsink.

Try holding you hand near it when it is on, or a small piece of paper over the fan to see which way the air is blowing...

[roomwithamoose]

I just finished my first build last night. I've got the AMD Athlon XP 3200+ on a Abit mobo. After having on over night, and just doing some tweaking, I haven't seem it go above 42 C. The Abit mobo came with an awsome program for monitoring all the temps nd fan speeds inside the computer. What are you using to check the temps? It really does sound like the temp sensor inside your cpu is faulty.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by General Lee Actually the fan is blowing air away from the heatsink. I think this is how all heatsink/fans are set up so as to remove the heat rather than just blow it around.

No, the vast majority of heatsinks have the fan set up to blow air down onto the heatsink. Only a very few are designed to blow air away from the heatsink. If you have the retail heatsink, the fan should blow down onto the heatsink.

You can tell which way a fan is supposed to spin and which way the airflow goes by looking on the side of the fan housing...you'll see a pair of arrows. One shows fans rotation direction and the other shows air flow direction.

If you're sure the fan is blowing away from the heatsink, turn the fan around so that it blows air down onto the heatsink.

Cricket

[jonro]

Originally Posted by Hags well i agree that 75 is way too hot, providing the bios is sensing the outer temp, mine runs at a onstant 35-37 degrees celcius, even when playin doom 3 and ut 2004, during the summer, and i onyl have 2 case fans.....msi's core center is a great cpu temp/voltage monitoring windows utility, however, and it only takes up half of a floppy, try

Geeezz thats cool.......what cpu cooler are you using? and with only 2 case fans?
How hot is your summer?

Right now my CPUs running at 40 degrees celcius at idle and runs at 50 when playing UT 2004 with 4 case fans and the CPU cooler in my sig.
Is this bad? A pic of my CPU cooler is below

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by jonro Geeezz thats cool.......what cpu cooler are you using? and with only 2 case fans? How hot is your summer? Right now my CPUs running at 40 degrees celcius at idle and runs at 50 when playing UT 2004 with 4 case fans and the CPU cooler in my sig.

Don't compare your temps with temps from another computer. Your computer is more than likely nothing like theirs and the ambient temps are probably different. The main thing is your computer is running stable.

Your temps are fine and normal. Don't worry about it.

Another thing, can you reduce the size of your signature and do something about the colors. It's very hard on the eyes.

Cricket

[General Lee]

What do you guys think about THIS?

If I can determine that my CPU is, in fact, running at 75C do you think this heatsink/fan will make a big difference? I can tolerate noise as long as the cooling is sufficient.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Cricket]

If you're going to replace your current heatsink, go with a Thermalright instead. Best heatsinks on the market.

Cricket

[jonro]

Sure thing cricket ill fix my sig as soon as i get time.

)))))

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by jonro Sure thing cricket ill fix my sig as soon as i get time.

Thank you jonro! My eyes thank you too .

Cricket

[TheMajor]

I wouldn't touch the voltage unless your system is really unstabil

[Mesaeus]

Heya General lee, sorry about my silly question, but I just HAD to ask it Anyways, I don't think you're going to solve this with another cooler, no matter how good it is. 75C is very hot for a processor. Can you touch the heatsink without burning yourself ? If it's not very hot, then the sensor might be completely wrong, since the one Athlon64 I did build never got above 50 degrees and that was when Q-fan on the Asus MB stopped the fan COMPLETELY (this is by design, it will start running again at around 50 degrees, stops running at about 35). If your heatsink doesn't feel warm at all, there is a problem with the heat transfer. If it does feel reasonably warm, the sensor is broken. If it's too hot to touch, the sensor is probably right, BUT an Athlon64 should never get that warm, even with the default heatsink. You sure got us a mystery here So please please tell me how hot the heatsink feels.

One other comment : the A64 is very easy to underVOLT. I had mine running at 1.325V, completely stable (prime95 ran for 24 hours without a hitch) and it sure did lower the temp (I didn't really check how much, but i think about 7-10 degrees, maybe more). Try running at that voltage, I'm curious if the 75C drops. If it doesn't drop even one degree, then that sensor is faulty and stuck on 75 somehow. If your mb bios doesn't support lowering the core voltage, you can use ClockGen to do it in Windows, very easy to use.

And a last comment. The A64 system I built was designed to make as little noise as possible. This means undervolting, enabling q-fan on the Asus mb so that the cpu fan (Pabst low noise 1800 RPM 80mm) would run as slow as possible or even not at all. All this was mounted in a Antec 3700BQE case which is a very good low noise design. It has a 120mm low noise low speed case fan at the back, a specially designed psu that also contains a low noise, low speed 80mm fan and.... That's it. That's all the fans in the system (used a fanless nvidia mx4000 card because he wouldn't use it for games anyway). Three fans, NONE of which goes over 1800 RPM. And still I got great temps, ranging from 35-48 degrees with the occasional bump to 52 before the cpu fan began spinning again. And these temps were with 100% continual utilization by the UD Agent (something like F@H). So now you understand why everyone here is extremely curious about your temps

[sataraid0]

Temp should definetly not be 75C. Also pretty sure fan should blow on cpu.

If you download FREE Sandra program it should be able to give you accurate temp of cpu.

Here have a p4 3g pentium running at full load: temp 41C... idle at 33C. Using a 4000 rpm fan for cpu at the moment.

[TheMajor]

or download DrHardWare

[yellohut]

I owuld try making sure the fan blows into the heatsink before buying another cooling unit... but if yoyu do decide to get another cooler, go with thermalright.. they make very good coolers.

[General Lee]

The fan is blowing into the heatsink. I thought the blades rotated in the other direction but I stand corrected .

I have installed 'hmonitor' & it says my CPU temp is 63-65C & this is seen from the desktop while I'm in Windows. Could the BIOS be off by 10 degrees? Regardless, 65C is still too hot.

About voltage, this hmonitor program also displays the voltages. I know nothing about this so please bear with me. There are 5 different readings labeled:
1) +12V
2) +5V
3) Core
4) I/O
5) Aux
The values displayed for +5V & Aux are highlighted in red which makes me think they are not good. The value for +5V fluxuates between +2-5V & the value for Aux is steady at +2.61V. Is this a problem? I'm pretty sure I can adjust the voltages in my BIOS if neccesary.

Also, my heatsink does not feel warm at all. I can put my hand on it & feel no difference from room temperature.
I know the heatsink is making contact with the CPU. Why no apparent heat transfer? Could my heatsink be made of iron ?

[FLG]

Dont use programs to check temps unless you know there accurate or close to bios temps. Real temps are only from the bios.

Same thing for rails, dont bother with programs that monitor your rails cause there more then likley not accurate.

But replace your psu, if your using the one that came with your raidmax case your looking for trouble. Stick with brands like Enlight, Enermax, Thermaltake, Antec, Sparkle, and fortron souce to name a few. Just bought a enermax 420w noisetaker and its a heck of a psu (especially for 66$ from newegg).

Finally, your voltage at 1.5v is fine. If it was higher then 1.5v then that wouldent be stock and thats where your heat problems would have came from. Your voltage is fine as it is.

Can this heat problem stem from a cheap psu? Heck might not even be heat, could be your psu supplying your mobo the wrong woltage. Id replace that psu before i buy a new hsf. Because you can either replace it now or it die on you down the line and take your hardware with it.

[Mesaeus]

Originally Posted by General Lee Also, my heatsink does not feel warm at all. I can put my hand on it & feel no difference from room temperature. I know the heatsink is making contact with the CPU. Why no apparent heat transfer? Could my heatsink be made of iron ?

I'll quote my first response in this thread :

One last thing, I've read about someone who had managed to pull his heatsink off too hard, resulting in the heat spreader disconnecting from the core (the heatspreader could be put back but it didn't seem to make perfect contact anymore) and he always had very high temps afterwards. I think your heatspreader may not be touching the core perfectly anymore (in other words it's a problem with the cpu)

I still think the heatspreader has somehow come loose. I don't see how you can fix it yourself, so you might want to ask for a replacement. Tell them it shows high temps and crashes (that's at least half true ). As long as there is no visible external damage, they'll probably replace it (or should anyway). If the second cpu does the same, then we can eliminate this little theory of mine.

Even if the pc is running fine, your problem (and most certainly the fact that the heatsink does not warm up even when in perfect (well as good as you can do ) contact with the heatspreader), will surely come back to haunt you. My old athlon XP 1700+ starts crashing at around 72 degrees. The P4 prescott starts throttling down at around that temp. That is definitely not a good temp, so try to RMA the cpu.

[General Lee]

Originally Posted by FLG But replace your psu, if your using the one that came with your raidmax case your looking for trouble. Stick with brands like Enlight, Enermax, Thermaltake, Antec, Sparkle, and fortron souce to name a few. Just bought a enermax 420w noisetaker and its a heck of a psu (especially for 66$ from newegg).

So it could be the PSU huh? Did my voltages (a few posts up) look weird to you?
This might be a very dumb question but what does the switch above the 115/220V selector on the back of the PSU do? It has a "-" & a "o", kind of like on & off or something...? It is currently switched to "-".

Meseaus,
I'll try to RMA the CPU if all else fails. I got it from mwave.com so they should be pretty easy to deal with I hope.

This is so much fun !