Overheating CPU or bad HSF

[SeaTech30]

Hello I have:
ASUS "A7V880" VIA KT880
AMD Athlon XP 3200+ "Barton", 400MHz FSB

Thermaltake POLO 735 Extreme 3 in 1 CPU Cooler for AMD K7 & K8 and Intel P4 processors, Model "POLO 735" :
Max Air Flow(CFM): 26.50CFM at 20°C, 72.92CFM at 55°C

At first I thought it was something to do with the motherboard, PC would boot but as soon as it would reach the windows load it would prompt the safe mode or normal mode, as soon as i would select either the PC would restart. Sometimes when I would enter the BIOS it would freeze. Someone recommended upgrading the BIOS so i did that. The problem remained. It wasnt till something I had noticed b4 dawned on me. I recall seeing that the CPU temp under BIOS was like 50 C so i decided to check it again and it was the at 63 C!! Today when I got home I powered up the PC and immidiately went into BIOS to see the temps the CPU temp went from 32 to 61C in less than 1 min!! The HSF seems to be fine since I already removed and even tried different thermal compound. The thing still heated up fast. I have a Duron around so I decided to try that. I put that just now and watched the temps for a bit and it stayed at 40C so i went ahead with installing windows since with the other CPU it wasnt able to get past far enough. When the PC would restart I touched the HS and it wasnt hardly warm. So I'm going to try and use the hook from my Duron HSF on the XP one maybe that one is too flimsy and doesnt make good contact. I would like to know if the CPU overheating like this is a sign of a bad CPU? I'm going to try the different hook in a bit and i'll come back and post whether the made any difference.

[Cricket]

You sure the heatsink is installed properly and making full contact with the CPU? The recessed part of the heatsink should be over the raised part of the socket. Is the clip hard to install? It should be fairly hard to get on properly. If it's not, the clip can be re-bent to add more pressure to the heatsink.

Is the heatsink making contact with anything other than the CPU and the metal clip? It shouldn't.

Cricket

[SeaTech30]

Hello Cricket, thank you for the reply.

I switched the hook thing the one that secures the HS to the socket. Put the 3200+ back on and installed the HS, yes this time it was very hard (especially since the HSF for the duron was a really cheap buy) I powered up quickly went into BIOS to monitor the temp. THAnKFULLY the temp didn't sky rocket. However at 4100 RPM the CPU stays around 50 C which i think seems a bit too high. And most likely once I enter windows this will go up even more. At full speed the CPU temp goes to about 43-45 but it's really load and I usually leave my comp on over night so i need to lower the noise. I need to get my Windows onto my SATA drive right now, it's running on my IDE drive. Is 50C a good temp for this CPU? here's a link to the HSF i have so you can see it http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc...106-042&depa=0 I knew I shouldn't have gone with a all cover HS... Or are those supposed to be better? The weird thing is that this HSF doesnt have that hard stuff on the bottom it's like clay sort of or like dense paste (not the sticker some come with hehehe) this one is just plain. Well plz let me know if that temp is ok at that RPM.

[Cricket]

I'm not a fan of Thermaltake heatsinks, but the newer ones seem to work pretty decently.

The Athlon 3200+ does run hotter than the slower Athlons, so 50C might be about right with the fan RPMs turned down a bit. But if it's a full copper heatsink, you do need a fan with high RPMs to blow the heat off the fins since copper doesn't release heat to atmosphere as well as aluminum does. So you may have to run the fan at full speed while you're using the computer and then turn it down when you're not using it at night.

You may want to replace the thermal pad with Arctic Silver...that in itself may reduce the temps by a few degrees, maybe more.

Cricket

[SeaTech30]

Arg I had artic silver on there b4 but with all the comosion i decided to use the compound that came with the HSF... And I don't think it'll be too easy to remove that cheap hook without having the screwdriver slips a few @_@.... Also you mentioned that I could re-bend the hook.. wont it just bend back? I would really like to use the one that came with the HSF because it has a better place for me to use a screwdriver without having it slip. Maybe I should see if I can replace the HS for a copper/aluminum one.