Uncomfortable CPU Temps

[Stuey]

My CPU temps (according to the ABIT mobo utility), are usually round 46-49°C idle, and when under full load it goes to maybe 55. Now that it's summer, my CPU temp zooms to about 62. The a/c is on, and I'm running "folding at home" in the background and my CPU temp is 65°C.

I was wondering why my temps are so high and if it's possible that the mobo monitor is wrong. If you can suggest how to improve my cooling w/o making my system too much noisier, please suggest away.

Background info:

I have an Antec Lanboy with a 120mm fan as an intake, a 120mm fan at the exhaust. In the BIOS I have it set so that the fans (I think that the BIOS controls only change the "OTES" fan speed) are at 60 or 70% b/c the "OTES" fan on the MAX-III motherboard is freakin loud if I don't do this (it's a 40mm fan running at 4400RPM at this 70% setting!!). Also, I have a Zalman AlCu CPU cooler with the fan at around 1650 rpm. I'm not sure what other temperature monitors to use. I do have the thermocouple that came with my $40 multimeter but I'm not sure if I could trust its reading.

Right now, my PSU exhaust is pretty warm - maybe a possible factor which adds to the elevated CPU temperature. I guess I'm going to increase the rpm on the CPU fan (it came with a small manual control potentiometer), and sometime over the weekend I'll take off the Zalman and clean the dust off before I apply some new Artic Silver Ceramique. When I installed the Zalman after using the stock Intel cooler for a few months, I used too much ceramique as I was following amateur guides on how to mount a heatsink. Arctic Silver's instructions actually call for less spreading and less substance than I actually used so maybe reseating the heatsink will give me a better junction.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Again, the OTES is the loudest fan in the box. On ABIT's site you can see a picture of what the OTES is if you click on the picture of the motherboard.

EDIT: Alright, so I turned the CPU fan speed to max (2400rpm) and my temp is still 64°C after 30 minutes at the new speed. I'm starting to think that my PSU may be heating the area up as well. In addition, my system temp is repoted to be 33C and my PWM area (the OTES region) is 44C. When I run the utility, the OTES seems to rev up and get noisier. I emailed ABIT months ago and still I have no reply. Anyways, please... help!

[glc]

It may be a Lanboy issue - that case is not efficient when it comes to cooling because of its size and design. I'd definitely clean and reapply your thermal compound.

[Stuey]

Sorry, it's the Super Lanboy, if that makes any difference. But yea, I've found it to be kind of tight but since I go back and forth to university and now, grad school, a larger case is too impracticle.

I've thought about putting in a blowhole, but PSU wires would block most of the air. There's no place on the window for a fan since it would greatly disrupt the CPU and case fans' airflow.

I think you're right and the case is just way too cramped. For some reason, I still feel distrustful of the readings.

[netnamakan]

Maybe try comparing the temps in the BIOS with the CPU idle temp in windows.

[Stuey]

I've compared the BIOS and the ABIT Windows utility temps before, and they're quite close.

As a short term solution I just decreased the CPU availability to the Folding app to 50%, and this dropped the CPU temps by about 6 degrees C.

[ric449]

Try reapplying the thermal paste like you said. Make sure the fans are oriented properly, they are blowing in the right directions. Check the CPU heatsink for dust buildup. Make sure wires are tucked away neatly. And last but not least, make sure the back of the computer is not cramped up against a wall, this caused unexplained high temperatures on my computer.

[Stuey]

A couple of weeks ago I decided to reapply the Arctic Silver Ceramique and my temperatures are relatively stable now although they haven't dropped much. I'm seeing 50C idle temperatures which I'll live with until my next build when I'll choose a much more spacious case.

[Thebranded]

your temps were always like that? or just recently go up? any overclocking?

[glc]

That's still pretty high for a Northwood. If you had a Prescott, I'd say that it was normal.

Try removing the Zalman, do a thorough cleanup, and remount the stock cooler - see what you get.

[z3frog]

maybe try cleaning out some dust! dust will trap in some heat....

[Stuey]

I have cleaned everythign thoroughly though. I used isopropyl alcohol to clean the old gunk off of the CPU and off of the zalman. I then applied a light smother of the Ceramique to fill in any pits as the AS website suggests and then I put the amount of Ceramique on the CPU heat spreader that was recommended. I think it said something like putting an amount the size of a grain of rice.

I also clean out the dust every now and then.

I'm thinking that since the motherboard is really close to the PSU, that some of the heat buildup bleeds towards the CPU and increases the ambient temperature in that area.

I'm out of town for a few days so I won't be able to post my other temps until then, but my PWM temperature and my system temps are usually at least 10°C less than the CPU temp.

When I get home, I'll fiddle around a little bit in an effort to determine what the real culprit is (I really suspect that it's the PSU's proximity to the CPU).

Hmm... but I guess you're right, I'll try using the stock cooler for a few days to see if there's any dramatic difference, but I recall that the temperatures were comparable but the Zalman was just a bit quieter.

[blue60007]

I personally have the Super Lanboy, and no, it's air flow isn't the greatest. But still, my CPU (2.66B) is running at 2.9Ghz and right now running F@H, I'm getting 52C, and my case fans are fairly low RPM and CFM. And when you have a 9"+ video card that leaves less than an inch, that essential blocks of over half the airflow from the intake. Oh and I have a cheap heatsink/fan. So my advice (like everyone above) is to remove the Zalman, reapply the thermal paste (be sure to get the CPU and heatsink spiffy clean first) in a thin layer. Applying too much would actually act as an insulator.

Also try dropping your HDD(s) to the lower bays, and get all the cables out of the way to impove the airflow as best as you can.

[Stuey]

My cables are relatively clean and routed such that they block a minimum amount of air. The thing is, when I was running F@Home, I was seeing 60+C temperatures. When I set the program to only use 50% of my spare CPU cycles, my tems were still about 55° which is why I started this thread.

I think that I might assemble the mobo out of the case or with the PSU out of the case and check the new temps. At the very least, I'll do a THOROUGH cleaning of the components in case I missed some dust-filled spot. It'll be a day before I can attempt this though, but the system is long due for a good tinkering.

Blue, I've thought about moving a drive up to the extra slot beneath my never-used floppy drive and then separating the two other HDs as far as possible or even throwing one into an external enclosure. Instead of that, I might try to add an extra intake, but you'll probably see the problem with that... there aren't many places where an intake can go.

[blue60007]

Nope, there's no where else for an intake to go... Unless you put a dinky noisy fan into an extra optical bay or that little toolkit area. But that wouldn't be too efficient.

[PommieB]

My test computer is a 2.4g pentium 4c and it runs at 29 deg C at idle and barely reaches 40 at full load, it's also a Northwood, believe me to get temps like those is due to a bad cpu/heatsink set-up, I'd get that right first.

[glc]

Different brands of motherboards get their temperature readings from different sensor placements too - Northwood idle temps on an Intel board are usually around 30 but on an Asus are in the low 40's. I don't know what "normal" is on an Abit. If your PSU has an internal fan blowing into the case, this can disturb airflow if the fan is right by the CPU, this is not an issue with PSU's that only have a rear exhaust fan. You can prove/disprove this by unscrewing the PSU from the case leaving everything hooked up (support the PSU and aim all fans away from the CPU area) and leaving the side off the case and see what temps you get - this is easier than removing the whole motherboard.

[Stuey]

I removed the size panel and cranked up the CPU fan a tad bit and the temps dropped from 50 to 48.5C. This is probably do to the increase in the fan speed.

Right now my computer isn't doing much, I'm just download a few program updates and I have a few web sites open. There is some dust accumulation on the fan which I'll take care of tonight.

According to the utility, the NB is at 32 and the PWM is at 34.5C. In the Bios, I throttled down the fans b/c if I don't, the OTES fan on the motherboard goes nuts. I suspect that if I don't throttle down the fans and leave the Zalman fan on that my temps might drop significantly. Going to shut down, clean heatsink, adjust BIOS fan settings, and will report back.

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions and comments.

EDIT: Alright, so I cleaned out my system, reapplied my heatsink and disabled the CPU throttle-down feature in the BIOS. This increased the OTES and NorthBridge fan speeds but the temps are as follows: NB: 32C, PWM: 32.5, and CPU is at 45.5. This is after two hours of leaving the computer on and idle for two hours straight. The OTES fan is waaay too loud now and the drop in CPU temp isn't quite worth it. Besides, this may be due to the cleaning of the system.

Something caught my attention... no matter how much I cleaned the heatsink, after I appled thermal compound, a black film appeared when I rubbed it off with a lint-free cloth. So did my thermal compound go bad?

Also, I am aware that the thermal compound needs to have a break-in period so perhaps my temps will further lower. In any case, I'll re-enable the fan throttle-down feature since the CPU fan speed remains the same but the OTES quiets down a bit.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that when I touch the heatsink fans when the system is running, they are only slightly warmer than the ambient temperature.

It is now seven hours after my last edit, and my NB CPU PWM temps are 32, 47, 35.5, Celcius, respectively. Everything is throttled down to 60% b/c my NB and OTES fan are obnoxiously noisy. So far, so good. I've come to think that everything is just peachy and that with the components I have, aside from modifying the OTES fan there isn't much more I can do to lower my reported CPU temp.