Hot CPU or stupid BIOS?

[Matejcek]

I built a nice, modest new PC last week:

New Stuff:

· PowerUp AK-27 mid-tower case
· PowerUp 400W power supply
· Intel D945GCCRL uATX motherboard
· Intel Pentium D 805 Processor - 2.66GHz
· Ultra / Fire / Socket 775 / P4 3.8Ghz / Copper Core / CPU Fan
· Buffalo Select 1024MB PC4200 DDR2 533MHz Memory
· WD Caviar 250GB SATA HD 7200/8MB/SATA-3G
· Lite-On LH-20A1L-06 SuperAllwrite Lightscribe DVD Burner - 20x SATA
· 2x Thermaltake 120mm fans

Thrown in from the old system:

· 17 GB Quantum IDE hard drive
· Lite-On CD-RW
· Decrepit old floppy drive

It went together fairly easily -- about an hour and a half, while watching a movie with no real plot -- and it ran on first power-up.

I'm fearful that I have bad CPU cooling, or that my existing BIOS misreads temperatures.

If I start the machine and go into the BIOS, the CPU fan goes to warp speed, and the BIOS reports the CPU temperature as something like 64 deg. C. That happens to be about Intel's 'Thermal Specification' for this CPU (64.1).

When I let it boot, the fan slows down, all gets quiet. (This thing has five fans, and it's the quietest PC I've ever owned!) If I make it busy, the CPU fan speeds up a bit.

From all this I infer that one of the following is true:
- The BIOS is extremely compute intensive and it pushes the limit of the CPU.
- The BIOS intentionally overworks the CPU to be certain that the cooling is OK.
- The BIOS misreads the temperature of the CPU, but XP gets it right, slowing down the fans after booting. All is well.
- XP misreads the temperature of the CPU, and the BIOS was right. My new CPU is going to fry any moment.

I hate to admit it, but I downloaded SpeedFan, and couldn't make sense of it. It seemed to present no useful information, and I didn't see a way to configure it.

Is there an easy-to-install-and-use piece of freeware that will tell me the speeds and temps in my box, and that will tell me either to shut it down and rebuild the CPU/heatsink/fan assembly, or to blissfully carry on?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and comments,

Paul in WI

[glc]

First thing I'd do is update the bios. If it's still showing those temps, redo the heatsink, the 775's can be difficult to fully seat.

You will NOT melt down - Intel processors for the past several years have had automatic throttling and shutdown circuits.

[Matejcek]

Thanks, glc. Thanks also for the reassurance the the CPU will protect itself from meltdown.

Do you have any explanation for the fan going so fast in the BIOS, then idling when running the OS? That seems inconsistent with a poorly installed heatsink.

I had thought to update the BIOS as a matter of course. On the Intel website they said, paraphrasing, "Don't do this unless you have a real reason to do it." So I backed off.

Regarding the heatsink: The fan/heatsink came with a gold-colored thermal paste. The first time I installed it, I used too much. When I saw how much compound the joint extruded, I chose to take it apart, remove some of the paste, and reinstall it. I've read in several places, "Don't use too much thermal compound." That's like the comment on the fan assembly: "Tighten it, but not too much." Thanks, that's pretty scientific... So it isn't clear to me how much is enough, how much is too much.

Anybody have any comment on CPU temp/fan speed freeware for dummies?

Paul in WI

[blue60007]

Yeah, if the thermal paste is oozing out, that's way too much. You want just enough to give the CPU/heatsink surfaces a very thin coating.

I take it this isn't the stock heatsink that came with the CPU? The Intel stock fans come with a thermal pad applied and ready to go.

Do you have something CPU intensive you can fire up? Like a game or something else? I would try see if the fans revs up within Windows if you are doing something intensive. I'm pretty sure the CPU runs at 100% in BIOS (don't quote me though...) because BIOS does not tell the CPU to stop if it's not doing anything. Windows has the System Idle Process running to tell the CPU to stop if it's not needed. That's why I'm asking if you have something you can run to bring the CPU up to 100% usage and see if the fan ramps up there as well.

[glc]

Turn off any fan controls in the bios - that should let it run at 100% continuously.

[Matejcek]

How annoying -- I wrote an extensive reply, and it disappeared...

Originally Posted by blue60007 Yeah, if the thermal paste is oozing out, that's way too much. You want just enough to give the CPU/heatsink surfaces a very thin coating.

Well, I removed most of it, but I COULD remove more. I'm assuming that the goal is to exclude air and fill the microvoids, making the best thermal transfer possible. In other disciplines, that means a virtually transparent film of paste -- the thinnest film possible.

Originally Posted by blue60007 I take it this isn't the stock heatsink that came with the CPU? The Intel stock fans come with a thermal pad applied and ready to go.

No heatsink came with the CPU per se. It was a TigerDirect barebones kit that included the Ultra CPU fan described in the original entry above. It seems well-made. I wish that the copper core that contacts the actual CPU were square rather than round.

Originally Posted by blue60007 Do you have something CPU intensive you can fire up? Like a game or something else? I would try see if the fans revs up within Windows if you are doing something intensive. I'm pretty sure the CPU runs at 100% in BIOS (don't quote me though...) because BIOS does not tell the CPU to stop if it's not doing anything. Windows has the System Idle Process running to tell the CPU to stop if it's not needed. That's why I'm asking if you have something you can run to bring the CPU up to 100% usage and see if the fan ramps up there as well.

I don't have anything on this system that would saturate the CPU. But I can say that the fan/fans regulate in proportion to CPU load.

GLC, why would I want to switch off the fan regulation and make it run flat out all the time? Are you suggesting that as a precaution, because maybe the CPU really is overheating? I suppose that I really should get SpeedFan working... I really couldn't make sense of it -- but I have subsequently gotten a great deal of sleep, and so maybe it will make more sense..

Thanks again to all who choose to gift the community by sharing expertise!

Regards,

Paul in WI

[flanzig1]

Matejcek: A couple of thoughts.
I don't like Speedfan-I've ouind it to be inaccurate. Other people swear by it, though.
The Pent D 805 is a hot running CPU, I have one folding and it runs around 62c.
Some BIOSs will ramp up the CPU fan at start-up as a test then ramp back down to match the temps.
And, lastly, would think about getting a good PSU, the Power-Up is more than likely a real cheapo.

[Matejcek]

Originally Posted by flanzig1 Matejcek: A couple of thoughts. I don't like Speedfan-I've ouind it to be inaccurate. Other people swear by it, though. The Pent D 805 is a hot running CPU, I have one folding and it runs around 62c. Some BIOSs will ramp up the CPU fan at start-up as a test then ramp back down to match the temps. And, lastly, would think about getting a good PSU, the Power-Up is more than likely a real cheapo.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, flanzig1.

I'm wondering: Why would you replace a perfectly good power supply prior to its failure?

Thanks again,

Paul in WI

[shadowpr]

cause if you replace it prior to failure then you don't have to worry about it destroying other parts when it does fail.

[flanzig1]

The reason I mentioned replacing the PSU is that almost all PSUs that come with a case are junk as in use of cheap materials/watts are over stated/safety circuits left off to save money.
The way I look at it if you buy a case with a 400w PSU for $39, you bought a $39 case with a PSU that nobody can sell by itself.

[Matejcek]

Originally Posted by flanzig1 The reason I mentioned replacing the PSU is that almost all PSUs that come with a case are junk as in use of cheap materials/watts are over stated/safety circuits left off to save money. The way I look at it if you buy a case with a 400w PSU for $39, you bought a $39 case with a PSU that nobody can sell by itself.

Yeah, that all kind of makes sense. The case I bought was sans power supply, but I get your point.

I'm guessing the the power supply will last at least through its warranty. I hadn't considered that it might go berserk and damage my beloved new components. In any case, I'll take my chances for a while.

Thanks for straight feedback!

Paul