How to tell if your CPU is running to hot.

[morriswindgate]

1. Is it acting strange?
2. Is it Locking Up?
3. Is it Re-Booting?

4. Do you have a working heatsink fan?
5. Is the heatsink installed correctly?
6. Did you use some sort of thermal transfer medium when you installed the heatsink? (Pad or paste)
7. Is the high temp showing up in a software monitoring program?

If you answered No to 1,2, 3 and Yes to all the others, then you CPU is not running too hot. The temps may not be as low as they could be, but their are no signs of overheating.

Here is a few tips for a better running computer.

1. If you have a software temp monitoring program on your computer,, uninstall it or disable it.
2. Unless you see a real problem, stay out of the BIOS.
3. If you have one of the newer boards that can read the actual core temp of the chip, don't use it or look at it.
4. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Most of the AMD CPU heat problems are based on fear and rumor. There are many chips inside a computer that get extremely hot, but I never see posts on

How hot should my video card chip run?
How hot should the northbridge chip run?
How hot should my RAM run?
How hot should the controller chip on my hard drive run?

And the reason you don't see these is that there isn't some crappy software or BIOS screen you can run to when someone starts a rumor or perpetuates an opinion thay have seen.
If the computer is working without problems use it for god' sake.

[Cricket]

Great post Morris!

Cricket