Hot or Not?

[Pirotic]

Built a new PC today, medium spec - but im having problems with the temperature, and not your normal "its running to hot how do i cool it down" one either.

Basically the mobo says its always around 45c/50c, when i first turn the PC on from cold and go straight into the bios it reports its about 43c - is this even possible when its only been turned on for 2 seconds? When i max it out, it only seems to goto about 49c.

I just can't help feel that can't be possible, how can it be 45c within seconds, yet only go up another 5c when its being pushed to its limits.

is the mobo picking it up wrong or something? i've tried touching the heat-sink but its always stone cold, even when its been on for ages the heat sink on the CPU doesn't have any warmth to it.

Built a few PC's before but this is unexplainable :P

the case doesn't have proper fans yet, and i didnt do a very good job of putting thermal gel on (well, i did ok - but then i took the heatsink off and put it back on again a couple of times, which i hear is a big no no once the paste is on unless you reapply).

Anyhow, i've ordered a couple of nice fans and some artic silver thermal paste to correct my mistakes, at which point i'll just ignore the temp all together as i can rest assured its ok - but what the hell is up with the current temps? i can't think of any explanation for it. surely the cpu's heat sink should be boiling hot with only a crappy fan blowing air out the back.

here are my specs btw
Athlon 64 3200+ (939)
Nforce4 mobo
6600GT PCI-E
1GB DDR 400mhz

[Valken]

If you're running your PC at full load running a game the BASE of the heatsink should be at least a little warm to the touch. If not then it's possible the contact between the CPU and HSF is poor.

The thing is, if this was the case the temps would prob be MUCH higher and your system would be unstable...

As such, if it's stable under heavy load then I would imagine the readings are wrong... have you tried something like say, speedfan, to check temps?

Sometimes flashing the BIOS with a more up-to-date version can resolve temp calibration issues esp with s939 boards.

[Pirotic]

its a brand new mobo so no bios out yet, but nobody else has reported the problems on the forums. Speedfan gives me about 8 different temperatures, a couple are normally within a couple of c's to that the bios gives me, but none are 'exactly the same'.

the heat sink is cold, even when playing Doom3 for a few hours - i didnt do a great job with the thermal gel like i said, but if it wasn't touching the heat sink enough the PC should of hung on me, or overheated a good few hours ago.

its a case for moulder and skully i think, once i get the artic silver and the new fans i'll take it all apart and put it together again and just ignore the temp readings in full knowledge it should be ok.

*the mystery continues*

939's have bloody huge heat sinks (i have a Tornado cpu fan) but even at the bottom its cold.

[Valken]

Yeah, reseating the HSF and using Artic Silver is the best thing for it... beyond that I say if it's stable then don't worry about it. There's plenty of temp accuracy issues related to A64s tbh.

Where abouts do you touch the heat sink? the fins will be cool but the very base of it should be a little warm. Bear in mind that it depends on how warm your hands are though since you can only really feel relative temp differences.

[Pirotic]

every part of the heat sink is cold, from the fins all the way to the base, im partically touching the CPU and its still cold (my hands are room temp).

:P normally i'd of expected a little heat by now, even when im just in windows for a few hours.

i would try to redo the thermal paste now (have some cooler master tubes sat around) but dont have anything to clean it off with other than some lint free wipes, no rubbing alcolhol or nail varnish remover etc etc.. :P

if a computer is overheating - it should crash or hang before it dies right? or could it die on me totally out of the blue.

[Valken]

It's crash and hang... A LOT... when a CPU overheats it makes mistakes and your system will lock up of bluescreen.

furthermore A64s have a hardware failsafe that shuts them down at temps > 70*C

I am a little worried that the HSF is totally cold though. I would try not to use it until you reseat it... make sure you clean it down well before applying the new paste with isopropyl alcohol and some lint free paper or cloth.

[Pirotic]

i dont have the case closed, could that be keeping the heat sink cool?

i wouldn't say its 'cold' to the touch, but its just room temp - no different from my hands. it certainly doesn't seem to get warm no matter how much pressure i put the machine under. i'll prob plug in my old PC until the stuff arrives.

I ordered some cleaning fluid along with the artic silver, so i'll tidy it well up and reapply. cheers for the advice.

time to plug good old trusty back in!

[Valken]

Well a closed case with good airflow over the CPU will actually make it cooler than one with the case open tbh so I don't think so.

Let me know how it works out!

[Pirotic]

Back on the good old PC, did a quick bios and surprise surprise - this one is 42 on bootup from cold too, atm its 50c!

had a look at the fan on the other PC under a better light, it seems the heat sink is made out of iron (red anyway), it then has this metal casing around it which i dont think actually touchs the iron - im unable to actually touch the heatsink because of this casing, i suspect thats why i can't feel any heat.

either way, i'll get some decent fans in it, get some artic silver and then power it back and and just relax, unless it starts hanging or crashing i'll try not to worry about temps.

[Digfox]

2.5 weeks ago I built a new PC, A64 3500 and am getting around 32-25 Idle and 40 under load (at stock) on a Thermalright XP120.

I've used Artic Silver 5 though, and I think once you've reseated the CPU cooler with some AS, you'll get a good 5-10 degree drop in temps (guess), as you're already said. This stuff does make a world of difference.

Certainly though these A64's run cooler than my old XP. My friend has the same processor as your's on an XP120 again, and Idles below 30 degrees.

Btw what Nforce 4 motherboard? And is your A64 3200 a 'winchester' or 'Newcastle' core?

[Ginza]

Bah I thought I was coming in to see some chavs or fit people on hotornot.com

[superkully]

Don't worry about the heatsink being cold, the contact with the CPU is rather small and in the middle of the base. You're risking your machine more by touching stuff that shouldn't really be touched.

When putting your heatsink on you should always take it off and put it back on with a little lateral twist once to make sure the paste is fully covering the contact area.

And finally, don't worry too much about the tempreture readings... They're OK to use when measuring differences relative to idle and full load and different cooling but they're not accurate. The sensor itself is something that probably cost a few pennies and some (*cough* Abit *cough*) M/Bs modify the reading up or down. I know my CPU temp readings changed when I upgraded from v15 to v18 of my ABIT AN7 BIOS, I doubt the CPU is being pushed any harder as performance is the same.

And finally, you need to consider the ambient tempreture of the room. My mate was wondering why his CPU was 52C under load and mine was 45C. His computer was in a warmer room than mine, that was all.

[Valken]

superkully,

Abits really are terrible for temp accuracy aren't they?

I have a s939 AV8 from them and the reading are all over the place, their forums are full of unhappy obsessive compulsive types complaining about temp readings and BIOS updates that should calibrate these things rarely work.

I've stopped giving a **** tbh.

[superkully]

Me too Valken, I was quite the obsessive when I bought the computer and I still had the image of the money I'd paid for it - now I know that a few degrees here or there arn't going to shag anything and I've got it setup to shutdown once it gets to dangerous levels anyway...

And I still don't know why Abit modify the tempreture reading S-|

[Valken]

Aye... mine are so inconsistent that sometimes they read close to 59* loaded on a hot day (which isn't *too* bad) but I've tested the thing beyond and obsessive compulsive level and it came through the other side ok so feck it.

It's a pain but I'll survive!