AHHH!!!! Help, CPU running real hot at idle

[p8ntslinger676]

Ok i was working on my computer and i had just installed a new heatsink and fan from the stock one, stock was running idle at about 31-33 degrees celcius and the new better heatsink was runing idle at 47 degrees celcius, i used the termal pad that came on the new heatsink first then i removed that thinking that that was the reason it was running so hot, i then applied some arctic silver 5 on it and it was still runing at that temperature. I then thought that it might be the heatsink and fan itself so i put the original heastink back on with arctic silver 5. it is still running real hot at the same temperature as before, about 45-47 degrees celcius. the fan is running at 3300 rpm idle which is way too fast and i am kind of getting worried. i am also really stumped and dont know wtf to do. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP.

 

[timberwolf1]

What is your case? The case airflow could have something to do with it.

 

[uber_g]

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (OC'ed at 2.8Ghz) <--- 8O



try not to put too much thermal paste i know we all want to be u cant

but a very very little amount and spread it out with a plastic bag

it should about the thickness of 3 mm

 

[p8ntslinger676]

First of all my case is an antec superlanboy and it gets great ventilation secondly i use a program to overclock my cpu so i do not have it overclcked at this time, it is at default and i an thicnking that it is the cpu that is not piking up the temperature correctly because i touched the heatsink and it wasnt even close to being hot at the base of it. so i am kind of stumped, now i am having problems with it starting up and eveertime i start it up now i have to reset the bios for some retarded reason and it will not aunch some prgrams saying there was a memry read error every time. well im really stumped and it all started with the heatsink and fan replacemant.

 

[MasterLee]

Put all the settings back to stock.........how does that work ?

 

[Mobius]

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (OC'ed at 2.8Ghz) <--- 8O

try not to put too much thermal paste i know we all want to be u cant

but a very very little amount and spread it out with a plastic bag

it should about the thickness of 3 mm

There's an idiot in here every 30 seconds I swear. 3mm thick of Arctic Silver??? ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY INSANE? THAT'S JUST DUMB!

Sweet Baby Jebus - just go to the Arctic silver web site and follow instructions for CPU installation PRECISELY! It's more like 0.3mm of thermal goop - and if you spread it with a plastic bag you're a fool. It requires a very steady hand and a perfect straight edge (like a straight razor blade) and 100% clean surfaces. You must NOT move the heatsink around after placing it on the CPU and the heatsink clamping mechanism must be operated correctly.

To me it sounds like you had it all wrong: dirty cpu and dirty heatsink. Bad application of thermal goop causing air pockets (which REALLY hurt your cooling) and probably a rough surface on the heatsink base. That's a good recipe for a very hot CPU.

And for goodness sake - feeling a heatsink does NOT tell you how hot the CPU is! If the thermal transfer is poor, then your CPU could be EXTREMELY hot but your heatsink could be cool to the touch.

 

[PDH-NicFury]

Check your voltage, see if it's up WAY to high. I pulled my FX-53 and dropped in a Opteron 170, forgot to drop my voltage (stock 1.5 FX, 1.3/1.35 for Opteron)... ran hot as hell, finally figured it out.

As noted, make sure you clean your cpu and copper plate on your hsf each time you reapply thermal paste, and use a VERY thin layer over all of the cpu.

Opteron 170 (dual core) 2.0Ghz stock, oc'ed to 2.9Ghz stable 8)

 

[swifty_morgan]

What new heatsink and fan. Tell me it was one of those heavy p.o.s. zallman copper jobs, that you have to turn two screws down to tighten it, and I'll tell you to tighten them down evenly, or it will sit cocked and not make proper contact.

Also, when spreading thermal compound, use your friggin finger to smooth it out over the entire chip, and make sure it's thin. Did you get any of it on the board around the chipset ? And what did you do to remove the old stuff ?

 

[p8ntslinger676]

first of all i use isopropyl alcohol that was greater than 50% to remove the old thermal compound and secondly, from everyone else i have asked, you do not need to spread it, you put a blob of it in the middle and firmly press down on the heatsink to spread it evenly and everytime i have done this and taken it off it will be spread on their evenly over the whole CPU. what i am wondering is could this be causing the other problems, because every other time i have done this is it worked fine, i just installed my friends CPU and Zalman heatsink and it worked perfectly fine, ran at just above 40 degrees celcius under load. that is also where i got the other heatsink from, i thought the much larger heatsink with heatpipes and a larger fan would do better so he gave it to me. now i have to reinstall windows cus it wont boot and every time i try i have to first reset the bios. i have been working on computers for years and havent had this problem, WTF is going on?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

 

[ecosoft]

There appear to be several possibilities here, things that you may have unintentionally dorked, while playing with the HSF ... this being said because you didn't indicate any boot- prog load problems before the HSF saga.
1. What are you using to measure the temp? Swe is notoriously unreliable!
2. Its quite likely you thwacked a mem stick horsing around with the HSF, so, remove, clean-inspect, and reinstall all mem sticks.
3. When applying the ArticSilver you may have smeared some under the edge of the CPU chip, shorting across a couple of pins .. silver is a conductor, right?
4. The manufacturers AMD & Intel are most assuredly not stupid ... they spec CPU HSF's for what is actually necessary to cover their contractual "warranty liability" clauses. So, if you are not OC'ing there is no need ever to change a functioning HSF. Separately, the mfg'r's do not recommend stuff such as Artic Silver, since that stuff hardens and literally glues the HSF to the CPU, thus causing bent and broken pins when attempting to remove the HSF.
5. The mobo itself may have become flaky.

 

[swifty_morgan]

Maybe you need to let it run longer to get the new compound to "burn" in properly ?

And yes, spread that shit out !

What about overvoltage.... you tryin to oc' this thing ?

 

[p8ntslinger676]

yes i have been overclocking it and it was running fine and was only up to about 48 load at 2.8Ghz which i liked on the stock cooling and i had the voltage up but i already reset everything and now windows is crapping out on me and that too is pissing me off, i think it might have to do with my mobo or something. the arctic silver 5 is spread evenly and every thing, ill check again to see if any got on the pins, but i dont think any did, and when i was helping my friend get his computer working yesterday i took out my mem and graphics card yesterday to put in his cus they haddent come in yet so we could load the os and programs, etc. ill check everything yall said again but i dont think that is the problem from what i have seen

 

[clue69less]

So, if you are not OC'ing there is no need ever to change a functioning HSF. Separately, the mfg'r's do not recommend stuff such as Artic Silver, since that stuff hardens and literally glues the HSF to the CPU, thus causing bent and broken pins when attempting to remove the HSF.

Well, he said he was OC'ing, which may have been part of the motivation to change the HSF.

But you talk about the Arctic Silver turning hard and gluing the HSF to the CPU. So what is the best way to get an HSF fan off without damaging the CPU and/or mobo? I've pulled off the standard AMD HSF that had the thick pad on it with no problems but are there any tricks for Arctic Silver? Is the AS Ceramic stuff easier, harder or what?

 

[uber_g]

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (OC'ed at 2.8Ghz) <--- 8O

try not to put too much thermal paste i know we all want to be u cant

but a very very little amount and spread it out with a plastic bag

it should about the thickness of 3 mm

There's an idiot in here every 30 seconds I swear. 3mm thick of Arctic Silver??? ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY INSANE? THAT'S JUST DUMB!

Sweet Baby Jebus - just go to the Arctic silver web site and follow instructions for CPU installation PRECISELY! It's more like 0.3mm of thermal goop - and if you spread it with a plastic bag you're a fool. It requires a very steady hand and a perfect straight edge (like a straight razor blade) and 100% clean surfaces. You must NOT move the heatsink around after placing it on the CPU and the heatsink clamping mechanism must be operated correctly.

To me it sounds like you had it all wrong: dirty cpu and dirty heatsink. Bad application of thermal goop causing air pockets (which REALLY hurt your cooling) and probably a rough surface on the heatsink base. That's a good recipe for a very hot CPU.

And for goodness sake - feeling a heatsink does NOT tell you how hot the CPU is! If the thermal transfer is poor, then your CPU could be EXTREMELY hot but your heatsink could be cool to the touch.

my freakin bad

=/

 

[swifty_morgan]

Why don't you move the jumper and reset the bios before you go to extremes ? Maybe you missed something.

As for Clueless....... I here that the ceramics stuff sets up pretty hard, never tried it. Also heard it works a little better though.

For removing heatsing... a few twists, clockwise and counter clockwise, without pulling up on it, may help reduce the "stickiness", and allow you to pull it off easier.

 

[uber_g]

and also there is more then one way to put thermal paste on


1. spread it out with a card or razor blade

2. get a plastic bag and put your finger in it so the plastic is smooth , much like u would with a latex glove and spread it out

3. put a dab on the cpu and let the heatsink smooth it out when u put pressure on it


ive done this many times and be sure every time u put new thermal paste on be sure to clean it off really good , with alcohol

it also might be your motherboard

 

[p8ntslinger676]

well i have ended up haveing to reset tghe bios plenty of times because my stupid computer wont boot if i dont first (just started happening yesterday) so i am most likley going to have to reload windows and all the drivers for every thing because windows wont open som applications or programs, as for the heatsink i think i has to do with my mobo, cus i just checked everyuthing that yall recomended and it was all fine, maybe bad temp readings??? dunno. if you can think about anything else that might help, go on ahead and post it, cus im stumped like a mofo.

 

[swifty_morgan]

If you've been resetting your bios alot, maybe going to the board manufacturers website and getting the latest bios, and loading it may do you some good. Update the whole nine yards while you are at it. And if it doesn't work, it'll be good practice for your new re-install of the opsys. Let us know what happens.

 

[p8ntslinger676]

well first of all when i first tried to install the bios updates when i first installed windows about 6 months ago i said i had to download a new program to install them then when i did that, it said there was an error or some BS and wouldnt let me install them, so i am kind of screwed because that was the manufacturer's website too. im kind of bummed cus this mobo has been giving me so many problems, first the eternet driver caused my computer to go to the blue screen of death and restart my computer every couple of hours until i got a PCI ethernet card and deleted the drivers, second i cant install the bios updates and now it wont read the opperating temperature of the CPU correctly, maybe the mobo is defective??? what do you think???? but ill try reinstalling windows to see if that helps at all.

 

[nukemaster]

Just my 2 cents

I see allot of bad advice about 3mm of AS5...but it looks to have been a mistake. the

AS's website says not to spread the compound on a CPU with a heat spreader. something about avoiding air bubbles.

First off... NEVER use your finger to touch the thermal compound. That will just mess things up.

so check the site here

Since the bios is getting resets all the time. Make sure Cool and Quiet is back on. my temps will go from 35 - 45-7 easy with Cool and Quiet off. Of course your loads will still be high maybe 50ish. Anything under 60 should still be safe.

Hope something here helps

 

[swifty_morgan]

If your motherboard came with a program on a disc to enable you to do an automatic update, good. Follow instructions. If not, I'll try and explain. Can do this for myself, but can't explain it, only did it a few times when nessessary.

When you download the bios update, to a folder on your desktop, or wherever, you have to open it up and get what you need, and put it on a floppy. When you restart your machine, go into the bios and set it up so it sees the floppy first. put the floppy in, and reboot and it should take you to what you need to do to do a bios update. Follow instuctions on screen. You are going to have to copy down the right wording ( name ) of your bios because you are going to have to type it in when prompted. ( IN CAPS ) .... when it's updated and restart, reset boot sequence. and goto desktop. .... I know I screwed this up, so I hope somebody jumps in here to clarify.......
It is easy to do though.

 

[p8ntslinger676]

i tried the automatic update but it doesnt seem to work worth crap, says that i need to install a newer version of it and then i do and then it says that an error has occurred and that really makes me mad, cus it is a big pain in the ass to deal with. Now all of the sudden it wont boot unless i reset the bios, anyone know why???

 

[swifty_morgan]

Have you updated your computer with microsoft ?

Did you turn off all your anti-virus programming, and all your apps pertaining to spyware ?

 

[uber_g]

just buy another mobo it aint worth the sh!t your going through




and U CAN use your finger BUT ... ahh nvm

people trying to prove me wrong aint worth it

 

[p8ntslinger676]

i fixed the problem about haveing to reset the bios every time i sarted up, what i did was since i got frustrated i had the computer on and i turned it off at the PSU and i flipped the swithed on and off a couple of times, the computer light flashed once for a split second and then when i tried pushing the power button it acctually worked, i was like "WOW WTF i cant believe that acctually did it!?!!!!!?????" so i was really amazed as for the temp i set the COOL and QUEIT on and it didnt help, o well, i guess no more overclocking for me
but now i am having a problem of a different sort, when ever i try and open a game, it will say memory read error, x_######### didnt get the numbers but it is gay. so now i have to sort that out and ill be ok i hope,

P.S. i already tryed reinstalling the games so thats not it, uhhhhh this is a big hassle.