Athlon XP's overheating in a 95 F room.

[Codesmith]

My friend doesn't have AC in her upstairs office, I rarely use mine because I get spoiled and stop walking outside in the heat for excersice.

Yesterday her XP1600 (1.4 Ghz Max Op Temp 90C) reached 85C and shutdown in a 95 F room while running idle.

Nearly two cans of compressed air latter I reset the shutdown to 90C and the system would only overheat after running Prime 95 (priority 10 large FFT's) for 30+ Min

Later when the temps dropped to the high 80's F, it could ran Prime 95 for 12 hours until early afternoon when the room reach the mid 90's again.[

When the room was in the low 90's F the board & CPU temps were 36C & 81 C with the case open and 39C & 85 C with the case closed.

Just to be safe I replaced the slient 80mm 2500 RPM fan with a 60mm 7000 RPM "vacume cleaner". That lowered the CPU temp from 85 C to 81 C.

Questions?
1) Do you think the system is getting adequate venilation?

When it was 93 F the board temp was about about 93 F with the side off and 98 F with it on while the CPU was under full load.

Right now there are two silent 80 mm fans, one in, one out. Should I also replace these with something more powerfull?

2) Does thermal paste ever go bad over time (shrink, crack ...) and need reapplication? Do you think that could be the causing the high temperatures?

3) My own XP2400 system crashed once today today after the temps were 95F+ F in m appartment. It also employs a silent 80mm CPU Fan.

My Althon 64 gamming rig has no problem with the heat.
Is 95 F just too hot for the Old Athlon XPs?

Right now I am thinking about swapping in high speed case and CPU fans just for summer use. Or just start running the AC whenever the temp exceeds 92F.

 

[PCKid777]

Well, I will say one thing: my room temp is roughly 60F.

CPU: 98F idle
115F load
MB: Btwn 64-68F

If your CPU is reaching roughly 150F, then that means you are about 55F above ambient. I am only 38F above ambient, meaning you have POOR ventilation within your case.

Suggestions: Yes, thermal past should be re-applied every once in a while. I suggest getting some Arctic Silver 5. Also, consider going to BestByteinc.com or Newegg.com and getting these items (as wells as the AS5):

Either the Thermalright SI-97A Heatsink (need a 90mm fan) or the Thermaltake CL-P0114 Big Typhoon 4 in 1 Heatpipe Cooler, whichever can fit in your case and whichever one you feel comfortable handling.

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

My once stable rig is now crashing in my 85 degree room. I started underclocking my RAM from DDR 400 to DDR 333 and that made it stable again with not too much of a performance hit. I'll just have to live with it that way during the summer.

 

[waylander]

You are confusing me by jumping from celius to fahrenheit.

Are you saying that the CPU reached 85C (185F)?!?!?! Ya I'd shut down too, like into a coma.

The temps on the CPU are way too high for what the ambient temp in the case is.

First of all my CPU temps are usually lower than my system temps... except under load. For instance my temps right now are 36C (CPU), and 44C (MB).

Try the zalman 9500 or scythe ninja. Toms did a review on monster cpu coolers.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/04/25/six_coolers_for_amd_processors/

 

[chuckshissle]

Well in that case you or her pc would need a good cooling for it. A good aftermarket cooling like the Zalman 9500 or Thermaltake Big Typhoon along with an Artic Sivler 5 thermal paste. Also the case should have to good intake of ambient air to feed to the HSF. Like mod the case door panel and install a 120mm fan on the side that sucks air in the draw it directly to the HSF. Also it needs a good exhaust to properly vent out the hot air inside the case. That's one hot room you guys got there, so a room fan should be needed to cool it down a bit.

 

[nukemaster]

[babble]
its a athlon xp on .18 nm tech(i think thats what those palomino's where....anyway...)... it will run hot..65-70 is normal at load for those things.....its not a A64... so no cool and quiet to make it run so cool....i am now at 30 cpu 32 case/mb... but my xp with "thoroughbred a(far cooler then the first xp's)" is at 52 (used to be 40 something but is oced to hell and has the fan at 5v). Just for the record my durron 1000 is at 37 cpu 22 case.....
[/babble]

did i not reply to this.... did u repost?

try to reseat the HSF...maybe it got a knock at one time....get some new as5 and give it a shot....or of u don't care for it too much...let er burn..

 

[Codesmith]

I think some of you don't realize the thermal differences between the old Athlon XP's and the new Althon 64's

http://www.gen-x-pc.com/cputemps.htm
----
An Anthlon XP1600 is designed to work normally at die temperatures up to 90C. While my cool running Athlon 64 3000 can only function at temperatures up to 60C.

So an XP will function normally 30 C hotter then the shutdown temp for a 64.

Furthermore most Socket A motherboar monitor's don't report the one die temperature, they report the external temperature.

So when the CPU was 85 C on die the CPU (external) CPU reading reported by the Soyo Hardware monitor was only 53C. I have to use 3rd party motherboard monitor or enter the CMOS setup to see the on die CPU temp.

--------

Expensive upgrades (25-40 heatsinks) are not an option, that money is earmarked for a new build once the motherboard kicks the bucket. That decision was made when I repaired the system by putting in a used motherboard.

---
With the appartment at about 34-36C and the CPU running prime 95.

CASE OPEN board temp 36 C CPU 83C.
CASE CLOSED board temp 39 C CPU 85C.

Switching from a 2500 RPM to 7000 RPM reduced the CPU temp to 81.

The case has one 80mm exhaust in the back and one 80mm intake in the front. There is a dust filter in the front but it only affects internal temps when clogged.

Both case fans are silent fans.

Since with the 7000 RPM HS Fan I can keep the system stable at full load with a 35.5 C air temp I am guessing it won't have any problems durring typical office use. I will just have to make sure someone (me) dusts it once a month all summer.

Anyway she just decided today that even though her PC can now handle a 96 F office, she cannot and is going to put in an AC unit (her house is real old (1813-1840) and so only has air on the first floor, heh)

So the only thing I am considering now is whether I need to reapply the thermal paste.

If it overheats before they buy AC I am going to tell them to take off the side of the case and point a 12" fan at the PC until it cools off.

---
I still haven't tested to see if the 2nd PC in my appartment which runs 24x7 was off due to heat or whether there was a power outage.

Its a XP2400 and is currently dead silent. I use it for P2P, FTP, file and printer sharing and DivX encoding so it runs at 100% sometimes for 48 hours straight.

If its overheating I think I will invest in some noisy fans which I can swap out in the fall when the weather cools. Maybe some additional Zalman products if the noiser "summer" fans bother me.

---

 

[Codesmith]

Yeah, but I was tired last night and posted in the motherboard forum when I meant to post hear. I have all the forums open in tabs.

So I apologized there and posted here.

 

[nukemaster]

reseat RESEAT!!!!!

i would go for a 65-70c load as a goal....but like u say....why get a new hsf for a old board....

So I apologized there and posted here.

haha..... no apologizing(did i spell that right?) needed....just though i read this and replied to it.... it was like dejavu....

 

[Codesmith]

The weathers cooled off. I think I will ask permission to log on remotely, fire up the environemtal montior and prime 95 and see what the temps look like.

If I don't like what I see I will see if some Artic Silver can improve things.

 

[13thmonkey]

There's a big akasa carnival AK825 thats good for socket A's was only about £8, so should be out there for $6 maybe? If those prices are way out I apologise.

Its got inbuilt thermal management, i.e. speeds up or you can set it manually, it dropped me 2-3C and a lot of noise. It might help more if you are willing to sacrifice some more noise, and if you are reapplying AS5 would be a better swap, and its cheap, but its bright yellow (apparently it gives the inside of your case a nicer atmosphere (how ironic to be so wrong and so right at the same time) marketing people think in strange ways).

Some more suggestions...

How about what is happening outside the case, yes 95F is hot, but you should still have heat flow from hot cpu to cooler air, but is it capable of exhausting air, or is it backed up against a wall, if it is under a desk or against a wall the psu and case air won't leave as easily and you may create a hot pocket of still-er air, is your psu fan working ok? this might not be taking the psu heat away and also creating a hot pocket above the cpu?