Hot Pentium D 945

Hi I just purchased a Pentium D 945 and motherboard. It's idle temperature is ~60c surely this can't be normal. I'm sure the standard HSF is installed properly as it's pretty warm and seems to be moving heat.

I don't want to boot it up again incase I fry the sucker. Any suggestions.

Sorry for the lack of details, it was a hasty post. I was using the hardware monitoring in the BIOS.

I'll triple check the HSF is making contact.

Thanks

Working with computers, we have been told there is a possible malfunction with the Heatsinks themselves, such as the following

---------------------------

WARNING:
engineering defect in stock Intel heatsink/fan units
for LGA-775 socket CPUs

(This generic message only applies to
Intel CPUs with LGA-775 socket and
stock Intel heatsink/fan units.)



The problems with high CPU temperatures
are most probably the result of improper seating
of the stock Intel heatsink/fan unit ("HSF" ).

That heatsink and fan do dissipate heat quite
adequately, as long as the HSF maintains
enough downward pressure on the top of
the CPU chip.

However ...

the 4 pronged fasteners are not gripping properly,
and this results in less downward pressure on the
top of the CPU chip: less downward pressure
translates directly into higher CPU temps.

Also, the fasteners are made of a material
that appears to be "creeping" after many cycles
of heat and cold, which further reduces the
downward pressure on the top of the CPU chip.

A short-term solution is to unlock and re-lock each
fastener, while pressing down with your thumb on
the fan housing directly above each fastener.
Doing this one thing reduced our CPU temp from
140 F. to 100 F., which helped isolate the problem.

Best solution is to switch to a superior HSF
with a proper backing plate. We prefer the
ASUS VR Guard Series, because of its superior
engineering for cooling the voltage regulators
on recent high-end ASUS LGA-775 motherboards.

These photos show evidence of improper seating
on a recent ASUS motherboard with stock Intel HSF:

http://www.supremelaw.org/systems/heatsinks/

Also, Intel's Thermal Interface Material ("TIM" )
is too thick from the factory, which also results
in improper seating i.e. all 4 pronged fasteners
do not "lock" properly, even when applying a
lot of downward pressure on each fastener.

This TIM should be removed and replaced with
a razor-thin layer of Arctic Silver (or comparable
thermal paste) -- NO OOZING PLEASE!!


I hope this helps.


p.s. If you purchased your computer from a company
that uses Return Merchandise Authorizations ("RMA" ),
you should start a new RMA so that this defect and solution
are reported formally to your supplier.

----------------------------------------------------

sorry if this is "spam"

Geez thanks danjal. That's very informative. Appreciate that.

the humor for me is that we've been advised that if you buy a chip with a stock heatsink to by a better heatsink... i questoined back that should they supply us with a working heatsink first.. just thought it's somthing all you 775 users would love to say back

Hi

I heeded the advice and purchased a Zalman CNPS9500. The CPU now idles around 49c. I'm still not sure if this is okay considering this is a pretty big HSF. That's what I would have expected from the stock HSF.

What does everyone else think?

Maybe worth mentioning is that the motherboard is an Intel D945GNT, are there known issues with this?

Thanks mate. I'll do that, I was wondering if the reported speeds in the BIOS may be different to what Windows would report.

Thanks.