Ocktopus

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I just finished building my PC and I noticed my CPU temp is hovering at around 70C and starts to crawl towards 75/76. This seems way to high for a system I havent even started to work with. Havent even installed windows for goodness sake. Im wondering if the stock heatsink/fan and thermal paste is the culprit.

E4300
2-1GB GSkill(800MHZ)
gigabyte 965p-ds3 Rev 3.3
320GB Seagate HD
450W FSP PSU
EVGA GeForce 7600GT
 

alcattle

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How many fans are installed in the system, are all the fans spinning, full speed? Yes it sounds way to high, where are you getting the numbers? Did you follow the install guide on your sensors?
 

Ocktopus

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Have you tried resetting the HSF? Make sure you reapply the thermal grease.

I did reset the hsf. Im going to buy some more thermal grease since the thermal grease under the intel heatsink didnt seem to be enough.

Did u remove sticker under heat sink. Maybe u have cheap PSupply. U might consider water cooling.

There was no sticker under the heatsink only three strips of thermal paste.

This is the PSU I have currently installed:

FSP Group (Fortron Source) AX450-PN, 12cm FAN, version 2.2, 2 SATA, PCI Express, 450W Power Supply - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104954

How many fans are installed in the system, are all the fans spinning, full speed? Yes it sounds way to high, where are you getting the numbers? Did you follow the install guide on your sensors?

There is two 120mm fans, one in the back and one on the side. They seem to be running at full speed. The cpu fan is running at 2000 rpm. I got the CPU temp numbers from the BIOS. Install guide on which sensors?[/img]
 

zjohnr

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Yes, 70 C is waaaaaaay too high. At those temps the BIOS/CPU would be thermal throttling ... intentionally lowering the clock speed and voltage of the CPU to keep it from burning out. It definitely sounds as though the stock HSF ... that is what your are using, right? ... is just not seated correctly. To reach 70 C at stock speeds just idling in the BIOS I'd wonder if there is an air gap between the HSF and the processor.

Have you tried resetting the HSF? Make sure you reapply the thermal grease.
I did reset the hsf. Im going to buy some more thermal grease since the thermal grease under the intel heatsink didn't seem to be enough.
Don't forget to somewhat thoroughly clean off whatever thermal bridging material is currently on the heat sink and processor before applying anything new. The "Heatsink Preparation" section in the install instructions for Arctic Sliver has some suggestions about how to do the cleaning you might want to check out.

Did u remove sticker under heat sink. Maybe u have cheap PSupply. U might consider water cooling.
There was no sticker under the heatsink only three strips of thermal paste.
:? That sounds strange. Is this an Intel boxed retail E4300 or did you get it some other way? I always thought the heat sinks which came with Intel retail processors came with a thermal pad pre-applied. Supposedly the thermal pads are made with a paraffin wax. The wax melts once it gets hot and binds to the heat sink and processor heat spreader. But it sounds like your heatsink had something else on it. I'm not familiar with a heatsink coming with "strips" of thermal compound pre-applied. :?

-john, the ostensibly clueless redundant legacy-in-eternal-transition dinosaur
 

cutthroat

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:? That sounds strange. Is this an Intel boxed retail E4300 or did you get it some other way? I always thought the heat sinks which came with Intel retail processors came with a thermal pad pre-applied. Supposedly the thermal pads are made with a paraffin wax. The wax melts once it gets hot and binds to the heat sink and processor heat spreader. But it sounds like your heatsink had something else on it. I'm not familiar with a heatsink coming with "strips" of thermal compound pre-applied. :?

Yeah my e6400 came with the stock hsf with some sort of stuff that looked like silver thermal paste, in three thin strips just like the OP said, no tape. I also thought it didn't look like enough. I fumbled the hsf and ended up with the stuff all over my hands, but I'm not using that hsf anyway so it doesn't matter.
 

zjohnr

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Yeah my e6400 came with the stock hsf with some sort of stuff that looked like silver thermal paste, in three thin strips just like the OP said, no tape. I also thought it didn't look like enough. I fumbled the hsf and ended up with the stuff all over my hands, but I'm not using that hsf anyway so it doesn't matter.
Yeah, I see what you mean.
Now.

:( I am such a completely clueless dufus sometimes. :( I bought the retail version of the E4300 but installed it with an AC Freezer 7 Pro. So I have an uninstalled Intel HSF sitting on a shelf a few feet from me. I just didn't think to take it out and look at it until a few minutes ago. :roll:

Three ~4mm wide strips of what looks to my possibly ignorant eye like generic thermal compound. Well, good. Whatever it is maybe it will clean up easier than the wax used in the thermal pads. :)

To the OP: Don't make the mistake of thinking that you have to put on a lot of thermal gunk. I'm using the thermal compound that came pre-applied on my AC Freezer 7 Pro and it wasn't any thicker than what is on the Intel HS. It was about the size of a postage stamp though as opposed to be in those three strips. FWIW, I'd still wonder if all the HS supports just aren't securely fastened to the motherboard. :?

-john
 

Ocktopus

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Thanks for all the help guys.

I cleaned off the paste that came with the stock heatsink since it didnt cover the entire processor, bought new paste, applied a nice thin coat
on the processor, installed the heatsink back on and now CPU Temp is staying between 40-45C.
 

Ocktopus

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I have another problem though.
After Windows finishes loading all the component,drives,etc
once it says windows is starting, it jumps into a blue screen with error
number 0*000007B. Apperantly WinXP is not able to install on this HDD.
Do I need to install drivers for the HDD so WIN XP could install on it?

Im using a new Seagate 320GB SATA HDD btw.
 

Ocktopus

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It was connected to the very first port SATA port on the Motherboard. In the BIOS settings, it was designated under Master 0
 

zjohnr

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Apparently WinXP is not able to install on this HDD.
Do I need to install drivers for the HDD so WIN XP could install on it?
Im using a new Seagate 320GB SATA HDD btw.
You only need to load a driver if you are using either RAID or possibly also AHCI. If you have the Seagate SATA plugged into one of the yellow Intel SATA ports then you don't need to do anything special to install Win XP with SP2 to a SATA drive. (Heck, I installed Win XP on my DS3 with no problems via a SATA port and I was using a PATA drive hooked up via a PATA to SATA converter dongle).

So are using a Win XP install CD that includes SP2? If you are then I'm not sure what to suggest next. Is there anything "non-standard" about your install? Did you use the default BIOS settings? Default FSB/CPU and memory speeds?

Of course, the default ("auto") memory ratio on my DS3 for DDR2-800 and an E4300 at 200MHz FSB is 4 so the memory runs at 800MHz. I suppose you could try dialing that down to 2 so the memory ran at 400MHz just to see if that made a difference for the install.

-john, the ostensibly clueless redundant legacy-in-eternal-transition dinosaur
 

cattbert

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Although I would expect the default to be "ide", under a different section of your bios there should be an option to select between IDE, AHCI, and RAID for the sata connectors ... make sure it is on ide if you are not using that Seagate as part of a raid setup.