Heya folks. Having a relatively big problem i think with my other system overheating. Keep in mind, my knowledge about computers is pretty limited. I can get around, and have some experience assembling them, but not much. I play a lot of Everquest 2, and as of a few days ago everything was fine. I started getting shutdowns, shortly after i loaded up the game and started playing. Maybe 5- 10 minutes time. I moved the system about 3 feet to the other side of the desk that i play on. The system has 4 aux fans in it, all running. I have checked the CPU fan, GPU fan and they also both run fine. I have downloaded a program called Speedfan that reads some temperatures for me.

At idle, the CPU stays around 47C, and the GPU around 57C. System is pretty consistent at 30C. Now, when i load up the game, they go haywire, GPU jumps to about mid 80sC and CPU reaches mid 60's to 70C. Systems still stays constant at 30C. Also, i noticed that my CPU usage reads 100%. Any ideas? I'm planning on pulling off the CPU Heatsink / fan and cleaning and reapplying compound. Maybe a new fan? I'm also curious as to why my system is running at 100% usage when playing. Would a VGA cooler be a good idea? Any suggestions or ideas would be most appreciated. Thanks a ton.


AV8 (VIA K8T800P-8237)
AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+ 2.2GHz
2G Ram
nVidia GeForce 6800

Make sure you don't have any dust stuck in the HS on either the CPU or GPU. My friend had a laptop overheat and payed $80 at a shop to get it fixed. There was a clump of dust between the HS and Processor that was causing all the problems.

Is it constantly at 100%? Or just when you're gaming?

If it's idling like that Ctrl + Alt + Del and check the taskmgr to see what process is eating all of your resources. Report back and let us know if a single program is eating all the CPU time. (Give us an .exe name as well)

Thank you, i'll take the heatsinks off and check them. probably reapply the compound for kicks. and no, it only shows 100% usage when i'm gaming, idle is down to near 0. That may be normal.. i'm really not sure.

EQ2 is quiet the resource hog. You are only running a single core, so it could in theory use up 100% of your CPU while playing. You can try running a defrag and see if that helps speed things up a bit.

Great, thanks a bunch for your time R, appreciate it.

i will post an update once i do a little work on those heatsinks.

Well, i went to my local computer super store and purchased a Zalman CNPS7000B. 34$, not too spendy. The good news is, i installed it and evidentally didnt' break anything in the process lol However, it does not seem to have affected the temperature much. maybe a couple degrees, but that's it. As i've never done this before, i was not totally sure how much compound to apply. I read a few places to use it sparingly, so i did. Maybe too little? Also, when i removed the stock AMD CPU fan, the CPU came with it, attached to a small square metal plate. I got the CPU off the fan easily, however the metal plate did not want to come off the CPU. This concerns me as all the instructions that i have read show and state that the Zalman HSF goes directly on the CPU. I tried, very carefully and without much force to remove the plate, but it would not budge. It looks like there is a dark material holding it on... looks and feels almost solid. If this plate is not supposed to be there, how do i get it off, if i even can? Thanks again in advance.


---SJD

Also, thought maybe i'd post the exact readings i'm getting while eq2 is open. These are from Speedfan.

First category denotes Sensor Label. 2nd is Chip and 3rd is Temp.

Local - LM99 : 45C
Remote - LM99 : 65C
HD1 - HD1 (82.0GB) : 38C
CPU - uGuruAV8 : 68C
SYS - uGuruAV8 : 32C
PWM - uGuruAV8 : 30C
Core - AMD K8 : 52C
Core - nVidia Video Card : 75C
Ambient - nVidia Video Card : 45C

You have really bad airflow? It's the only possible thing for everything overheating. If a specific part is overheating it's bad fan or bad chip if everything is overheating it's bad case or bad airflow or really warm room.

He has a stupid thermal plate/pad on top of his CPU, probably limiting the amount of cooling his HS can do. While it's not bad, it's probably not helping his temperatures at all... especially if they use a crappy HS compound between the two.

As for applying the compound, check this guide out: http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic [...] ctions.htm

Just a thought - the metal plate, is that maybe the IHS?

Thanks for the link R, I have that bookmarked now. Goodstuff. Also, this is a picture of what my CPU looks like under the HS/fan i installed. This isn't my machine, just a pic i found. Just wanted to show the plate i was talking about.

http://www.build-your-own-computer [...] 010170.jpg

Also, maybe i should pull the HS/Fan off again and clean / reapply paste? When i put the paste on i was following a different site that said to use a small amount and spread it around with a plastic bag over my finger. That guide you posted just shows to place a small amount directly in the center, and allow the HS to spread it.
---SJD

That just looks like your factory heat-spreader, so just leave it. I thought you were referring to another plate on top of that which would be a weird thermal plate that some manufacturers put between the HS and CPU.

As for the thermal paste: If you spread it your self, you risk getting air bubbles between the CPU and HS. By putting the HS on it, you'll get an even spread w/ very little air. Putting a lot of paste is just as bad as putting none at all, because at some point you'll just insulate the CPU and cause even more heat problems.

Great, thanks again. I'll probably pull it apart this weekend and clean / reapply the thermal paste with that method. Thanks a ton!

---SJD