A few questions about CPU Temp

[jaxxstorm]

I know there are countless threads about this, but I thought I'd make another, because I think in my case it's quite unique.

I bought a computer from the idiots at ComputerPlanet in the UK a month ago, because I didn't have the time of confidence to undertake a new build myself.
They have sent it now, and after a month I've noticed I'm having some serious cooling issues. Considering I didn't build the compy myself, I don't have first hand knowledge of the machine in itself.

It's got a dual core AMD chip, just to be clear. Exact make and model unknown at the moment, as I'm at work tpying this, I can update when I get home if required.

Anyway, on to the problem.

I had some issues when playing higher end games in that the computer shut itself down without warning. Suspecting a temperature problem, I installed SpeedFan, and noticed that I have a sever problem with just one of the cores overheating. It sits idle at 49/50 degree, will spike up to 55 degree on lower end games like Civ 4 , and on CoD4 it will spike at a ridiculous 80 degrees, before eventually giving up and shutting down.

Bear in mind, this is only one core, the other core never tops 55 degrees, yet both cores are working with the same load % under speedfan.

So, a few questions.

1) How bad for the CPU is it to continuously run it to as hot as it will go before it shuts down. Should I cease playing high end games until the problem is resolved, will it cause any lasting damage?

2) How can I go about improving the cooling in the system. It currently has a heatsink, I assume it has thermal paste applied (whether it's been applied right by computerplanet is a different matter) and a CPU fan, it also has a pretty hefty case fan in there.

3) The room I'm running it in is quite hot. This should obviously affect the temperature, but surely not as much to make it shut down.

Sorry for the essay post, I wanted to give as much information as possible.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Zerk]

1) How bad for the CPU is it to continuously run it to as hot as it will go before it shuts down. Should I cease playing high end games until the problem is resolved, will it cause any lasting damage?
.....

I would say its not Good at all,im no pro but as far as i can tell i would Try Getting another CPU? i would Also Recommend Getting a Mnsscool CPU Cooler And Some Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound,not to Sure about the CPU itself as i Dont know much about AMD's,so sorry if its not much Help?

 

[evongugg]

50° at idle is acceptable. 80° under load is a little too high.
Remove the heatsink and apply Arctic Silver per the instruction on their website. Remount the heatsink and check the fan. Make sure the fan is turned on at all times in the bios. You may turn on Cool 'n Quiet for AMD.
If your case is small and crowded that may affect the airflow.
You could add a fan possibly.
Shutting down could be the power supply. Run diagnostics on the hard disk also. It could be heat related also. Try putting a fan to the side of the computer.

 

[a 6pack in]

1) How bad for the CPU is it to continuously run it to as hot as it will go before it shuts down. Should I cease playing high end games until the problem is resolved, will it cause any lasting damage?
.....

I would say its not Good at all,im no pro but as far as i can tell i would Try Getting another CPU? i would Also Recommend Getting a Mnsscool CPU Cooler And Some Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound,not to Sure about the CPU itself as i Dont know much about AMD's,so sorry if its not much Help?

the core may go bad, they may have not placed it on there correctly.. i would say yes go get another CPU get ahold of these guys and tell them what is happening.

50° at idle is acceptable. 80° under load is a little too high.
Remove the heatsink and apply Arctic Silver per the instruction on their website. Remount the heatsink and check the fan. Make sure the fan is turned on at all times in the bios. You may turn on Cool 'n Quiet for AMD.
If your case is small and crowded that may affect the airflow.
You could add a fan possibly.
Shutting down could be the power supply. Run diagnostics on the hard disk also. It could be heat related also. Try putting a fan to the side of the computer.

+1 simple troubleshooting. . . its probably bad seating from the cooler to the cpu.

 

[seboj]

+1 simple troubleshooting. . . its probably bad seating from the cooler to the cpu.

Agreed. Check to make sure the contact is good, clean, and reapply TIM. If they were inexperienced with thermal paste, they may have applied too much, insulating part of the chip instead of transferring the heat.

If all that checks out, and you're still having problems, send the system back to the computer Hell it was born in, and build your own. We'll help you out

 

[psymanproductions]

well, i'd try rma ing it before you go tqaking it apart, dont go taking it apart as if your unable to fix it and they find out uve been messing with it its a pretty good excuse for them to refuse refund or replacement.

if you cant be bothered to send it back then just do the basic stuff other people said,

re seat cpu cooler,

make sure fans are spinning,

re apply thermal paste

its unlikely youve damaged ur cpu... YET.

months of temps above ~60.c can reduce the life span of a cpu, amd has implemented a atomatic shutdown feature to protect the chip once it gets to around 80.c or 90.c i think. which explains the shutdowns

 

[psymanproductions]

ive just had a look at speed fan and one of my 2 amd cores where doing the same thing as yours, one core resched 74.c (too hot) and the other reached 50.c (acceptable) under load...

i figured out that the 2nd core in my speedfan isnt the 2nd cpu processor but the gpu!, 80.c is often normal for a gpu so we may be looking in the wrong place if uve made the same mistake.

other temp monitoring programs like hw monitor from cpuid are more clear in their description of what temps are. i would download hw monitor and see if it matches what speed fan says.

you can get hw monitor here,

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php