Hi, I upgraded my system to a AMD X2 5000+BE + Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H, I was planning to overclock the cpu but ironically now I have to downclock it to get it stable. The cpu running at stock speed @2.6 was too hot and was not able to finish prime95 stress test, the temperature climbed over 100 C and the system just shut down. I am forced to downclock it to 2.3 and even that the cpu is running at ~105 C under full load, I think this is crazy. The HSF is a cooler master (don't quite remember the model, if I remember correct it's got TX in the name) and its max spin rate is around 2400rpm. I suspect the HSF is not properly installed. If I am to reinstall it, how do I go about doing that? I have never tried to install a cpu and fan before. Btw, the temp at idle is 40+C.

I'm basically having the same problem. I have a AMD X@ 5000+BE on a Gigabyte board. I believe my board is just an S2. Worked fine for a long time then all of a sudden it's overheating. To the same degree as yours but mine hasn't shut itself down. Mine also idles at 40c. Initially I was thinking it was a heat sensor problem but that is still to be determined.
Reinstalling the CPU is rather simple. It's a matter of removing the HS (I'm assuming your HS did not come with the CPU). But with mine, you just unscrew the HS and lift it off. Some HS are mounted by just being clipped in. I'm thinking you're just wanting to install a new Heatsink (HS)? If so, then clean off the Thermal paste from both the CPU and the bottom of the HS. Reapply a thin layer of thermal paste to the CPU and evenly cover it. Place the HS back over the CPU and seat it. This link should explain it better then what I can.
http://www.fonerbooks.com/r_cpu.htm

A lot of people use arctic silver.
Here are some instructions:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/ins_route_step2amdas5.html

clean up ur case and clean the dust off the fans. Apply new thermal paste, if it still overheats then get a new fan.

Try flashing the bios to the latest version (which might explain the sensor readings being out) after checking the HSF is greased and seated properly.

Are you both experiencing hot weather over there at present ?

The delta on your core shouldn't go beyond about 15 to 15 degrees beyond the ambient at idle ... so if it is 30 outside ... 42 is ok.

The better the HSF the lower the delta obviously.

If the sensors are reading correctly and the stock HSF is working well these shouldn't go much higher than 50 under load ... surely ... not much.

These will run fine under load up to 60 or so ... but then you get stability problems. Better to get them to run cooker by working on a few things.

Make sure the case cabling inside is tidy, and the fans are all working well, and the rear of the case isn't against a wall or anything.

You could buy a decent aftermarket cooler ... which will help.

Unless your working the cpu hard by gaming heavily I can't see why you need a better fan.

These chips usually run quite cool when stock and overclock well.

It would be odd to get a bad one ... rarely hear of 5000+ cpu's running hot.

Keep us posted on how things go !!

Check some of the other tips on any recent threads on rigs running hot ... many of the old timers here posted some great stuff you can use.

Cheers.

@MrsBytch
I had a shop installed that for me, and I think they will charge me again if I ask them to reinstall for me.

I think I will try to reinstall the hsf myself another day. Is the fan @2400rpm too slow? Because I know that even some fans come with the cpu can spin @4000 rpm.

I just graduated from college and therefore don't have much to spend, If I have to buy a better hsf, I think that will be after I have got a job.

Btw, I'm living in Singapore and the room temp can be over 30C in the afternoon, but cpu temp over 100C is still crazy. Thank you everyone for your reply.

If you had a "shop" install the HSF, they need to do it again for free or refund your money. Simply put they did not test their work.

The HSF you have is just fine if you system is not OC'd.
The BE-5000 is generally a cool running chip.

While your room is warm, it's only an extra 5-6C more than most places.
The result is a CPU about 5-6C more than normal.

Yours is running 50+C more than normal.

thinking wrong sensor readings? Ever heard of coretemp? My old pc's mobo registered 70c idle whe it was actually 32c on a 3600+ 65nm lol

The main problem is actually traveling from where I live to that store takes about 2 hour round trip, and I don't feel like carrying the mb on a mass transit. I upgraded my system there because it's inside an IT complex so I have lots of choices, but I don't really want to go through it again.

I will take this as an opportunity to learn to do it myself, I will be away for around 2 weeks, and I will keep you guys updated once I'm back, you guys are great.

edited: @the forgotten
Yes, I'm measuring with coretemp, and the problem is the computer shuts down by itself so I think it's really overheating.

If the CPU were really running at 105C it would have died a long time ago. The thermal spec for the majority of Athlon X2s is about 65C and I'd expect the X2 5000BE to be similar.

-mcg

MY 5000+ BE defaulted to 2.8GHz out of the box. Right now my room is about 72C. At idle, the CPU is around 40C. Under load it hits 56C. I thought my temp was high, but 105C? That doesn't even seem possible without it melting.

Umm... you're confusing Celsius with Fahrenheit. If your room temperature were 72C *YOU* would have died a long time ago.

-mcg

It almost has to be a sensor issue, I cant believe it would even try to run at anything over 70C. But I would say definitely try re-seating the HSF first.

Re-seating the Heatsink is a fairly straight forward process, however, you will need to get some heatsink grease, thermal compound, it has many names. A couple of recomended brands would be Arctic Silver 5 or Ceramique as well as Arctic Cooling MX-2. I am looking for a video that does a good job of showing how to do it, but Im having problems with the web filter at work. I will do some more searching when I get home and see if we cant get you fixed up.

*Update*

I have tried reseating the HSF, I couldn't get the arctic silver thermal compound so I got a CoolerMaster PTk-002 instead. The problem still remains, do you think I should buy a new hsf? If so, which should I get?

When I was applying the thermal compound I followed some instruction on the internet to spread it on the chip, but I just couldn't spread them nicely and uniformly. Is it ok just to apply the thermal compound on the center and slap the hsf on? And after all this has been done, can I immediately turn on the computer and run some stress test? Or do I have to wait for things to settle down a bit?

edited: I would like to do a little overclocking 200~300Mhz, please advise a good hsf for this purpose

I, too, have the GA-MA78GM-S2H, and the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+, and I have the 4 GB "Upgrade" Memory kit from OCZ, which is 2 chips @ 2 GB each, DDR2 800. The case is a Thermaltake Lanbox, which is fairly compact, and maybe a consideration in all this. Also, the small board size means that two-thirds of the HSF sits directly under the power supply, with about an 1.5 inches between the top of the HSF to the bottom of the PS. Maybe that effect is not good for cooling (I dunno?!) HSF is a CoolerMaster Vortex 752, and is running at 2368 rpm, fixed. I have disabled both the CPU Smart Fan Control, and AMD Cool & Quiet functionality in the BIOS, per the recommendations at the "http://www.overclock.net/amd-gener [...] t-am2.html" that I've been studying, but otherwise, I am not overclocking at all (not yet... not with the heat problems I'm having!)

At idle, the temps are as such (per Hardware Monitor):
MB:
TMPIN0 38°C TMPIN1 47°C TMPIN2 92°C
CPU: core #0 34°C core #1 30°C
GPU: 56°C

The other monitoring tools report pretty much the same temps (CoreTemp, Everest, & AMD Overdrive). Idle temps have been stable since I first built the machine and installed Vista Home Premium.

But in the last month or so, and particularly in the last 2 days, almost anytime the CPU gets under heavy load, the temps on the CPU & TMPIN's rises super high, and super fast, and I end up with a thermal shutdown. (Admittedly better than a totally fried system!!)

Since March, I have done many hours of intensive video encoding, with the CPU under heavy load and performing very satisfactorily.
The overheating perhaps has something to do with my upgrading the BIOS to F4 or even F3, but that might be a coincidence.

Any suggestions? I am at the point where I think I need to reseat the HSF, to make sure the thermal paste is well applied, but I think I might need a bigger better fan -- or could this problem be in the NB and/or SB chips overheating and not the CPU? I suspect the CPU myself, because last time I heard the overheat warning from the system, I had time to launch Hardware Monitor and saw the CPU temp reported as high as 100 C, and the TMPIN2 temp made it up to 125 C or something insane like that?

Which raises another question -- I had heard that those TMPIN0 & TMPIN1 were actually the CPU temps, and TMPIN2 was the actual MB temp -- which seems preposterous, or just guilty of an incredibly inaccurate monitoring system.

When I killed the program that was cranking on the CPU, the temps came down, pretty quickly at that.

Any help greatly appreciated. I'm not new to computers, but am a medium-novice when it comes to the deep down hardware issues.

Thank you,

Will in Palm Springs
(and yes, the computer is in an air-conditioned room, grin)