What is an acceptable n/b temp?

[rev81]

I bought a Gateway 6800-01e from a friend, after getting all setup with OS/program installations he sent me a couple of hardware temp monitors.. the northbridge is the only thing that seems to be running really hot.

At first it was at 200F, so my friend recommended that I install the 'Antec spot cool' fan that I had left out and replace the thermal paste.. after doing so it lowered the temps 20 degrees.. after that I searched 'northbridge coolers' just to see what was available, and ran across a board were a guy mentioned "hot glueing a fan to the heatsink" I had some 40mm's laying around so I decided to try it, I had to have the fans exhausting rather than blowing down on the heatsink.. so all together I got the temp down to around 149 - 152F, so .. is that still to hot or is that ok?

 

[GhislainG]

If it's that hot, then you can't touch it. If you can touch it for a few seconds, the monitor findings are questionable. 200°F is very hot and I'm amazed that your PC is stable.

 

[kiwi_in_kc]

I have the same system, Gateway FX6800-01e, and I have the same issue - a temperature reading of 62-67 Celsius for temperature sensor "TMPIN0" per HWMonitor 64 from CPUID. I also have a hard drive temp of 40-45 C. This is with the BIOS "smart fan" setting to disable so the CPU fan and case fan are spinning at maximum power (CPU fan spins at over 4,000 RPM and case fan is close to 2,000 RPM - quite a racket).

Yesterday, when I had the "smart fan" BIOS setting enabled (CPU fan was turning at ~1,700 RPM and the case fan was at ~800 RPM - very quiet), the TMPIN0 was as high as 93C and I removed the vented case panel to investigate. I touched the heatsink that was beside and below the CPU cooling tower and it was hot enough to burn. I also touched the hard drive (showing 45-55 C in HWMonitor) and it was hotter than hard drives I have felt before.

Bottom line - set the "smart fan" BIOS setting to disable because if you don't this system will become unstable.

 

[kiwi_in_kc]

The arrangement with the factory fans is that the CPU fan sucks air through a rectangular vent, that doesn't seem that well designed because when you take the side panel off you can hear the fan speed up so it is obviously trying to pull in more air than the vent can accomodate, in the left side panel and blows the air down on the CPU cooler/heat pipe. The 120mm case fan is drawing air out of the case, close to the CPU cooler/heat pipe. With the ratio of CPU fan speed to case fan speed, there doesn't seem to be much draw of air from the front of the case to cool other devices.

To remedy this I will;
- mount a cooler directly on top of the northbridge heatsink
- add an 80mm fan at the front of the case to pull air into the case and improve the airflow around the hard drive and the the northbridge chip.
- keep the door for the removable disk drives open to allow some air to be pulled into the case from the front and cool the internally mounted hard drive that is directly above that door.
- get a power supply with a 120mm fan, versus the factory fan that is 80mm, to pull more air through the case. A modular PSU will allow me to eliminate unused cables and therefore improve airflow.

I need to get this system setup so I don't have to run the CPU and case fan at maximum because it is so noisy.