AMD Phenom II X4 ---Temp Issue

[tinymidget1979]

Okay, so I just bought a Cyberpower pc (yes, yes I should have built one I know) annnyway I start it up everything seems fine, I install Crysis Warhead, you know to check how well it runs and such, figured I'd choose the most demanding game. Alright so I start it up, play for oh probably 20-30 minutes, everything seems fine. I exit out and check my temps with HWmonitor and my CPU reached a peak of about 76c, and I'm not sure if it was still rising. That temperature is outrageous, I'm using the stock heatsink (I've already ordered an aftermarket one, which should be here on Wednesday) but even with this Stock heatsink I shouldn't be getting temps like this.

I've tested WoW and it rises slowly but surely above 60c and just keeps going. I even did the 3D thing in the ati catalyst thing and the temps rise rapidly to 60c and again, they just keep rising. So I'm wondering is there something wrong the cpu itself or is the heatsink not making good contact, or is the paste used not conducting the heat to the heatsink well enough?

Thanks in advance for the help

 

[buwish]

Chances are that the thermal paste is cheap or wasn't applied properly, hence why you are seeing these temps. I think with an after market cooler and some decent thermal paste (Arctic Silver, for example), you'll start seeing a lot cooler temps under the situations you mentioned.

 

[tinymidget1979]

That's what I'm hoping for, I bought the Zalman 9900 and of course some AS, so I guess we'll see. I reseated the heatsink, but...I'm thinking that maybe my reseat and the initial seating were bad? Maybe not making enough contact or something?

 

[jitpublisher]

Are you certain you weren't looking at the GPU temps? 76c is enough to cause a CPU to throttle down pretty hard, or even blue screen. If you remove the heatsink and reseat it, you MUST clean off all the old thermal paste and reapply new.

The stock heatsink works perfectly fine unless you are overclocking quite a bit, or you don't have it mounted properly.

 

[tinymidget1979]

I'm positive I was looking at the CPU temperatures...I didn't get a bsod or anything though, which I thought was kind of weird. The GPU didn't even get up to 76c..could this possibly be bad temperature readings?

 

[felix666]

Is the power supply above the motherboard or at the bottom of the chassis? One of my systems (Phenom II X4 955) has its power supply above the motherboard, and some hotspot developed around the CPU and the mobo regulators. The CPU temp reached unbelievable highs, until I changed the power supply for a better one, with the air intake at the bottom instead of the back. Everything became cool afterwards.

The thermal paste coat has to be as thin as possible. Its sole usage is to get air out where there is no direct contact to the heat sink metal, as the paste will move heat better than air but worse than a direct contact to metal. Use a new blade from an Olfa knife to spread the paste, as thin and even as possible.