Cpu fan no longer dispersing the heat?

[jda104]

Hello,

System:
Asus M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD mobo with latest bios
AMD Phenom II x4 965 black edition deneb running @ 3.4 ghz (stock)
8 gb G.Skill Ripjaws Series DDR3 @ 1333 (2 sticks total in dual channel mode)
Samsung spinpoint 7200 rpm sata 3.0gb/s HDD
OCZ Fatal1ty 550W modular gaming power supply

Well, I have just recently got a new motherboard (old MSI board failed me)

When swapping I made sure i cleaned the CPU chip and heatsink really well and used isopropyl alcohol to finish the cleaning, used dynex thermal paste (didn't have any arctic silver : / ) and thinly and evenly coated the entire chip. After reinstalling the chip and heatsink/fan onto the new board everything seemed fine. Only problem was my chip is now running @ 40c on idle instead of 24-26c range it used to idle at. The fan is running at the same RPM as well.

As far as I can tell it feels like the PC is no longer heating up my room, when i'd play a game like battlefield or world of warcraft my PC would output a lot of heat, if i held my hand inside the case near the CPU fan i could feel ambient hot air as well as hot air coming from the fan. Now it feels like my motherboard and cpu are just retaining all the heat instead of dispersing it.

When I touch the pipes on the heatsink of the CPU, they are hot, which tells me the thermal paste is doing it's job of helping transfer the heat from the chip to the heatsink, just feels like for whatever reason the fan isn't pulling the heat out.

My motherboard is idling unusually hot (45c) and the cpu core is sitting around 40-42c. I got these temps from speedfan 4.44 but i also verified them in the BIOS hardware monitor.

I just don't understand why no heat is being dispersed, my pc used to heat my entire room.

Also when i play battlefield 3, my cpu is quickly rising to 70c and every once in a while from the system being so hot (i think) the game is locking up my entire system and i have to hard reset.

Any ideas on what could be the problem here? I'm going to end up buying an aftermarket cpu cooler but i'd like to find a better remedy than that.

Thanks

 

[GhislainG]

You know that the dynex thermal paste isn't the best. Why not replace it with AS5 or other good heat paste?

 

[jda104]

yeah i'm aware, i was reading about the thermal conductivity, thank you for the suggestion

as mentioned this week i'm going to get a hyper 212 with some AS5 and see how that goes

later today i'm going to try to clean and reapply thermal paste again, i was reading a few things and noticed that a lot of times when heat is an issue it's user error on the thermal paste application, i was using the "spread" method where i applied the paste to the cpu then spread it around to an almost translucent thickness, i've seen others now spread a smaller amount onto the center then let the paste spread naturally via pressure between the chip and the heatsink........gonna try that later today and i'll post results

if anyone else has ideas feel free

 

[GhislainG]

The Hyper 212 already includes good heat paste and you certainly don't need to wipe it out and replace it with AS5.

Based on your comments, I doubt that applying a pea size in the center of the CPU will make a big difference, but you got nothing to lose. After all you'll probably get rid of that heat paste anyhow.

 

[rds1220]

Forget everything and start over. I would replace the heatsink and fan with something bigger and better, something like the Hyper 212 works great. I have one for the I5 and its giving pretty good temp's for air cooling. Also forget that junky thermal paste. I'm using AS5 with the Hyper 212 and like I said I'm getting great temperatures. Take off the stock fan and heatsink. Use non lint coffe filters and wipe over and over until the filters aren't turning gray anymore. Then install a hyper 212 with good thermal paste and that should solve all your heat problems.

 

[beenthere]

Are you using Core Temp to check the temps? Other software and even some BIOS can give false CPU temp. info.

 

[jda104]

on your urging i downloaded core temp, it's giving the same readings as speedfan and the bios. thanks

 

[jda104]

if anyone else checks this thread, i'm also curious as to why the motherboard temp is so high....right now during no load the core is sitting down at 35c, the motherboard temp is reading 44c, seems quite hot no? I'm guessing this is the reading from the northbridge or southbridge heatsink and not the ambient temp, since if i stick my hand in there it feels not so hot...

anything i can do about the mobo temp other than improve case airflow? btw have 2 80mm fans in the case

 

[jda104]

update: after having a good look at the airflow in my mid-atx tower, i decided it could be one of the reasons for the overheating.

I added 2 80mm fans to the front of the case and a 120mm to the side, previously there was only an 80mm fan on top of the case and an 80mm fan on the back

i think the case i still a bit cramped for a 125w cpu and large gpu but for now it will do, i'm going to try and add more airflow by replacing the back 80mm fan with a 120mm and maybe get one of those antec spot cooler fans

my motherboard temp is now 38c at idle and the cpu core is around 37-38c

during load the motherboard is no longer reaching 50c and is sitting more in the neighborhood of 45c, the cpu no longer hits 60c and now seems to be sitting at 55c during full load

i'd consider these improvements, i still want to get a hyper 212 cpu heatsink and fan to see if that also improves things