CPU temp really high, time for upgrade?

[adwodon]

Hey guys, little intro I suppose.

24 year old guy, built my first PC a few years ago, looking back I didn't pick components that well, I just bought what sounded good.

Anyway I am having a problem, my CPU seems to be on fire.

I have a 9950 Phenom, I think it was OC at some point but I reset the BIOS a few months ago when I was getting blue screens (turned out I hadnt cleaned some fans in a while )

I have a nice Antec 1200 case, a great PSU (1000W I think) with HD4870x2.

Decided to check out speedfan and other things to see how my comp was doing and I get this while playing games:

GPU: around 55C
GPU: around 90C
(seems normal for 4870x2 from what I hear)

Core: 80C+ (almost hitting 90 at points)
WHOA!

That seems crazy to me, I heard somewhere that 61C was the highest this chip should go.

Recently I was considering upgrading my PC before I found this out but I decided to put it off for a few months when I finish my MSci.
I was going to go for i5 2500k, P67 mobo with around 8gb RAM and then it was a toss up between a 560Ti or 570.
I was also going to get a Coolermaster Hyper 412S CPU Cooler as well.

Anyway atm I play The Old Republic & Starcraft 2 and performance while good has been suffering. I think it may be to do with the core temp.

The simple solution is to upgrade everything but I can't afford to do that right now, instead I can afford to go either CPU / mobo / RAM or grfx (the CPU cooler is cheap and works on my current one so I can get this too). Then in a few months time get the other set.

Would I see better boost from a GPU or CPU upgrade?
Is my CPU likely to be damaged from these temps? Would getting this fan and replacing the TMI help keep my CPU alive and running well for a few more months till I can get it upgraded?

Im just worried that if I buy the 570 now my CPU might die or something, while not the end of the world, i'd have to sack off going to the pub for a few weeks to afford replacing it.
Then I'm also not sure if I'm being silly and actually upgrading graphics will give a better performance boost for the next few months till I can get the i5.

 

[tlmck]

First, try pulling your CPU cooler, clean off the old paste, and reseat with new Arctic Silver 5. If it was cheap paste to begin with, it could have pooped out on you.

 

[adwodon]

ok thats cool, ill pop into a shop today and see about paste + a fan there instead.

you recommend arctic silver 5 only or will anything with a decent brand name do if I cant get it in the shop? I can order online but it will take a few days so unless id save a good amount getting a good fan + paste I may as well just buy in store.

 

[PartialGenious]

Just from experience you said you had some fans that you cleaned out. Did that include the fan and heatsink on the processor? Just a few months ago I was having a similar problem with a Core I7 860 in my system. Randomly decided to start running hardware monitor and while playing battlefield I was hitting temps in the high 90's C while gaming (low 40's otherwise). Obviously I was not practicing what I preach as I had not cleaned out my case in about a year and a half or longer. The heatsink and fan was clogged with dust. As well as other dust bunnies through out the case. Cleaned it all out with can of compressed air and now it runs cooler around 50's to low 60's C while gaming.

From my experience with this processor if it has speed stepping (which I am not sure about your particular processor) it will step down once it hits a certain temp. Also the motherboard will shut off the processor after a certain temp as well to prevent damage to the CPU. Mine was stepping down from 2.9 ghz to 1.8 or something I believe then when it would cool off it would jump back to 2.9 it seemed to be causing some of my lag in BF and other games even with a quad core.

Edit: The program could have been hardware monitor I do not remember right off and I am not sitting at that PC. Anyways also I have heard speedfan does not report temps correctly. I am sure someone here knows of the top of their head from experience a good monitoring program.

 

[tlmck]

ok thats cool, ill pop into a shop today and see about paste + a fan there instead.

you recommend arctic silver 5 only or will anything with a decent brand name do if I cant get it in the shop? I can order online but it will take a few days so unless id save a good amount getting a good fan + paste I may as well just buy in store.

AS 5 is preferred although they do have Arctic Ceramique as well. A little messier to work with, but works well. Just get the smallest size they have as you will not be using much, and the remainder will last a while. Be sure to follow the directions on their web site for your specific processor.

There are other brands out there, but frankly no any where near the quality. Given the age of your processor, Arctic will give you the best shot at cooling it down.

PartialGenious makes another good suggestion about blowing the dust out of the cooler fins, etc. not a bad idea to blow out the case and PSU either, and the remainder of the case innards. Just make sure everything is unplugged

 

[13thmonkey]

CPU's do not get hotter with age. so whats happened is that there is either more load at idle (wouldn't hit those temps), or the cooling is not working as well.

If the cooling is not working as well then this is either because:
the contact is not good - old paste or loosened mechanism
the fans are not pushing the air through as well - choked up heatsink
or the air that the fans are using is not as cool or not as plentiful - blocked up vents on intake fans

 

[robthatguyx]

id reset the thermal paste and get a new cooler and see if that helps

 

[HEXiT]

good idea... while your at it make sure you have good air flow into your case...
if your case isn't ejecting the warm air properly /effectively then your temps will be off by a good margin as your coolers wont work to there best abilities.
this shouldn't be a real issue if you have an antec case but i had a problem where the front fans on my 902 were being swamped by the extractors. they couldnt get enough air in so caused a negative atmosphere in the case. so you may need to turn the back 120mm off to help balance the air flow.

 

[adwodon]

Thanks guys, went to the shop, got some of that AS5 paste, and a new heatsink (coolmaster freezer 13 i think).

CPU hasn't gone over 40C doing tasks (mainly games) which would push it to 90 before

while everything looked ok there did appear to be some minor heat damage on the mobo around the CPU, nothing extreme but do you think it could have damaged it?
it all works fine unless someone says otherwise I'll work under the assumption that provided I keep it cool I will be all good for a good few months when I upgrade to an i5, so I may splash out on a nice 570

Thanks again!

 

[robthatguyx]

as long as your not superheating it again i think itll be fine for a few months

 

[robthatguyx]

also know artic silver has a break in prosess in witch it needs to be used then set then used set again so in a few days it should run about 5 degrees cooler unless you already have done the heating and cooling

 

[adwodon]

awesome

huge help all of you!

this thread can be closed now.

 

[adwodon]

Best answer selected by adwodon.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey