Overheat?SlowComputer?Clueless?

[Magikaltrevor]

Hey all, me again! My girlfriends using a program called SpeedFan to check the temperatures of her computer, Because lately her computer has felt slower processing applications, playing games, minusing down from game and loading.

We figured it might be an overheat problem, so we downloaded SpeedFan, and results currently are:

Temp#1: 32C (BlueDownArrow)
Temp#2: 29C (BlueDownArrow)
Temp#3: 79C (FireSymbol)
HD0: 29C (BlueDownArrow)
GPU: 38C (BlueDownArrow)
Core: 18C (BlueDownArrow)

We're not 100% sure what Temp#3 is related too. I felt the GPU with my fingers and it feels rather warm, though SpeedFan tells us otherwise.

We went out tonight and bought a 5x5 Fan for outake and i installed it on the top grate. No Temperature Change.


Any feedback, questions or ideas would be much appreciated!

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium Edition - 64bit
Motherboard: GIGABYTE Technology Co. Ltd. GA-770T-USB3
Proccessor: AMD Phenom II X4 840 Processor "4 CPUs" 3.2GHz
PowerSupply: Xyon 700Watt XON-700P12N

Her computer was built/bought from iBuyPower two or three years ago.

 

[bryce325]

Be sure to check for lint and dust that has accumulated. I once had it running at 90 during games then after a cleaning drop to a 30 so it can make a significant difference if neglected.

 

[Magikaltrevor]

We opened it up when i installed the fan, i vacumed every corner, we even took the gpu out and got each nook and crany. Same results.

 

[bryce325]

It probably isn't your gpu I would assume and more so your cpu from what I am reading.

It doesn't look like your computer was running idle either during this, more so that you were running a software that was only using a single thread I assume.

Possibly the thermal paste on your cpu is starting to show signs of needing to be removed and then have a new layer added on.

 

[Magikaltrevor]

Hmm possibly the CPU overheating you say?

How does one remove the thermal paste? Ive only ever put paste on for new processors.

 

[Magikaltrevor]

Temp#3 and GPU are now in the (Fire) Zones. Shes currently playing the game World of Warcraft, and temperatures are rising.

 

[bryce325]

Considering you have four cores it seems right that your computer shows 4 temperatures which is common.

You can also get a program that checks only the cpu temp if you would like to confirm that.

At 40C a gpu would indeed feel quite hot to the touch but that really isn't that dangerous of a zone so I doubt it would be any problem at all.

I am a little skeptical on my own theory since I don't commonly see cores vary in temp so much so a check with something like http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ which I use would help make sure I am not full of hot air

 

[Magikaltrevor]

Well her speeds for all 4 cores are hopping around like CRAZY, However the temperatures.

Tj.Maxx: 65C
CPU#0 : 25C

Temperatures are stable.

 

[bryce325]

Could we also get which gpu you are running, I don't see it in the op.

Now I am going to throw another request out and see how hot the psu is getting to make sure it is venting properly.

Also a gpu can run fine as long as it is under 80C just fine since they are made to be at a temperature higher than that of a processor. I also like to keep my processor max at 60 so they really aren't overheating to a point which is excessive anyways.

Possibly the problem isn't one with the hardware but the software, have you checked for any processes that shouldn't be there or not needed as well as doing some full system scans?

 

[Magikaltrevor]

GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series

Not sure how hot the PSU is getting, by touch, not hot at all, Specificly..no idea.

 

[bryce325]

Ya at this point I see no problem with overheating or just hardware failure. So it could just be that it is slowly losing life or something draining your resources then.

 

[Magikaltrevor]

She currently has 2 sticks of ram in, 2GB each stick, Total of 4GB.

If she were to add two more 2GB sticks for a Total of 8GB, she might have a performance increase? In your best guess.

I mean common sense, more ram more speed, but with the description of our problem.

 

[bryce325]

A really easy way to tell if you need to increase a specific area is to just use task manager (ctrl + alt + delete) then go over to the performance tab.

Check if either Memory or cpu usage is really high. If memory tops you you should get more ram since it is cheap anyways.

 

[Magikaltrevor]

Best answer selected by Magikaltrevor.