What temperature should I worry about?

ksoth

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I have an Athlon XP 2500+. I was tired of noise issues so I bought an Antec Sonata quiet case, which has 1 80mm fan, and a Thermaltake Silent Boost HSF, which runs quiet but only at 2500 RPM. Both are only a few months old. Now, it's been getting to about 80°F in my house in the heat. But, the computer temps are worrying me with a 56°C case temperate and about 65°C CPU temperature at idle, and under heavy load the CPU temperature passes 70°C. I began to really notice a problem because the other day, while playing a game, the computer was rebooting, something it has never done before. But, I am not sure if the reboots were heat or power related, because I just put the computer on a battery backup and it has not rebooted since, despite temperatures getting about 70°C. I think it might have been power surges, as there was a power outage a couple days ago and the reboots started after that.

I am thinking that something may be wrong with my HSF, because every review I read on it showed temperatures staying below 60°C. Does anyone else have this particular HSF, and if so, what kind of temperatures are you seeing with it?

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TheRod

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Does your XP2500+ is overclocked? And yes, your temperature is very high. My "old" tbred was running at 70 Celsius on full-load (overclocked) with the stock HSF, I bought a Volcano 7 and the temperature dropped at 60 Celsius at full-load with the fan at low speed (I hate fan noise).

Your room temp. is high, so you might need to open your tower for the summer season. You will cool down your system to some extent. I personnaly recommend trying to keep yoru CPU temp under 60 Celsius at full load. Athlon XP can endure lot fo torture but I find 60 Celsius the best compromise for stability. Below this temperature that chance your PC crash are near ZERO.


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addiarmadar

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I would be concerned if it passes 60c for that is harmfull to the chip and creates instability. Even with the best HSF, it is only as good as the irrigation inside the case.

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slvr_phoenix

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an Antec Sonata quiet case, which has 1 80mm fan
I'm sorry, but an Antec Sonata case does not have 1 80mm fan. It comes stock with a 120mm exhaust fan. So if you have an 80mm exhaust fan in your Sonata, then there's a significant problem right there. ;)

Seriously though, if you indeed have the Sonata case then I have the following suggestions:

First I would ask that you make sure that your exhaust fan is <i>not</i> plugged into a "fan only" power lead. If you are indeed having thermal problems then this line (power supply voltage-regulated, AKA undervolted) should be avoided and a full voltage power line should be used for the exhaust fan instead so that the fan can run at it's full RPM.

Should that not be enough then replacing your stock exhaust fan with a nice higher powered exhaust fan (maybe a 120mm thermal-regulated Antec Smartfan) would be the next step. Then you can additionally move the old exhaust fan to the intake fan slot.

And should <i>that</i> not be enough then you could go even further to move the bottom two screws of the intake fan to the top two holes of the intake fan mount (in other words moving your intake fan up approx. 120mm) and remove any unused 3.5" front bay panels to serve as an intake vent. You would have to run with the front door open then. (Or else cut a vent into the front door. Fortunately it is only plastic.)

And should you do all of the above and it is still not enough, even with the now almost perfectly CPU-aligned air channel from the adjusted intake 120mm fan to the 120mm exhaust fan, then you should probably be looking into something cryogenic. :)

<pre><b><font color=red>"Build a man a fire and he's warm for the rest of the evening.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life." - Steve Taylor</font color=red></b></pre><p>
 

ksoth

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Yes I was wrong, it is a 120mm. It was plugged into the "fan only" cable, as I followed instructions in doing so. I did noticed that the fan doesn't push much air, so hopefully switching that will get the case temps down a few degrees as well. The case comes with a thermal regulated Antec smartfan.

I replaced the Thermaltake HSF with an old stock Athlon I had lying around, which brought the temperatures down to 60°C at full load, which is tolerable. The Thermaltake has an 80mm fan attacked to it, so I'm gonna try and see if I can buy a faster fan that has better airflow to get the temps down even further. I guess I will have to deal with a little bit more noise, but oh well.

Normally I wouldn't have a problem with just temporarily removing the case cover, but my case is a desktop which has the monitor sitting on it, therefore no go on that.

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pauldh

Illustrious
Your Sonata is being used as a desktop under the Monitor??? The Sonata is a nicely painted mid tower. Hurts me to think of that beauty sitting under a CRT. Are you sure you don't have the Overture, which is a media desktop that looks a bit like a VCR.

I am surprised that the Sonata isn't keeping things cooler. I have an SLK3700 which also uses the 120MM rear case fan. I do not have a front fan installed. The 120mm case fan runs about 2000-2100 RPM. I have a Palomino Xp2100+, which runs pretty hot. And a volcano 9 adjustable fan.

Anyway, this weekend was hot and only I wanted AC, so we just kept windows open instead. My room temp was a misreable 84 degrees (29 degrees C). The case heated up to 35 degrees, and the cpu with the volcano running 3000 rpm heated up to 60 degrees making my bios alarm ring. Anyway, I cranked the volcano up and later set it back to 3500 rpm and the cpu temps were about 52 degrees. But on a cooler day like today, the case temp is 32 degrees C, room temp is about 24 degrees C, and cpu is 50 degrees at 3300 rpm.

Only reason I mention this is that the Sonata with that 120MM fan at 2100 RPM moves about as much air as 2 80MM fans and usually is a pretty cool running/ quiet case. For me it tends to keep the case temps about 5-10 degrees above room temps at all times. Yours is much higher than that. Maybe the CRT on top is adding heat and hurting airflow.

By the way, removing my side panel raised my case temp 1 degree because it killed the air flow from front bottom to rear top. Of course blowing a house fan at it would have lowered temps. But just removing the side panel raised the case temp to an all-time high for me.

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ksoth

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Yeah I switched fan cables and case temps dropped to about 50°C, and idle CPU temp has gone down to 52° from about 60° from the other HSF.

I ordered an adjustable speed 80mm fan that I will attach to the Thermaltake Silent Boost heat sink, which will hopefully be quieter but cool better than this fan.

Thanks for the help, and now I'm not longer worried about it getting too hot.

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davemar14

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Got Central air in my house. Case temps around 28 C, and CPU idle at 32 C, and load around 40 C. I got a Antec 1080 AMG Case, with 1 intake, and 2 exhuast. CPU cooler is a Thermaltake Silent Boost with Artic Silver on my 2400+.

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Nights_L

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Where is ur Thermaltake Silent boost stock fan?
I'm using it with a resistor on, it runs at about 1900rpm, works pretty fine for me, my cpu tempereature is around 46C, and it never goes above 51C
I have one rear case fan and a side panel case fan..both are 80mm, rear one runs at about 1700rpm, side one is about 2000rpm (but not sure, cuz never measured :p )
Forgot to mention..my cpu is a T-bredB at 1833MHz..
 

lunchtime

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Your Sonata is being used as a desktop under the Monitor??? The Sonata is a nicely painted mid tower. Hurts me to think of that beauty sitting under a CRT. Are you sure you don't have the Overture, which is a media desktop that looks a bit like a VCR.
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Never thought about doing that with a tower. That sounds like a good neck saver. These phone books are unsightly.


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Xiph0s

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I was playing around overclocking mine and it never went past 57 C with stock hsf (11x200)

Basic Specs:
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dhlucke

Polypheme
Since we live within a few hours of each other and the heat has been terrible I'll throw in my 2 cents, but first let me get my temps....

<i><font color=blue>Edited by Scamtron on 10/11/01 09:58 PM
 

dhlucke

Polypheme
My CPU is at 61C (2400+) with no case fans, but I do have a house fan blowing towards the PC (on me) and the ceiling fan on so it does get hotter. The inside of my case is currently at 34C.

I figure you shouldn't be getting too much warmer than me.

<i><font color=blue>Edited by Scamtron on 10/11/01 09:58 PM
 

ksoth

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I have central air in my house, but the problem is that when my house was built no insulation was put in the walls. Also, our air conditioner is pretty old. For these reasons, we don't run the air conditioner too much, or else we'd be looking at a $500 a month electricity bill. The house usually stays at around 27°-30°C.

I just got a new Thermaltake fan that I attached to the SilentBoost heatsink, which brought the temperatures down over 10°C when I have it at full load. The problem is that the thing sounds like a jet engine now, which really sucks because I enjoyed the silence so much. But, oh well.

When the air conditioner is on in the house, case temps will stay at about 45°C at idle, and CPU temp at like 52°C at idle. At full load it seems to max out at about 52°C case temp and 58°C CPU. Without the air conditioner on the temps rise about 3°C, which is tolerable. The main problem, I guess, is poor air flow into the case because of how case temps are usually around 20°C above room temps.

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ksoth

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Ya, it's an overture case and not a sonata.

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pauldh

Illustrious
That explains things a bit. Picturing that Sonata on it's side under your CRT was giving me nightmares. :lol:

It also means you are running a smaller case than a Sonata and without the huge 120MM fan, so Case temps will be higher in an overature than a Sonata.

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Pauldh on 07/19/04 00:04 AM.</EM></FONT></P>