TBird Heat Range

Running a Tbird 900 at 1000 with a PAL HS/Fan. Normal operating temp is 31C. After play Q3 for about 1/2 hour the CPU temp is 50C. System is totally stable and within a few minutes it drops back into the low 30's. OS is Win2k, SP1. Is this a normal heat range?

ABIT KT7-RAID

PAL6035MUC
It doesn't take a lot of effort to clip it on, maybe it's not tight enough. The clip seems pretty flimsy - I guess I could bend it to get a little more spring. Hate to mess with it though since it is stable. Get the same temp readings at 900 or 1100, so Just wondered if a 20C heat variation was normal.

Blindside,
I have basically the same configuration that you do. I have a TB 900 and an Abit KT7-RAID. My idle temps are normally 3-5 degrees Celsius about my case temp. After playing Quake3 or Half-life, etc. my maximum temp gets into the low 50s. I have not had any stability problems though. I am using an AMD fan that came with the processor, however, I did buy a Global-WIN FOP32 because they were rated really well. Honestly, the Global-WIN didn't do any better job cooling than the original fan. So, I went back to the original. I am using thermal paste by the way... Personally I think that Athlons just run hotter than most other processors, but I don't think that a fluctuation in temperature is really anything to be worried about. As long as your temp isn't getting any hotter than it is now, I wouldn't give it too much thought. However, if you want to reduce your maximum temp, I would try concentrating on getting the case temp down as low as possible. You might consider adding extra fans, especially if you have a large case. If you find any miracle solution that greatly reduces your temp, let me know!

if it were reading temps from the cpu core, a 20C difference would not be unheard of for a socket a chip(going from idle to full load). but since it measures temp at a secondary pathway, and results are often compressed, it is unusual. I would tighten the alpha clip, as it seems that you have an older fc p3 clip.


Mike

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