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Overheating CPU while gaming...


Whulph

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I recently purchased a socket 939 AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ processor, (running at 2.2GHz, manufacturer setting, NOT overclocked,) and an EVGA e-GeForce 8600GT PCIEx video card. (I'm running Windows XP, by the way, not Vista.) I decided it was finally time to upgrade from single-core and onboard video. The video card ain't the greatest, but it's one thousand times better than what I had before. :thumbup

After going through the process of upgrading...putting new thermal paste on, putting the stock heatsink and fan from my old single-core Athlon 64 processor (the new processor didn't come with anything) and bolting the motherboard back down...I went straight to the BIOS to check the temperatures, and to make sure I didn't screw something up royally.

The computer started at about 30C, I watched it for a few moments, making sure it wouldn't jump on me. Satisfied it was climbing at a relatively slow rate, I left for about an hour to give the computer some time to heat up. When I returned, it was idling at about 40C, a bit higher than my old single-core (it used to idle no higher than 35) but good enough for my liking.

My problem: It only idles around 35C or 45C while running the BIOS or a basic OS. Anytime the computer does anything graphically intensive, like running a game, within ten to fifteen minutes the processor's temperature skyrockets to 80C, and the computer shuts down to protect itself. What I find strange is that the processor seems to be the only thing having trouble staying cool. Usually I would think it would be the graphics card that would need to be worried about, but the graphics card seems fine. To date, I haven't observed the graphics card go beyond 80C (it idles at about 60C) but then again, given the abnormally short amount of time I'm allowed to run a game before auto-shut-down, the graphics card may yet prove to be an issue all its own...but I'll worry about that when the time comes.

I consulted with my local tech-guy about the problem, he said I might have either applied too much or not enough thermal compound, there's a problem with one of the fans, or worst-case-scenario, I might be looking at a bad processor... :(

So, I re-applied the thermal compound to the CPU, just to fix anything I might have done wrong the first time around, and I also stared messing with the fans in my case (I'm not quite brave enough for water cooling yet, but if I can't find a solution to this, I think that might be my next step...). Right now, in addition to the regular CPU/graphics fan-and-heatsink combos, I've got a single 80mm intake fan on the back, and a 120mm fan in the power supply, sucking the hot air out.

Earlier, there was a slight problem with the power supply fan. It would make a strange buzzing noise from time to time. I figured it was on its last leg, (cheap piece of junk...the power supply is only about eight months old, little or no dust from what I can tell) so I replaced the 120mm fan and also added a second, ridiculously tiny 1 inch fan to the back of it to help blow out the hot air that the 120mm takes in. (I tried to fit in an old CPU fan from a dead motherboard, but there wasn't enough room, so I bought the tiny guy from radio shack, hoping every little bit would help.) So, now I have two (rather, one and a half :} ) fans in my power supply.

I also replaced the intake fan on the back of the computer with a higher-quality 80mm fan. (Previously, I was using another old CPU fan for the intake...it didn't even align with the screw-holes properly, so until now I was using twisty-ties to hold it on the back. :lol: )

After all this, nothing seems to have helped. I'm running the computer with the side of the case off right now in an attempt to help cool it a bit, and to observe the new fans. Everything seems fine so far, fans are all spinning, BIOS reports the CPU fan at 3000rpm and the "system" (80mm intake) fan at 2500rpm...it all seems good. Idling temperature remains the same, every thing remains the same...it's all fine and dandy as long as I don't do anything involving graphics. So, aside from reducing the noise of my system with two new fans and adding a tiny fan to my power supply, nothing I did seems to have affected anything.

Thus has been my first experience with a dual-core CPU. I don't even think I've noticed any real speed improvements yet. If I can't figure this out I'm probably downgrading to my good ol' Athlon 64...

So, if you're still reading, (sorry for the lengthy post...I tend to do that a lot) here are my questions...

Is this all just due to a new dual-core CPU? Do they really run that much hotter than single-core? Or might there be something wrong with it?

What are the possible causes and remedies to this situation? Any ideas? Besides trying water cooling or calling AMD (I doubt they'll help me, I don't think I have any kind of warranty, the CPU was ordered direct, came with nothing but a little plastic case and a cardboard box...) I don't have much of a clue what else I could try...I'm nearly out of ideas.

Does anyone think water cooling would even help in my situation? (I know it would decrease idling temperature, but would it be enough to keep the CPU from skyrocketing to 80C after ten minutes of a game?)

Was it a good idea, adding that second fan to the power supply? I'm by no means an electrician, I didn't have much of a clue what I was doing, but they're both spinning so apparently I got something right. :lol: One question I have regarding that second fan...now that there are two fans in place where previously there was only one, does that mean that each fan is now running at 50% capacity? Is the power being divided among them, or are they both drawing as much as they both need? The reason I ask is because both of them together are much much quieter than the original stock fan was all on its own. If they're operating at 100% efficiency, I'll be impressed. If I find that by adding that tiny fan to the back I've decreased the ability of both, I'll probably just remove it. I'd rather have the 120mm fan pushing every single one of its 70cfm than to have two fans (rather, one and a half fans...) only doing half a job each.

Thanks in advance for any tips or suggestions. I'm just so frustrated, I'm not even that much of a PC gamer, but I do like the occasional game or two from time to time. My computer's not even that high-end...it's a budget system for crying out loud, hence my frustration on this overheating issue. This isn't something I think I should be dealing with, but oh well... :whistle:

I'll probably keep tinkering with some of the fans for now. If I get desperate enough before trying water cooling I might even break out the power tools and customize the case with some vents and screw holes for an additional 120mm fan or two...

Edited by Whulph
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I'm 99% sure it's seated alright, I took great care placing the heatsink back on the second time around...I made sure there was enough thermal paste, made sure the heatsink was nice and level... Besides that, the clamps on that heatsink are insane to put on and take off, I doubt latching the thing would be possible if it weren't level.

But on the chance that it's not seated properly...do you know how I could check? Is it something you can do easily without taking it off, reapplying the thermal paste, and placing it back on all over again? Or is that the only solution?

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i got a 4800+ dual core running, but the cpu temp only reaches 30C when i set it to run at 100 %. i have two 80mm fans at the back of my chasis to pull hot air out and another one on the door which blows inward. you would be suprised as to how much of a difference these fans make in keep my cpu cool

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First off - remove the smaller fan from your PSU. It's spinning, but it's probably just impeding airflow more than helping. To answer your electrical question, if both fans are connected to the same source, then they'd both be operating at 12V - i.e. 100%. This being said, the smaller fan likely has less airflow per area than what you get through the vents from the larger fan. Furthermore, unless you've completely cut out the grille behind the smaller fan, it's likely doing nothing in terms of helping airflow. Small fans rarely provide enough air pressure to blow through grilles - even those simple finger guards. Also, I doubt that you'd need a 70CFM fan to power your PSU. During typical operation, the fan should only need to blow a moderate amount of air to keep the internals of the PSU cool (70CFM is a relatively high volume fan).

When you remove the heatsink, do it carefully, and try not to smear it on the surface of the CPU. Unclip the heatsink, and then lift it straight up. Does the thermal paste on the base of the heatsink match the size of the CPU? If not, or if you've got gaps anywhere, then the heatsink isn't making good contact with the CPU.

I'm guessing one of two things. Either the heatsink isn't mounted properly, or the heatsink or IHS (integrated heat spreader) has pretty severe curvature to it (which is relatively rare on AMD CPUs). I noticed higher than expected temperatures from my Intel CPU, and found that it was severly concave. Find yourself a straight razor (or something else extremely straight) and hold it against the surface of the IHS on the CPU. Hold the two up to a light source to look at the bottom edge of the razor. If the surface is flat, you won't see any light coming through. If there's a slight gap, then it shouldn't be too much of a problem, but as you can see with my setup, there were portions of the CPU that weren't making contact with the heatsink at all.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Thanks for all the tips everyone, sorry I vanished and never got back to you all.

Zxian: I've removed the tiny (1", supposedly 7cfm at max speed) fan from the power supply, as you suggested, seeing as it didn't seem to help much anyway. Also, thanks for the great tips about the heatsink, I hadn't thought to check that. I searched online a bit on the subject of heatsink lapping, and came across a slightly different method to check for curvature or air pocket areas (using small panes of glass and very very tiny droplets of water), and the heatsink appears to be relatively flat, no problems there. (Here's a picture. The glass panes are probably a little too small, but they're the best I had at the time. Each one has a very tiny drop of water underneath it that has flowed to the edges of the glass. The heatsink looks dirty, but it's not, I had cleaned it with alcohol prior to doing the glass and water test. I suspect the discolorations are due to the overheating processor, as they weren't there until I had used that heatsink with the daul-core processor.)

Anyway, for all I know it could have been due to slight curvatures in the heatsink, though none that I could visibly see (I might have used too much water or the panes of glass were probably too small), as I did eventually figure out what my problem was, and it was indeed the heatsink. I had emailed AMD regarding the problem, with nearly every spec on my system I could gather (from the socket type to BIOS revision) and they recommended dumping the heatsink that came with my Athlon 64 3500+ and getting one that's specifically recommended for the Athlon 64 X2.

I'd tried nearly everything (short of lapping the heatsink I had), and figured this last attempt couldn't hurt, so I went ahead and bought a Thermaltake CL-P0075, since it was recommended on AMD's website and supposedly worked fairly well with dual-core processors. Some of the reviews on newegg claimed that the included fan and thermal paste were nothing but junk, so I also purchased a Thermaltake Smartfan 2 and some Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound, just in case. (Newegg also sells the Arctic Silver 5 in a smaller size, but whenever I mess with thermal paste, no matter how careful I am, most of it always manages to end up on my hands, my head, and my shirt...so I went ahead and got the bigger size. :whistle: )

The new heatsink fixed the problem immediately, even without the use of the Arctic Silver OR the new fan (though I later put the new fan on anyway). I managed to get the processor down to 45C at full load. My guess is that the AMD heatsink that came with my old single-core Athlon 64 just wasn't up to the task when I upgraded to dual-core (either that, or the Dynex Thermal Compound I was using was really terrible).

In addition to the new heatsink and fan, just for the heck of it, I also did a few fan rearrangements and whatnot, and I even went so far as to purchase a new tower (which I've been meaning to do for ages anyway). The new Foxconn tower has much better airflow than the old eMachines T1840 case I was using, even for a MicroATX case.

Here's a list of what I've changed:

  • Foxconn TLM-776 MicroATX Tower (Has support for a single 80 or 92 mm rear mounted fan, a single 80, 92, or 120 mm front mounted fan, and it's got a side duct.)
  • Thermaltake CL-P0075 Heatsink
  • Thermaltake Smartfan 2 x2 (One I have mounted on the CPU, the other is now on the back of the foxconn tower acting as an output fan. The CPU fan is currently set to operate at 3500RPM, the rear output fan is at 3000RPM.)
  • Dynex 4.7" CPU Cooling Fan (I had my eye on one of these Thermaltake 120mm Smartfans at the time, but newegg ran out of stock at least two times in a row before I had a chance to order them. The Dynex fan is currently located inside the power supply. I replaced the fan that came with the power supply due to the scratching noise I mentioned in the first post. Since getting the new Foxconn tower, I've given the 120mm fan that used to be inside the power supply a thorough cleaning with a compressed air can, and mounted it on the front of the tower as an intake fan. It seems to be working fine now, no more scratching.)

At the price of making my computer sound a little like a small jet taking off when you start it up, (the Thermaltake fans aren't even operating at their full speed of 4500RPM...you should hear it when they are, it's insane) I've gotten the processor to idle at 28-31C, and I haven't yet observed it hit 45-50C under full load. :thumbup

Thanks again for all the suggestions, everyone. :)

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