Yet another Athlon XP temperature question!

milltown

My XP2000+ ran without problems for many months, and continued to do so after I installed software to monitor it's temp.
Monitoring showed the temp to be >60 degrees most of the time, which from reading other posts is on the high side. Trying a number of HSFs did not make a whole lot of difference to the temp.
I recently got an XP2400+(Tbred) and an Abit KD7 mobo and it showed temps in the low 50s until the mobo died. Swapped back to my old MSI mobo and the temps were 65+! The AMD spec shows the upper limit for tbred XPs as 85 degs so it should not be a big problem but obviously cooler is better, so I bought a Volcano 11 cooler with variable speed fan and it did drop a couple of degrees but generally to 59 - 60 under light load.
Confusing thing is varying the speed of the fan makes no difference to the reported temp. 60 degrees with the fan @ 3000 rpm and 60 degrees with the fan (and the volume) turned up to 5000 odd rpm.
Case temp with one fan is around the mid 30s.
Do I have a slightly weak CPU or should I stop worrying about it?
I have a thermaltake xaser 11 on order so I hope to see temps drop another few degrees inside it. Having tried the volcano 11 and coolermaster heatpipe thingy I am starting to wonder if the cpu temp will hit the 40s without water cooling.
Sorry if I rambled a bit there, drink taken

RicardoSmith

Some motherboards mis-read the temps. Too high or too low. So check out the support forums and see if your board does that. Also sometimes the HSF just doesn't seat quite 100% and this causes temp rises. Try reseating the HS. Using qood quality thermal paste also helps. If theres poor intake and/or exhaust pressure inside the case then that can cause a dead spot in the case where its hot. I had a full tower case once a HX08 that used to do this. Sometimes it means respositioning the fans or adding more intake, exhaust vents on the case. Sometimes even if the PC is in a poor ventilated room it can make all the difference.

The fact that the temp is the same with the fan at different speeds would tend to make me suspect that its not reading the temps properly. You should see some variation even its its only very slight. You'd expect a 5 degree jump/drop usually. AMDs run kinda hot usually though. I think 60 is a little hot if you've anyway decent cooling though. I've a AMD 1Ghz in a tiny case with poor but silent cooling. It runs at 60. If I increase the fan speed on the case fan which intakes not exhausts, the temps drop by 5-10 degrees in a matter of minutes. But I'm happy at 60 since I have alarms set and even if the chip fails, a 1Ghz AMD is cheap to replace. I really prefer my PC's to quiet/silent so that why I'm running mine hot.

Dooom

did you try looking at the temps in the system bios? that can sometimes be more accurate than some software....but if its the motherboard then try n put a heat sensor thingy on/beside it and you should get a reasonable estimate

Captain Trips

I have a XP2000 with the stock AMD heatsink. Typically around 48-52 degrees. The cooler the better, according to an engineering friend of mine. Not regarding overclocking but a cooler chip at the same speed should give better performance apparently.

Vorrtexx

those temps are pretty high.
I have an AMD Athlon XP 2100+ and if my temp hit about 64*C the PC would crash with a Blue screen. the room I keep the PC in is a warm room so that wasn't helping.

First I bought an extra exhaust fan, which will bring the temperature down a few degrees. it helps to have a good airflow going through the case.
Then I bought a Volcano 9 or 11, not sure which, I think it might be the same one you mentioned, with the variable fan speed. I'm using the thermal sensor feature so it will spin faster if the CPU gets hotter. This fan made a huge difference for me. now my temperature idle's at 45*C and about 52*C on full load.

Try using Arctic Silver thermal paste too if you can, I hear that can help with the heat sink. make sure the HSF is mounted correctly and just have good airflow in the case. maybe one fan to take in air from the front, and another at the back beside the PSU to blow the warm air out.
hope it helps.

RicardoSmith

I dunno why people buy those Volcano HSF. Theres better hsf combos out there.

Col_Loki

Am thinkin your case is probably alot of the problem , like the guys said. The Xaser II case should sort that out for you no probs. My temps droped between 5 - 10 degrees with the new case & the mobo temps are around 20'degrees and overclocked Xp1800+ (2200Mhz) is keeping under 50' with full load and a volcano 7 fan. Great case btw.

milltown

Yeah, I'm hoping the case will get me a few more degrees headroom but I'm very reluctant to believe the reported temps, especially with about 10 degrees difference between two mobos and shag all difference whether the fan is ticking over or screaming blue murder. I only have one case fan in at the moment, exhausting out the back of the case. The air coming out of it is quite cool, as is the air out of the PSU.

Will using arctic silver make that much of a difference compared to the white thermal grease supplied with the HSF?
Also, I have a 1/2Kg tub of copper grease for lubricating vehicle braking systems, which reach much higher temps than any CPU. Has anybody ever tried using anything similar?

Cheers for all the thoughts and advice.

BabyEater

Artic Silver won't make that much difference you can read the articels here http://www.overclockers.com/topiclist/index26.asp#THERMAL GREASE
He found 2C between the generic and atric silver he also expalins why the ultimate thermal grease wont be that much better.

RicardoSmith

I still think its better than using the thermal pads they come supplied with though.

Redshift

I had an issue not so long ago with my XP 2000 reaching dangerous temps causing the machine to power off to protect the CPU. I ended up fitting the Volcano heatsink an inlet fan on the bottom front of the tower and an exhaust fan on the top of the tower which done the trick. I have an external hardware monitor for the CPU and case ambient temp which sits in a spare 3.5 inch bay and displays the temp on LCD. Anyway with the addition of the extra cooling I have a case temp of about 32C and a CPU temp about 46C this goes to about 52C on full load.

imam

Some of my friend have reach 65 and above but its still running well until now (they oc-ed)...some of them try to reinstall hsf back again and the temp drop...
Right..try new bios may be its have revision of temperatur calibration...

Originally posted by milltown

Also, I have a 1/2Kg tub of copper grease for lubricating vehicle braking systems, which reach much higher temps than any CPU. Has anybody ever tried using anything similar?

higher to drop. or higher to hot?? (sorry my english can't understaind well the prhase:D )
Can you tell me the "Brand".. may be its good enough..and if your mobo have heat protection lets try it...

milltown

Hi Imam. What I meant was the copper grease is made to withstand and transfer much higher temperatures than you will ever find in a computer, so I am not worried about it catching fire or melting. The question I was asking was, as it contains copper (which is an excellent conductor of heat) will it be suitable as an interface between the CPU and heatsink?

Once I have all the bits I need to build my spare PC I might give it a go.

imam

miltown...
If for lubricating vehicle braking system..logically it can't burn by high heat temp. .....and if use copper-->this well conductor..so for surely you can test it now isn't ....
and report your "review" to new topic bad or good...if good I will find this stuff :ninja: hehehe...

milltown

I'm not going to try it in my main box. When I get the spare up and running I'll give it a go. If it works it will show how badly we are being hoodwinked and ripped off. The 0.5Kg tub I have cost me around €6 in the motor factors!

jow

Hi,

there is a reason, why thermal compound with metal is expensive!

The granularity of the metal particles has to be very small.
Normally you use a thermal pad / Compound to fill the small gaps between the cpu die and the heatsink.

Even on the best heatsinks with an high finish, there are a lot of small microscopic gaps.

Normally the thermal transfer rate would be the best if the cpu-die has full contact with the heatsink. But because of the gaps there are some places filled with air (even if you cant see them), and air does a very well insulating job

copper paste for car brakes has very thick granularity. So what it does is it increases the gap between the cpu and the heatsink (buy a tub and have a detailed look).

The most important thing is: it is conductive!

So I would say: Have fun, there is a big chance that you destry your cpu with that.

And for the money: Artcic Silver III cost around 9.- Euro a tub. It contains 3g and that is enough for at least 10- installations.

I don't see a point to save money in that way.

jow

milltown

It looks like my mobo has been lying to me. Got my new case and assembled everything, putting the thermal probe onto the underside of my chip and my idle temperature is ~45 degrees according to the case's LCD display and 61 degrees according to PC Alert.
Do Athlon chips have a built in thermocouple that mobos take a reading from or does the mobo just take a best guess from a probe in the vicinity of the CPU socket?

Redshift

Originally posted by milltown
It looks like my mobo has been lying to me. Got my new case and assembled everything, putting the thermal probe onto the underside of my chip and my idle temperature is ~45 degrees according to the case's LCD display and 61 degrees according to PC Alert.
Do Athlon chips have a built in thermocouple that mobos take a reading from or does the mobo just take a best guess from a probe in the vicinity of the CPU socket?

I have this issue also my bios reports a CPU temp of about 58 degrees and the probe which is on the CPU right beside the dye is reporting about 46 degrees.

Ryan