Whats too hot?

jabaroon

Hi All,

Have an ABIT KD7-RAID board with the latest bios, but it keeps on rebooting when I make the machine work hard. For example, if I rip a DVD and convert it to SVCD it will usually reboot somewhere during the process.

I have the bios temperature features disable (eg: not set to reboot on certain temp).

I have tested the memory and have tested the mobo and all check out fine.

I am therefore thinking that the machine is running too hot when I do heavy processing and therefore reboots?....does this make any sence? Is this a reasonable diagnosis?

On average, the System temperature runs about 60 degres C, and the CPU runs about 50-55 degrees C.

Are these temperatures normal or too high??....

Any help or suggestions much appreciated!

Thanks,
Jab

PS - Am not overclocking anything. Specs are:
Athlon XP-2400
GF4 TI-4600
1GB mem
3x160gb HD
DVDR, CDR, DVD-RW

Wyrd

SHOULD BE AROUND 30-45 YOURS MAY NEED A FEW FANS OR BETTER CONDITIONS IN THE ROOM

BeatFreak

Yeah what he said pretty much the 2400 runs kinda hot but should idle somewhere <40c ish. Have you overclocked? If not sounds like you have an airflow problem or that the heatsink is'nt seated right. Do you have in intake and exhaust fan on your case? Is it a small or large case? Much clutter inside?
Give me a little more info and maybe i can help.
Cheers Dev.

[Edit/] Arse did'nt see the "i didnt overclock bit" ignore my comment 8) [Edit]

Virus_Inc

Uncheck the auto reboot option under system failure options in the startup & recovery section of your system properties. Then you can have a good look at the debug messages and try and figure out what is causing the problem...

Wyrd

nearly 500Gb harddisk serious stuff. maybe a hard drive fan?
BTW the caps was unintentional in the last message sos

jabaroon

Thanks for all the help/suggestions.

First off, just to clarify a few points.....

- The temperature of the CPU is running at 45-55C (I believe that this is about right)
- The temperature of the system is running at 60-70C (I believe this to be the problem!)
- Dont have the auto-reboot options swithced on in BIOS. Deliberatley have all of the temperature related settings swithced off!

There are three fans installed, CPU, Extraction fan on rear and standard internal PSU fan.

Its a full tower case, so there isn't really that much clutter, but there certainly is a lot of stuff in there!! (see above!).

I just bought another Case fan from Marx today, so am going to install it later and see what happens - fingers crossed!

Jab

jabaroon

Just added new fan. Now have one on front 'sucking in' and one at rear, 'sucking out'. Expected a better result, but only got a 4-6 degree drop in temp!

System temperature now hovering around 53-56 on normal load as opposed to previous 55-65.

I really dont want to turn the PC into a helicopter by adding 1000's of fans!!!....its noisey enough as it is! Any suggestions?

Ta,
Jab

Mad Mike

Originally posted by jabaroon
- The temperature of the CPU is running at 45-55C (I believe that this is about right)
- The temperature of the system is running at 60-70C (I believe this to be the problem!)

I am inclined to suspect that these temperature readings are wrong for two reasons:

1. The CPU lives inside the system and unless you have either Peltier cooling or a fancy heatpipe the CPU must be hotter than the system (2nd law of thermodynamics)

2. 60 to 70 deg C is a ferocious temperature for the system. You would not be able to touch something at 70 deg C. If the air inside your case is at 70 deg C you will know about it just by feeling the side of the case.

I see two possibilities:

1. The temperature readings are mixed up. A case of 45-55 and CPU of 60-70 is more sensible although it is still too hot. You would like to pull at least 10 deg off both. Try looking at the temperature readings with the CPU idle and running at 100% (quake3 demo running in a window works fine). The CPU temperature will shoot up almost immediately but the case temperature will take longer to rise.

2. It is very possible that the temperature probe measuring your system temperature is kaput. I have seen this happen before. If you can convince youself that CPU temp is really 45 to 55 then you may want to try some other method of measuring the air temperature inside your case.

Col_Loki

That is a very very strange system temp. My system temp is usually 10 degrees below cpu temp.

Think you definetly need better airflow in your case, you could try sharkoon ultra silent fans (there ajustable via a resistor that will be in your pci slot) . cheapest place for them is prob www.hitide.ie , decent airflow and low noise of around 15db.

Is your motherboard fan working (northbridge fan) ?? You might want to check it. Another thing is if the mobo is giving faulty readings, take off the side pannel boot the machine put it under stress, power off and unplug and see if the mobo is really that hot.

Mad Mike

As regards your original problem of the system re-booting when working hard:

- you are running an awful lot of hardware - Maybe your power supply is being overloaded.

jabaroon

Good point on the PSW side of things...never thought of that!

Have a 350w PSW and the following devices:

3x160GB HD
1xGF4 4600
1xCDRW
1xDVDRW
1xDVD

Whaddaya think?....350 enough?

As regards WHEN the reboots happen, they tend to be when heavy processing is required. For example, GTA3 at hi-res or encoding a DIV-X etc... generally dont tend to be when a lot of disk access or burning is going on. Any thoughts?

BeatFreak

What kinda PSU is it? no-name? Cause if it is then that could be a problem but I've got far more power draining kit in mine (this vapo is a hungry beast 8) and its only running on a 350w enermax psu which is far below the recommended but because its a good psu it seems to hold up just fine. What was mentioned about your cpu temps and system temps being mixed up is true its impossible to have a system temp that high and a lower cpu temp. I'd say check your system temp with an aux temp probe just to confirm.
cheers Dev.

Nitrox

Almost certainly PSU problem, go get a new proper one, like the Antec True power 480 or 550W, i know they are expensive (got one myself) but trust me it is all worth it!!

dazberry

Originally posted by Beat Freak
What was mentioned about your cpu temps and system temps being mixed up is true its impossible to have a system temp that high and a lower cpu temp. I'd say check your system temp with an aux temp probe just to confirm.
cheers Dev.

I get similar values with a XP 2000. However my systemp and cpu would be more around the 54ish (normally within a 1/2 degree of each other), and that rises to ~60 (normally CPU about a degree lower) after some heavy use.

In my case (sic) the heat is getting cought under the PSU because of the case design, as its an older case design (new PSU) where the PSU is over the top corner of the mobo. Fans galore (1 in, 2 out) but can't seem to shift enough heat out of that corner (plus 1 on CPU, 1 on graphics, 1 on mobo and 1 on CDRW - its a noisy beast).

No stability problems - although I should really look at putting it in to a newer case - probably better in the long run.

D.

jabaroon

damit.....rebooted again this morning without notice. Just before hand, CPU=53c and System=54c. Maybe it is the PSU?....but I wasn't doing anything that was using lots of power....??.....just surfin (at the time)....

The case is a Chieftec "big tower", which I would have thought was pretty good?...

Any ideas!

Thanks,
Jab

Mad Mike

You say you checked your memory. How thoroughly did you test it?

Memtest86 finds faults that other memory testers leave behind (or words to that effect)

http://www.memtest86.com/