Cpu @ 64.5'c

Dempsey

Intel P4 2.8c
Abit IC-7G
512Mb PC3200 DDR RAM
Antec SmartBlue 350W

I have a server case with upper top fan, one on the back( Vantec Stealth Fans) , the northbridge fan and the the standard intel heatsink fan. Under load, the cpu gets up to about 64.5'C.

I heard about Abit boards misreporting temperatures by about 10'C but is that just in the BIOS or is it even when you run the monitoring software in windows aswell?

With the amount of fans going, should the CPU be at a lower temperature?

Sir Random

Is winbond reporting 64.5c too? What's your system temp?
Sounds like your cpu HS may not be seated properly, check the retaining clips are pushed down etc..
If you don't have a fan blowing cool air into the case, that could be your problem too. Try running it with the side panel off for a while and see if that helps?

Dempsey

The clips are down, i though i was going to break them when pushing down the second one. I dont have access to the pc at the moment but it something like 37-40'C i think. the fan at the back is the intake but the problem maybe that the PSU is sucking that air through it leaving little blowing across the heatsinkfan. Taking of the sidepanel makes absolutely no difference:(

The temperatures im quoting are from the winbond hardware doctor. When i get as far as bios the cpu would have cool back about 10'C. It will be the weekend before I'll have the exact numbers but the ones im saying now are fairly accurate.

jow

Hi,

Intel P4 2.8c
Abit IC-7G
512Mb PC3200 DDR RAM
Antec SmartBlue 350W
I have a server case with upper top fan, one on the back( Vantec Stealth Fans) , the northbridge fan and the the standard intel heatsink fan. Under load, the cpu gets up to about 64.5'C.

Then I am afraid the temperature is pretty much normal....

I had recently some stock P4s and with the original cooler and under full load the temperature reached 65 degress as well (on an MSI mainboard).

If, like you said before, the removal of the side panel makes no difference, than you can try to get an "well defined" airflow. But I afraid this will make max 5 degrees difference.

You should consider changing the cooler.

jow

Dempsey

What I think is the problem with the airflow is that the intake is below the PSU and the PSU sucks the intake befoe i hits the Heatsink so effectively the intake is cooling the PSU and the Heatshinkfan is getting minimal cool air.

jow

Hi,

Originally posted by Dempsey
What I think is the problem with the airflow is that the intake is below the PSU and the PSU sucks the intake befoe i hits the Heatsink so effectively the intake is cooling the PSU and the Heatshinkfan is getting minimal cool air.

You could close this intake for a test with, for example, ducktape.
Then you can see if it makes a difference

Jow

Dempsey

Originally posted by jow
Hi,


You could close this intake for a test with, for example, ducktape.
Then you can see if it makes a difference

Jow

Or turn off the fan?

netman

i have the same motherboard - ic7-g and a p4 2.6c running at about 3.2Ghz.

it's true the motherboard misreads the temperatures, or overcompensantes, by about 10 degrees celsius.

but even with that taken into account your temperatures are way too high. i wouldn't like to run my system like that, it's indicative of a severe cooling problem. are you overclocking the cpu? or overvolting? is it stable?

my bios (and winbond) reports about 45C temperature for the cpu under full load. and i'm guessing it's about 35 or so, it's pretty much cool to the touch.

Dempsey

Under Load the System is 30. CPU 64 and PWM gets up to 50. Its is stable, no crashing to note of. Nothing is overclocked and all voltages look fine. What way do you have your cooling, netman.

netman

i have the innovatek water cooling, modded to fit bigger diameter tubing, and the radiator is outside the case. other than that, i have the psu fans set to minimum (about 1200-1400 rpm, on antec truecontrol 550w), and one 12cm fan at the top of the case as the blowhole.

the system temps read about 27-28C under full load, and pwm gets up to 32-33C.

it's a big tower case packed with heat pumping goodies, so i'm really surprised you got such high temperatures. i have these readings, with a 10k rpm drive, 7.2k rpm drive, dvd-rom, dvd-rw, radeon 9700 pro, pentium4 at 3.2 ghz, 2 sticks of pc3700 memory...

have you tried running the pc with the case open? if you get drastically different results, then think about improving the case airflow.

i had about 55C readings for the pentium4 when i was using the stock intel heatsink. with only one case fan. not sure if the fan made any difference

Dempsey

I have attached a jpg of winbond hardware doctor when the PC is idle. Are the voltages correct. They dont change significantely when under load.

Nice setup Netman. Im only air cooling. :eek: Still have to put in a decent GFX card and another hard disk. so they aint driving up me temperature.

BigEejit

Netman had me going there .... water cooling just cant be compared to air cooling ....

Dempsey, some people have cpu/mobo combinations that just run hot (and appear to run hotter in IC7's/IS7's) ... if the cpu runs a bit cooler with the side off then you need more air getting into and out of you box .... if it does not make a difference you might see about getting some proper thermal grease and a good heatsink with fan. I have my machine running quiet at the moment and the idle temp is up at 42 ish and the under heavy load can be 60 ish ... but thats with all fans (and in particular the fan blowing on the heatsink) turned way down ... I had it working at 50 ish under heavy load but it was just too noisy for my liking...

I call playing a game "load", I call making SVCD's from DVD's "heavy load" because the processor is going 100% for a LONG time ... the only thing not stressed by making VCD's is the graphics card

netman

your idle temperatures aren't bad at all. the voltages are fine, too. slightly lower than what they should be but still within limits.

i wouldn't worry about it too much, the ic7 is known for undervolting.

to me, it just looks like things get very hot once the machine is put to some serious work (games etc)

like i said, try running with the case cover off, and see if there's a big difference in temperatures.

this can also be caused by the heatsink not sitting properly on the cpu. it's kinda hard to mis-align it on the intel platform, but worth checking. putting a bit of thermal grease instead of the pad on the heatsink might help too. the key there is to use as little as possible, while covering the cpu die surface.

again, you don't need to worry about the safety of your cpu under high temperatures, as intel pentium4's have a nice feature that will drop the clock if it gets too hot. the downside of this is that if you don't have proper cooling, you might not be getting the full use out of your cpu. i'm not 100% sure exactly when the thermal throttling occurs, it might be 70 or 80 degrees. looks like you could be getting close enough to that limit though. if you notice that your system actually gets slower over time, for example if you're playing a game for a hour and notice it's slower than it was when you started - it's a pretty good indication you've got problems with thermal throttling.

if everything works fine - don't worry about it too much. you could spend a thousand euro on cooling and still have the same setup, only running cooler. it's generally not worth it unless you plan to overclock, or if you see it as an investment that will last for the next few years and be scalable over the next few cpu generations.

if this was me, i'd get some thermal grease for 5 euro, get an extra fan for 10 euro (one that fits my case), and give it a shot.

OfflerCrocGod

I had a motherboard reporting temps that were very high but touching the HS or CPU told me a different story, so what I did was update the bios to the latest and greatest (MB manufacturer site should have what you need), then the temps dropped like a rock!. So you mentioned that you're MB apperently had that flaw.....what are you waiting for, flash that cow!.

Also the setup you describe sounds as if you could have a vacumn inside you're case i.e. you're PSU fan is sucking air AWAY from you're CPU meaning you're HS fan has no air to blow onto the CPU.....VACUMN means hotter CPU. A solution could be A) no case cover or good intake fans at the front of the case to supply air for the HS fan. Oh and replace the stock fan and HS they are never good enough....not today always get a brand name cooler, preferably with a big fan and a lot of cooper:D .

Dempsey

Right I going to make the back intake into a outtake and I have a spare fan here to put into the front but there doesnt seem to bit a place to attach it. So im hoping to have the cold air comming in the bottom and making its way up and then as it comes across the cpu its suck out (Back,PSU and Top).

Could someone get me a run down on flashing the BIOS, havent do it before.

netman

ok, first you need to go here and download the latest BIOS file.

it's going to be a self-extracting executable, containing multiple files. run the file and it will unpack itself. now you can copy all those files onto a floppy disk.

you'll need to have a DOS boot disk handy, reboot your PC with the DOS floppy (never flash in a windows DOS window), put in the floppy with all the bios files, and run "runme.bat"

you can simply type in "runme.bat" at the A:\ prompt

it will show you a warning screen that you're not to run the file from windows, hit enter, and it will proceed with the BIOS flashing. it only takes a couple of seconds and it's important you don't reboot the PC during that time or the motherboard could become unusable.

so just simply sit and wait until the flashing is completed, you will be prompted to reboot and that's it. it's adviseable to go into the BIOS at that stage and check the settings. they'd normally revert back to "BIOS defaults" so you'd need to re-set any adjustments you had before.

Dempsey

Originally posted by netman
you'll need to have a DOS boot disk handy, reboot your PC with the DOS floppy (never flash in a windows DOS window), put in the floppy with all the bios files, and run "runme.bat"

Understood everything EXCEPT the above.

Also, how ya create a boot disk in xp?

I think the the link is down, nuts

netman

Originally posted by Dempsey
Understood everything EXCEPT the above.

Also, how ya create a boot disk in xp?

I think the the link is down, nuts

ahh, the beautiful world of xp.

luckily, i kept a boot disk for windows 98, which is essentially an MS-DOS boot floppy with a few diagnostic programs and CD-ROM drivers.

there's one handy website that has a bunch of boot floppies: http://www.bootdisk.com/

you can download a DR.DOS boot floppy (same thing as MS-DOS) from ABIT. it has no drivers but you won't need them anyway. serves the purpose of flashing the motherboard BIOS

Dempsey

I flashed the BIOS and changed the intake to a outtake. The SYS is actually monitoring the PSU now.

Idle
SYS:26
CPU:41
PWM:31

Load
SYS:25
CPU:59
PWM:43.5

What do ya think?

OfflerCrocGod

Good Stuff! .... Now how about some over-clocking or if thats not your style some noise reduction?. Anyway I'm impressed by the way you're Sys seems to cool down when under load.....kinda odd . Apart from that 59 is just fine. If you want even lower temps then some quiet case fans should do.

netman

that's much better now

i'd leave it as it is, unless you start experiencing crashes or slow downs. anyways, not a bad result, 6 degrees lower from just changing the way the fan blows!

Dempsey

The BIOS Flash Might have contributed to the way the temp is read. I have a another fan I could put into the bottom of the case but there is no way of secure it. Any ideas?

OfflerCrocGod

You know those wires that come wrapped around power cords, they are metal and bendy and covered in thin plastic?. Loop that wire around the holes for the screws and hang the fan off the PSU wiring that goes all over the case you should be able to get it quite close to the HS, it would act as a kinda of second fan.

netman

i've been upgrading the bios for ic7-g with every new release, and haven't noticed any change in temperature readings (ie. they're still about 10C to high).

so i'd say it's pretty safe to assume you've got a real difference of 6C, not just a "virtual" bios change

Dempsey

I was trying the uGuru program, and three of the modules dont seem to work, just go into my process list and hog cpu time.(Abit EQ, Fan EQ, and OC Guru). Have you have any experience with them?

CrocGod, I not quite sure what your saying.

OfflerCrocGod

Sorry I wasn't very clear, what I mean is you can use those bendy wires that come wrapped around cords, cables, etc.. on your components. They are usually white or black, bendy, thin aluminum wire that has a thin plastic sheat.... They are everywhere they are used to tie things together in packaging ALL the time. You're fans will have screw holes on the corners, you can use these thin wires passed through these holes to "hang" the fan off of. I have it set-up on my box so that I have a second fan pointing to my HS adding a bit(tiny) of extra cooling. The fan hangs from the power cables..... Open up your case and you will see what I'm on about(hopefully), you do have a free power-slot for the fan right?. I dont have a digital camera so I can't show you my set-up, sorry!.