Help! My computer's running really hot!

[Jon P. Inghram]

I don't get it, I've got a GoldenOrb on the Celeron 533A@600 1.5v using Radio Shack thermal grease, an intake fan in front of case and on side of case blowing onto AGP and PCI slots. I've also got an extra exhaust fan by the PS. Outside the case I have a floor fan blowing at the open front of the case (both sides are on, just no plastic crap blocking the HD's).

If I run a cpu burn-in program, the Asus PC Probe program shows my CPU temp to be ~52c(125f), the mobo temp is at ~38c(100f). What's even worse is, the room temp is at around 33.6c(92.5f)! I can see the CPU getting warm, but how is it making the room so hot? And to make it worse, if I just let the CPU idle it's temp goes down to about the same as the board temp, but the room doesn't cool off.

6 months ago, I could o/c my K6-2 450 to 550 @ 2.4v and the room would still be nice and cool, do you think the problem is the new motherboard, or perhaps the CPU?

[Brian R.]

Don't worry, everything is OK. Splurge a little and turn on the air conditioning in the summer. The room will cool off.

[ahartman]

Don't use the fireplace during the summer...

[The PIT]

Now this has got to be a pisstake. Buy a celeron and turn off your house heating.

[This message has been edited by The PIT (edited 06 July 2000).]

[Jammrock]

Don't trust the ASUS PC Probe. It doesn't work quite right, especially if you overclock. With the amount of cooling you have your CPU is probably actually running at 5-10 F higher than ambient room temp.

Jammrock

------------------
Athlon 650, Biostar board, 128 MB PC133 (Crucial), G400 32 MB DH, SB Live! w/ Digital I/O, 10/100 NIC, lots of case fans, etc...

[Brian R.]

Jammrock - He's not worried about the cpu temperature, he's worried about the room temp.

[Jammrock]

It sounded like he was worried about both. As for room temperature, turn on the AC man. That's what it was invented for.

Jammrock

[Jon P. Inghram]

I've used MBM to measure the temps, and it has always agreed with PC Probe, assuming the mobo and sensor in the chip are working correctly. But with the heat just getting worse I've dropped the CPU back down to 533, mainly to let the PCI stuff and G400 take it easy in the heat.

If only we had an AC in the room the computer sits in. Hell, I don't even have an AC in my bedroom... ick.

The problem is the house is VERY old, like close to 100 years, and most of the wiring is orignal cloth insulated stuff. The computer room is on the second floor, and I don't think it'd be a good idea to put a window AC on the same circut as the computer. I guess when the heat finaly does beat us we'll just run a line up the side of the house just for an AC, if only to spare the poor computers brain from frying.

[Brian R.]

I'll bet if you wait another 6 months, your room will be cool again.

Seriously, I've heard the GO is not as efficient as it could be. Try a better heatsink/fan and make sure you are only using the absolute minimum of grease. I have had good luck by cleaning off the old stuff and then wiping the surface of the core with a Kenex (or other paper towel) with a little of the grease on the towel. Just enough on the chip to make it look evenly wet. I believe the surfaces of the chip and the heatsink are machined well enough to get by with this thin a coating.

As you may well know, your heatsink can only get as cool as the air cooling it.

[This message has been edited by Brian R. (edited 07 July 2000).]

[Greebe]

Reciently I did some testing to find what I could do to improve an already decient HS (Globalwin FKK32) effeciency... well other than shim the cpu (which BTW helped alot!) found that it wouldn't cut the mustard on an Athlon I sold (to Tim Bixler

As a last resort (and not much I hadn't already tried) I decided to remove the clips and actually bolt the heatplate and HS together. Well that worked very good and the benifit is you don't have to use a minimum amount of HS compound as what ever excess is just squished out... works for me (and the cpu too).

The GO kinda sucks, neat design but has rather small surface area (indeed effecient though) but that tiny, low cfm fan bites the big one. In cpu HS design the #1 most important thing to look for is lots of surface area. The second is good air flow. Combine these two (I'm being overly simplistic here) and you can achieve very high thermal conductivity and dissipation.

Bolt them together and slap a bigger fan to it. I've seen mods to this HS where the fins were spread out and a larger fan replace the stock one. Hope this helps

(Greebe's been on a cooling benge lately

[Jon P. Inghram]

What heatsink do you guys recommend then for a Celeron/P3 CuMine? And better yet, where do you buy them at? I might as well get some silver thermal grease while I'm at it. Thanks!

[Greebe]

GlobalWin VOS32 (or +) and Alpha's

They also have Arctic Silver (best thermal compound)

Try Inflowdirect the have all this.

[Brian R.]

IMO you don't need much of a heatsink for a coppermine. The very best coolers only do a slightly better job than the average ones. Get a quiet one.