High temps, SI 120 compatiblity

R

RedLegos

n00b
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Jun 11, 2004
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I have been running a 64 3200+ for over a year now on an MSI K8N Neo Platinum board. Rarely got above 50 degrees in full load. Recently I updated the BIOS and put in a new power supply. I don't know what happened but my temps have been crazy for a while. I have tried reapplying arctic silver and switching heatsinks but can not get an idle below 55 degrees. It will regularly go upwards into the 60's, while my case temps still read in the low 30's. I have checked this in the bios and using MBM. I bought a Thermalright SI120 to try and fix this, but it doesn't fit, video card gets in the way. Now I am looking at a new motherboard that is compatible with this. Anyone know if an Epox EP9NDA3+ will work, or any other AMD mobos with an AGP slot? Do you think this would fix the temps? Thanks for any help
 
First of all, your bios could be reporting the wrong temp, this problem seems to be a common occurance with that mb. I used to have one and had the same problem. Try feeling the heatsink if it's not hot to the touch then you're probably ok.
 
Try feeling the heatsink if it's not hot to the touch then you're probably ok.
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No, if it is hot to the touch that means that it is doing its job. When it is cold to the touch it means its not doing its job.
 
Yeah, I updated my bios recently and the temperatures seems to have spiked up at the same time... not 5C though. Maybe they "tweaked" the temperature in the newer bios to either reflect more accurately, OR to scare people away from overclocking? lol
 
2uantuM said:
No, if it is hot to the touch that means that it is doing its job. When it is cold to the touch it means its not doing its job.
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A heatsinks/fans job is also to dissipate heat... if it's too hot to touch it's not doing a very good job at that. Which means the CPU is probably too hot also.
 
A heatsinks/fans job is also to dissipate heat... if it's too hot to touch it's not doing a very good job at that. Which means the CPU is probably too hot also.
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Yes, but you're forgetting the heatsink's other job, and that is to absorb heat from the CPU. If its cool to the touch you could have a bad mount, and its not absorbing the heat generated by the CPU. Dissipating the heat is only half the battle, which is not hard to do at all. With the stock heatsink it should feel warm.
 
2uantuM said:
Yes, but you're forgetting the heatsink's other job, and that is to absorb heat from the CPU. If its cool to the touch you could have a bad mount, and its not absorbing the heat generated by the CPU. Dissipating the heat is only half the battle, which is not hard to do at all. With the stock heatsink it should feel warm.
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Which is why I said also.
So no, I am not forgetting its other job.
But I agree with you that if there is a bad mount, such as not using thermal grease, it will probably get up to around 100C and the heatsink could still be warm/cool.

If a CPU's heatsink is too hot to touch, it is doing a good job transferring heat, but not getting rid of that heat. Which means there might be a problem with airflow.
 
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