LGA 775 Heat Issues

[Blu_Haze]

My brother recently put together a new gaming system, but unfortuanately he is having some problems with keeping it cool. So far I've been scouring the search engines and forums trying to figure out exactly what his problem is, and the only solution I can think of is to simply start upgrading his heatsink, cpu fan, and case fans until the temperature drops a little. The problem is that beyond standard cooling solutions I don't have much experience with high quality products, so I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for in a good heatsink, as well as other possible cooling solutions we could try.

Basically what makes a more effecient heatsink between aluminum and copper? Is a standard block heatsink a better cooler than the fancier heatsinks I've seen such as heatpipes, towers, etc? Other than the normal case fans and heatsinks are there any other cooling solutions which can lower his CPU temperature?

Here are his system specifications, as best as I can remember them.

CPU: Pentium 4 2.8Ghz, Socket LGA 775
Motherboard: Abit AA8XE
Chipset: 925XE Alderwood
Hard Disk: 200 Gig Maxtor SATA (1)
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 6600 PCI Express
Heatsink: Stock LGA 775 heatsink/fan combination packaged with the processor
Case Fans: 2 80mm fans at the front and rear of the case. One blowing in, and one blowing out.
Power Supply: 600W
Case: Standard Mid-Tower case with an exhaust port built into the side. A funnel bridges the gap between the port and the CPU cooler to blow the hot air from the heatsink directly out of the case.

The odd part though is that the actual heatsink, while stated as overheating, is actually only warm to the touch. I've read before that Abit motherboards tend to read hotter temperatures than what the CPU is actually running at, but I'd like to get the reported temperature down a bit just to be safe.

The current temperatures are around 70C at idle (windows desktop), and around 90C under heavy load (gaming). Currently the motherboard is set to sound an alarm at 75C and shutdown at around 95C.

I've been looking around to try and find some new cooling solutions for him, but as I said I don't have much experience with the advanced heatsinks and fans used for overclocking. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MD]

Thats way of. Is His CPU heatsink fan on and turning?
Is heatsink fan combo mounted proper? Like flat and with good contact with CPU.

Acctualy with stock HSF in normaly ventilated case CPU shouldn't go over 65 C with full load. Even that is unacceptable by many standards.

If fan is turning and HSF is cool but CPU gett's to hot then there is something between CPU and HSF (plastic cover or laber over a TIM) or HSF doesn't touch CPU proper. Like it's touching only with a edge. Check those two things first.




MD

 

[Elledan]

Is this P4 a Northwood or Prescott core?

Abit mainboards aren't renowned for having the most accurate temperature sensors, but it's good to err on the side of caution.

You could first set up this system outside the case, and get it to run properly there first before installing it in the case.

If this is a Prescott core, then with the standard cooler and average airflow inside the case, temperatures of 60 - 70 C are not uncommon.

 

[Sc4freak]

60-70 idle is far too much, even for a Prescott!

For a 2.8, the temperatures should be half of that...

 

[savantu]

If this is a Prescott core, then with the standard cooler and average airflow inside the case, temperatures of 60 - 70 C are not uncommon.

No , they're not.
I have a 3.2 D0 Prescott and a Fatal1ty board and I'm running mid 30s idle and mid 50s load.
Even when OC to 3.73 i barely reach 60 under load.

That with a stock cooler set on silent ( 2000-2500 rpm) and a small 80mm exhaust fan running at 1900rpm.

His problem is the contact between the TIM and heatspreader.I bet the cooler's rods aren't well inserted into the mobo.I had to apply a huge pressure to get them in.2 entered easily and 2 made me "praise" Intel for 15min.Obviously I was afraid of cracking a 300$ mobo.

 

[Blu_Haze]

No , they're not.
I have a 3.2 D0 Prescott and a Fatal1ty board and I'm running mid 30s idle and mid 50s load.
Even when OC to 3.73 i barely reach 60 under load.

That with a stock cooler set on silent ( 2000-2500 rpm) and a small 80mm exhaust fan running at 1900rpm.

His problem is the contact between the TIM and heatspreader.I bet the cooler's rods aren't well inserted into the mobo.I had to apply a huge pressure to get them in.2 entered easily and 2 made me "praise" Intel for 15min.Obviously I was afraid of cracking a 300$ mobo.

Actually I think you might be on to something with this. The temperatures that I first listed are actually a little hotter than they were at first. The first readings we had when his system started overheating were around 52 idle and around 70 under load. While these are cooler than before they were still hot enough to sound the alarm, and while I was investigating the situation he pulled the heatsink off, cleaned the factory paste off, and applied some arctic silver to see if that would help lower the temperature a bit. Only to his surprise the temperatures significantly increased instead of decreasing.

Anyway, my point is that when I first put his new system together I noticed that the first two rods (the top two) on the heatsink easily snapped in, but the bottom two seemed to simply sit in place. After rotating the knobs the heatsink seemed like it was firmly in place (as in it wasn't loose when I tried to move it or shake it), but this could be one of the reasons for the high CPU temps. The temperatures rising even more after he applied thermal paste to it leads me to believe that it was even looser the second time it was put in place.

I'll try reseating the heatsink with some new thermal paste and see if that will help lower the temperatures a bit, but if that doesen't work some recommendations on good heatsinks as well as a few tips on what actually makes a good heatsink would be great.

Thanks for the replies so far.

 

[c00z]

You have a couple of options.

1) A new heatsink would be a good bet since the prescott puts out quite alot of wattage. I would go for a heatsink that is able to use a larger fan say 92mm or >. The choice between copper and aluminum is hard since most aluminum heatsinks use heatpipes. Heatpipes use latent heat of evaporation to change from a liquid to a gas, then travel up the heatpipe (this is why orientation was important) to the finned area where they use convection (fan) to cool back to a liquid and travel to the base again. This is much more efficient heat transfer than that of heat travelling though the heatsink itself, thus you are able to remove all of the heat from a small area then spread it out over a larger area. If no heatpipes are in the heatsink then it is a no brainer and go wtih a copper since its thermal conductivity is much larger than that of aluminum. However, the thermalrights new line of heatsinks the XP range is quite good and what I would recommend, specifically the XP-120 since is it marginally larger than the XP-90 which enables you to put on a fan which will push the same amount of air but quiter.

2) Now, the problem is once you have removed the heat from the processor it has to go somewhere. ie the air in the case, you need to remove this air and intake much cooler air from the surronding room. Usually, one exhaust and one intake generally wont do unless they are higher powered fans since your processor is emitting so much heat. I would recmommend a 120mm intake and exhaust if you can fit it in or dual 80mm''s or even a 92mm since it will help keep your case temps down which in turn keeps the processor that much cooler

3)finally, a good TIM or thermal interface material such as artic silver 5 can drop your temps from the thermal pad down to 10C or there abouts since it has much lower thermal resistance than that of the thermal pad. DO NOT PUT MUCH ON, i cannot stress this enough, the sole reason for a TIM is to even out the microscopic voids which occur due to the fact that the two matting surfaces (heatsink and cpu) are not atomically smooth which when the two are matted together forms mircovoids which are filled with air, an insulator, thus you are only supposed to be filling these with AS5 instead of air, too much and it will actually act as a thermal insulator which will increase your temps


Alas, if the heatsink is not mounted properally at all, then all of the above will be negated since the proper thermal contact will not be made and thus this void will be filled with air which is an insulator and your processor temps will be quite high as you are seeing.



hope this helps, generally dont try to compare your temps to those of other people

things to look at are your

load temps, case and cpu and idle temps , case and cpu

if the case temps at idle are >33C and at load >36C it is a sign you need better intake and exhaust