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Sudden extreme high temperatures

A

AndrewC2232

n00b
Joined
Mar 21, 2011
Messages
2
Hey guys,

I use an AMD Phenom II X4 965 with the stock heat sink. I have never had temperature problems in about a year of use, although this CPU always seemed to run pretty warm. I've heard this was typical.

However, a few days ago I was playing the DA2 demo and got a hard reboot. Checked temps, and the CPU was up at around 105 degrees C. I let it cool off, booted back up, installed a temp monitor. All 4 cores tend to idle between 42-47 degrees C. However, even while unzipping a large file earlier today, the machine crashed again and I checked the bios to find temps of upwards of 100C again.

I have not really tried to do anything too intensive with this machine since I reinstalled Windows a few months ago.

Is this definitely a failing heat sink? What failure mode does a heat sink even have? Unless the thermal compound is somehow breaking down (is that possible?) or maybe a defective fan, I would assume that a heat sink is unlikely to fail. But in my limited knowledge that's all I can think of to fix this problem.

Any advice is appreciated. I just wanted to get opinions and suggestions before I went out and bought a new heat sink.

Thanks in advance,
Andrew
 
Sounds like the heatsink isn't even attached, or the fan isn't operating. Could be bad paste, could be the mounting coming loose... I'd say take it apart, clean/reapply thermal paste, and see what's up.

Or your computer could be overclocking the chip a bunch unintentedly? I had that problem with my recent 2600k upgrade. I ran the ASUS auto-overclock tool, which brought my chip up to 4.8ghz, but I'm still using a zalman CNPS9700, which can handle 3.8 all day, but 4.8 is a different game entirely. I was freaking out trying to figure out why all of a sudden my CPU was at 100C when doing anything, so I had to go and manually lower the turbo boost back down to stock intel settings instead of Asus's bizarre OC. I thought that their auto-overclock took temperature into consideration.. but apparently not...
 
If its me, I'd be checking the mount of that HSF. Moved the box lately? someone bump it? Its strange to see temps just jump like that. Pull it out and check the TIM and then remount. I've never had a cooler "fail", ive had the fans on them go bad.. but its usually hit or miss from the get-go with a HSF. Its possible that you mounted it improperly from the start and the little bit of interface mat. that was transferring heat could be spent. But with load temps that high, i would avoid using the box for anything intensive until you figure it out.
 
Thanks for the responses, guys.

I ended up just biting the bullet and bought a new Zalman CNPS 9700.

The old heat sink looked to have been mounted fine when I took it off. The OEM thermal paste had hardened so it was a little tricky getting it off, but idle temps are now sub 30C and I haven't seen it go over 42C under some loading.
 
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