P4 overheating?

[troyw]

Can anyone help me with this problem,

I have a

P4 2.4 ghz ( socket 478)

512 mb ram

845pe ms-6580 atx mainboard

 

idle temp 43c

loaded 66c

 

are there any posible solutions

a friend of mine suggested moving to alaska

[Greg Hess]

1) Increase case airflow.

 

Check your case airflow by removing the side of your case, or its cover. If temps drop dramatically, your computer needs better internal airflow.

 

2) Replace the default TIM PAD with some sort of thermal paste.

 

3) Replace the heatsink with a higher performing model.

 

4) Ghetto solution: Remove the case cover/side, buy a cheap 14-20 inch box fan, and place it 3-4 feet away from the case directing airflow into the open case.

[troyw]

I tried the ghetto solution, didn't work so i guess I will either have to sheel out some more cash to buy a better heatsink and fan and toss the one that came with the p4 chip.

On the other hand I could just move to alaska huh mike

[mzagorski]

... or move to Alaska

[Greg Hess]

troyw,

 

Is your system locking up or freezing? Or are you just seeing increased temps?

 

Normally if the ghetto solution doesn't work, its indicative of a bad heatsink/cpu connection ( bad thermalpad/thermal paste application/bad alignment) or a really badly designed heatsink.

 

Could also be a faulty motherboard resistor.

 

The ghetto method didn't reduce system temps AT ALL?

[troyw]

man its been a while,

 

anyway the ghetto solution helped with the system temp. but not the cpu temp

[Greg Hess]

but not the cpu temp

 

In that case, the cooling problem exists within the heatsink/cpu interface.

 

Either remount the heatsink/cpu with a new application of thermal grease, or investigate purchasing a more efficent cooler. (Like a Zalman 7000-cu)

 

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1359

[garethace]

It says on my new tube of Antec Reference silver compound grease, that nail polish remover or similar is the best way to get rid of old 'gunge' on the cpu die and heatsink. It says however, use any 'low-base' alcohol, but not any petroleum based product. The instructions are very strict about using clothes that contain lint, or any fibres, dust etc, that might impede the thermal transfer between cpu and heatsink. It also says to use a new plastic bag to apply the grease and not ones own finger.

 

What exactly is the best reduction in heat, you have managed Greg, including a well designing, ventilated chassis with rounded cables etc, etc? I am going to re-do the thermal contact, with this new grease for all my cpus, but i must get used to cleaning the dies/heatsinks properly first of all though. I dread to think, how much stablilty i have been losing, by just slapping on heatsinks for so long now, without any care for the finer points at all. I did get a set of Antec rounded cables yesterday too, so hopefully these little features with help the stability of my main system somewhat in the longer run.

 

How often would you recommend cleaning, and re-coating a cpu/heatsink with thermal grease Greg? All of these systems are Pentium IIIs with slow quiet fans etc, and Durons similarly kitted out, but are going to be used very intensively over the next 12 months as rendering boxes etc.

 

[ July 24, 2003, 07:57 AM: Message edited by: garethace ]

[Greg Hess]

What exactly is the best reduction in heat, you have managed Greg, including a well designing, ventilated chassis with rounded cables etc, etc?

 

37C for a 2700+ XP (333).

 

That was with a thermalright SLK800, with a coolermaster 4 LED fan, Antec 330 Truepower PSU, in an Antec SOHO 1080 Tower. (Nforce2 board).

 

As for actual reduction...I'd say 3-7C. As part of a system cleanup I usually yank off all the heatsinks (vid card, northbridge, cpu) clean them all up, and slap some artic silver on.

 

It ALWAYS results in lower temps over stock paste. If the paste was a 3rd party one, like artic alumnia or whatever, the difference is too close to notice a difference. I just usually recommend artic silver cause its readily available, and not TOO expensive. (One tube lasts ALOT of cpu's).

 

As for how often? I usually won't remount a cpu/heatsink after its inital mounting....unless

 

1) Temps begin rising significantly past their normal levels...*

 

2) The computer is moved and I suspect the heatsink may be misaligned.

 

3) I wasn't the person who did the original mounting.

 

4) Its a new installation and I'm trying to get the perfect application of grease.

 

*=I'd first remove all dust from the case...which is usually the culprit in this instance.

 

Remember with products like AS, the final temp drop occurs after a 48-72 hour burn in period as it undergo's a phase change.

 

You'll almost always see an inital difference, but that difference will grow another 1-3C over the course of the week. (Lower).

 

Here's my usual steps when working on a new machine....

 

(Or one thats been handed to me...)

 

1) I open the case up and immediately blow out all the dust. Heatsinks, hd's, psu's, fans...if there's dust, I get rid of it.

 

2) I find out the inital problems from the individual...usually range from "My dog attacked it..." to "I was having a pissing contest and hit the monitor, which exploded and knocked the case downstairs, which was flooded from the toliets being clogged"

 

3) If the system posts, I check the bios version, and if its out of date, flash it to the latest version (solves a crapload of problems on older boxes), I'll then verify all the setting are correct, both in the bios and on the board (jumpers) for the particular ram arragement/cpu.

 

4) I'll relocate the ram to the correct slots. (Many manufacturers put ram in the last slot first, instead of the first slot)

 

5) I'll disconnect everything but the essentials, and run a memtest.

 

6) If the temps are ok, I won't do the pasting. (Less chance of damaging things). If the system still locks up under stress testing*, I'll swap out the paste...and/or if the temps are higher then what I consider the "green" range.

 

7) Stress testing the system. Memtest (ram), Sisoft Sandra (everything else), 3dmark 2001 SE (video specific).

 

[ July 25, 2003, 10:13 AM: Message edited by: Greg Hess ]

[garethace]

Great stuff Greg, i will go back through the forums here too and look at the older threads, where i am sure you have covered this topic before. I have finished cleaning/coating the heatsinks and cpus with the new thermal compound - it is long arduous work too doing four cpus/heatsinks this evening! I think i have done a decent job, and after getting off all the old rubbish stuck there for 2 years or so, (trying not to scratch the heatsink, and not to use fingers as apparently the oil in ones skin, has the effect of prehibiting thermal transfer) i feel i have improved things considerably.

 

However, my rounded cable is not a great help, unless i put the CDROM and HDD to cable select on the newer systems, and just have one IDE cable instead of two, then it makes a bit of sense. I have to say i expected a bit more of rounded cables, but maybe SATA is the only really good solution for the future. Naturally i know that rendering boxes don't require much, and don't need CDROM drives etc, etc. But i have tried this new super duper Antic rounded cable now in alot of cases, and it doesn't do much really for me personally. Apparently if you case mod, and get UV lights with transparent sides (like the coolermaster ones now) i can get a mad 'glow' from this rounded cable. Something for when i have stacks of money and nothing to do i think. They are well grounded/electrically insulated though, and are 133 rated. I heard bad stories about rounded cables going hay-wire in the early days, so i decided i would stick with the garden variety, of which i buy the best i can find anyhow.

 

[ July 25, 2003, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: garethace ]

[Greg Hess]

Gare,

 

My favorite rounded cables are the coolermaster shielded ones. I had some issues with previous rounded cables and went with the coolermasters as they promised "Shielding". They include a ground wire and space the data/ground wires more effectively in the cabling, as well as insultating the entire configuration in a nice mesh. (Very small).

 

I've had good experiences with them thus far.

[garethace]

I am busy 'wearing in' the thermal coating today, by doing 1000s of frames of rendering. The cables you describe sound exactly like what i have, except my case is not tall enough, like some of the antec 1030sx cases etc, i would need something like a 40mm cable length rather than the 50mm or 60mm i have now. Interesting to hear you do use them though. Have you seen this yet?

 

http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=105026264

 

Dual Xeon running on canterwood, by asus!!!!

[Greg Hess]

Gare,

 

I'm at siggy right now...will respond later .

[garethace]

I rendered 20,000 frames at 1000x800 resolution on Saturday - it only took at 6 hours or so, with a simple scene with 2 omni lights. I was using the system too, while rendering, so it appears to be doing okay now. The day as also quite warm, by Ireland standards, and the Power supply fan, had to kick in quite a few more times than i would like it to - but the case is compact, usually fairly quite except when the PSU fan kicks in, and altogether this old dual PIII system, doesn't suck too much electricity, and seems to have life left in it yet.

 

I hear AMD have dropped prices now on MP 2800+s and AMD MP mobos from Tyan etc are quite reasonable while stock still last, so now is a great time to build up a decent rendering farm guys!