how hot is too hot?

josephanthonydiaz

greetings,
I'm using a 3.4ghz pentium 4 on an asus p4p800e.
its been set at 3.74ghz since i put it together.
the cpu temperature ranges from 130 to 145.
I'm not sure though if this is going to fry my chip, though
its been running ok for a few months, since I replaced the 2.8 that
I had running at 3.2 for a couple of years. The machine only crashes with sim city4 once in a while,and once when I was doing some video processing.

Leonardo

BTW Joe, usually hardware enthusiasts use Celsius measurements. That would convert to 54-63*C. 63*C is at the upper end for the CPU, but I wouldn't think it's dangerous to your equipment. Your game and video processing crashes may be due to your video card overheating. If your CPU is running as hot as you indicated, then it's a fair bet that your computer case is not ventilated well. If you aren't upset by only the occasional video crash, I wouldn't worry about the CPU temperature. A simple solution to lower a bit would be drop the CPU clock back down to stock, and reduce any voltages that you may have boosted.

You should probably also clean out your case, if it needs it. Pull of the side panel and inspect all the fans and heatsinks for dust and lint. You can clean it out with a vacuum cleaner reversed or canned air.

If you want tips on case cooling, we'd be happy to help you out.

josephanthonydiaz

Thanks, Leo, for the data. the articles on case cooling are actually how i first became aware of short media last fall. For what its worth, the case on this an antec nsk4400, I swapped the stock 380ps for a tru power 550 and added an 80cm fan in front, additional to the stock 120cm at the back. I also tried adding an 80 cm fan on the side vent. confusingly enough this resulted in an increase in temps so i took that one out. I do have a dust situation here, so ive gotten used to case cleaning with a dust buster every 3 or 4 weeks, usually resulting in around 10 degrees decrease in cpu temp. the heatsink is a zalman and gets clogged pretty fast. The graphics card is asus9600xt. that last video processing episode caused a hard drive to fail. ( a 180g hitachi ide) I took it out and its now working in a different machine, which i thought was kinda weird, but just glad I didnt lose the 180g of files. that leaves 3 hard disks in this one. the 80g system drive, and 2 250g sata. with all that in there there isnt much room for air flow, so i have to see what else i can do to compensate.

Leonardo

I looked up your case and have some suggestions for you. It's not really designed for an overclocked system with a lot of components, but I think you could improve the cooling. Suggestions:

-- perhaps you could modify the front panel/wall to accept a 92mm or 120mm fan. 80mm fans are just unacceptable for today's higher performance (higher heat producing) PCs.
-- your exhaust (rear) fan may be too low volume. Perhaps a higher air volume 120mm would help. Install the side fan did not help the situation because perhaps your computer is unable to exhaust heated air fast enough. Additional incoming cool air may just get heated up and recirculate around already hot components.
-- Open the case side and try to picture in your mind the air flow. What obstructions are there to the cool air flowing efficiently over components and then being quickly exhausted. Cable management -- try to tuck cables out of the way so that the airflow is efficient. Air volume doesn't count for much if it doesn't move well enough.
-- Is the computer in a corner under a desk, or in a similar poorly ventilated area? If the computer is not an area with poor circulation, it might be pulling in air already heated from the computer - vicious cycle.

If you do decide to experiment with new fans, don't buy locally. Fans are a high-markup item for retail computer stores. You'll pay twice or three times as much in a retail store as online. But then...also factor in shipping versus sales tax.

But.....before spending any money or modifying your case, please experiment. Leave the side of your case open for a half an hour and record the temperatures (Celsius, please).

Zanthian

Shucks based on the title, I thought this might be the new babe pic thread... lol

warpedhifi

I once had an AMD xp1800 in a full tower that ran in the 50-60 c range playing games. But if you played too long it would just lockup. My current system uses a Thermaltake case with a Epox mb and a AMD 64 3700 porcessor, with stock cooling, and it only gets to 32 c or 94 f.

I updated an old PIII 550 mhz computer this past week, and put xp on it, and half-way thru the XP install, started getting copying errors from the cd-rom. Found this issue was due to the processor fan being dead. Not sure for how long it had been bad, but once replaced the machine ran fine. That computer has always had strange issues, and that may have been the problem with it.

josephanthonydiaz

Leonardo wrote:

I looked up your case and have some suggestions for you. It's not really designed for an overclocked system with a lot of components, but I think you could improve the cooling. Suggestions:

-- perhaps you could modify the front panel/wall to accept a 92mm or 120mm fan. 80mm fans are just unacceptable for today's higher performance (higher heat producing) PCs.
-- your exhaust (rear) fan may be too low volume. Perhaps a higher air volume 120mm would help. Install the side fan did not help the situation because perhaps your computer is unable to exhaust heated air fast enough. Additional incoming cool air may just get heated up and recirculate around already hot components.
-- Open the case side and try to picture in your mind the air flow. What obstructions are there to the cool air flowing efficiently over components and then being quickly exhausted. Cable management -- try to tuck cables out of the way so that the airflow is efficient. Air volume doesn't count for much if it doesn't move well enough.
-- Is the computer in a corner under a desk, or in a similar poorly ventilated area? If the computer is not an area with poor circulation, it might be pulling in air already heated from the computer - vicious cycle.

If you do decide to experiment with new fans, don't buy locally. Fans are a high-markup item for retail computer stores. You'll pay twice or three times as much in a retail store as online. But then...also factor in shipping versus sales tax.

But.....before spending any money or modifying your case, please experiment. Leave the side of your case open for a half an hour and record the temperatures (Celsius, please).

Thanks again for the advice.
The case was a gift from my girlfriend, a really nice gift even though it wouldnt've been my first choice. I still have a new 120 cm that claims 60cfm. I could swap for the stock one, but after a half hour outside of its nook under the desk and with top and side panels removed, freshly cleaned, its cpu temp is 53 c and board temp is 35 c (from asus pc probe). I also keep a 4" lakewood desktop fan on top of the box, when its in its nook, pulling the hot air out. The 80 cm fan in front is a vantec tornado that claims up to 120cfm running at 6600 rpm (LOUD!!). It doesnt look like there'd be room for a 120cm there, but might accomodate a 92cm. The ide cable is a round one mostly tucked in the empty cd drive bay. the only things in the airpath between the bottom front fan and the back exhaust are the tv card and the graphics card.
It seems I'll have to accept the 55-65 c range and keep fingers crossed, as I can't see spending on uprades on this machine.

Leonardo

I'm assuming the temps you just posted are idle temps, not under load? That's really warm for an idle system. It should be much cooler than that, but I don't think any of your components are in danger of damage. If you still want to try one more think, you should consider removing the CPU heatsink, cleaning it and the CPU heatspreader off, and reapplying thermal paste. A good quality past such as Zalman's or Arctic Silver 5 or Arctic Silver Ceramique would probably shave off several degrees. Your present setup may have too much 'grease' between the CPU and heatsink base, which might actually be insulating against thermal transfer. Have serviced a CPU heatsink before?

josephanthonydiaz

Doh! Now that you mention it, I forgot to kill the FAH core when I opened up the box. I guess thats just a bit over idle eh? Its been a few years now since I applied arctic silver to the chips in my dual xeon workstation, -the only time ive done anything like that. lucky enough that machine is still going strong. On this P4 machine I got the board, chip, and ram as a package. I assumed that the guy did well enough of a job with the heatsink, but I might try it again.

Leonardo

I got the board, chip, and ram as a package

If it were mine, I'd take off the heatsink right away and service it with fresh thermal paste. It's almost a given that whoever put together the barebones for you used the cheapest thermal compound they could find - the white silicon goop, which is just adequate for for default clocks.

Now, if your computer, with its slight overclock, was running 54*C with folding running and the side of the case off, that is significantly cooler than the load temperatures you reported with the case side on. That tells me your case's airflow is poor and that the CPU heatsink is starving for cool air, and that the heated air is just recirculating around already hot components.