Overheating Dual core with Ceramique

[Chame1eon]

Hi, I havn't been here in a while, but when I started having problems with my computer the first place I thought of was the place where I've seen some of the best pc advice on the internet.

When I got my x2 3800+ it had that grey stuff that melts when the processor heats up on it. I ended up heating it up and wiping it off so I could take the processor off when it was cold. At that point I had some clear greasy electrically conductive "thermal interface" that I used.
After wiping the heatsink and heatspreader, I put some on the heat sink wiped it off, then spread a small amount over the heatspreader with a credit card. The processer overheated and rebooted as soon as windows started. I tried again with less grease and eventually though the temperatures seemed kind of high, the computer worked and I left it alone.

Recently my northbridge died when the fan failed so I just wiped the old grease off thinking It should be easy to get another giant tube and replace it to prevent air bubbles and whatever might contaminate it while it was disconnected. All I could find locally was Arctic Silver's ceramique. I tried spreading it with a credit card and it was so thick I couldn't get it smooth. So after reading the instructions on their website I cleaned it as thoroughly as possible. The first time with 70% isopropyl alcohol, the second time with denatured alcohol. Then I rubbed some arctic silver into the heat sink, wiped it off and put a rice grain sized amount on the middle of the heat spreader twisted it and clamped it down.

I've done this several times these are roughly average for temperatures I get with speedfan when the computer is idle:

"cpu": about 1 degree below ambient near 32 degrees celsius

"core": maybe 5 to ten degrees above cpu

"remote":~74 degrees

I also noticed the hard drives are hot @ about 45 degrees



Remote seems to correlate best with the temperatures I get from the bios and if I try to use the pc it still gets hot enough to spontaniously reboot.

I also noticed that the fans speed up when the processor load increases, but not nearly soon enough to keep it at a good temperature.

The other problem is that this:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=A8N-LA-WB
motherboard was apparently manufactured for compaq and didn't come with a backplate. Out of frustration I covered the holes with tape.

I can think of a few things that could effect the temperature, but none of them seem to me to be capable of having a big enough effect to cause that kind of problem.

The difference between cpu and remote suggests to me that the heat sink isn't conducting well enough. Which seems to mean that I'm either doing something wrong, I need something better to clean it with, it is permanently contaminated with the waxy interface that came with the processor.

The ceramique seems incredibly thick and chunky, but it is supposed to be thicker than average.

The high hard drive temperatures make me think there could be a problem with the case.

The low fan speeds and disparity between cpu and remote make me think that possibly there could be a problem with the sensors or cool and quiet.

I don't remember ever haveing so many problems with something that should be so straightforeward.

Hopefully someone can help :(

[Detale]

It may be me but if the CPU temp is 32 how much cooler do you want it? Thats pretty damn good. 1 degree below ambient isn't bad at all. I am a bit confused by what you said that you "rubbed it in" to your heatsink?

What do you mean "remote"

As far as the fan speeds go You can turn off the Auto sensing for the fans in the Bios and just have them run full speed all the time.

Another thing to explore is to make sure the CPU cooler is making full contact with the chip. I know it sounds dumb but really check closely and you can add a bit more thermal compound than a rice grain, it's not going to kill anyone.

The HDD would be the air flow in your case as I initially think that may be the cause of everything getting hot. What kind of case it is how many fans...

[clocker]

1 degree below ambient isn't bad at all.


Not "bad at all"?
Try "impossible".

@Lizardcreature...I use Ceramique on everything because it's less conductive (and I'm a slob) and find that it works just fine.
Your Speedfan temp of 5-10°c over ambient seems OK as well.

Pull the sidepanels off the case and see what the HDD temps do.
Presumably they will fall and you'll know you have substandard airflow around the drive cage.
This should be fixed somehow.

[Chame1eon]

It may be me but if the CPU temp is 32 how much cooler do you want it? Thats pretty damn good. 1 degree below ambient isn't bad at all. I am a bit confused by what you said that you "rubbed it in" to your heatsink?

What do you mean "remote"

As far as the fan speeds go You can turn off the Auto sensing for the fans in the Bios and just have them run full speed all the time.

Another thing to explore is to make sure the CPU cooler is making full contact with the chip. I know it sounds dumb but really check closely and you can add a bit more thermal compound than a rice grain, it's not going to kill anyone.

The HDD would be the air flow in your case as I initially think that may be the cause of everything getting hot. What kind of case it is how many fans...

The instruction at arcticsilver.com say to apply some grease to the heat sink and press it in to fill the microscopic valleys in the heatsink that can harbor air pockets, then to wipe it off again.

I'm not where the cpu temp is taken, but I don't see how it can be cooler than ambient, if it means anything my guess is that it means that the heat is not being conducted out of the cpu core well, core isn't right either, because when I compare that number to what I see in the bios it is a lot lower than the temperatures of ~80 degrees celsius that I see there. If anything in that list accurately reflects the cpu core temperature I'm prettty sure it must be remote, though I have no idea what "remote" is(could it be the sensor on the processor itself?). I guess I was thinking that if the speedfan temps were useless you could just ignore them.

Unfortunately my motherboard and bios were manufactured for compaq :( based on previous experiance I felt really lucky to be able to change the date.

Iv'e experimented with different amounts of thermal grease and nothing seems to work.
thanks though

I think I forgot to mention that if I go straight to the bios the temperatures climb steadily untill the pc spontaniously shuts itself off. :P I'm pretty sure the speedfan results for core are inacurate, though I'm not sure why. I'll try the thing with the case to see what is wrong with that, but I don't think it's related to the computer randomly shutting itself off unless that could be enought to raise the temperature of the cpu core by that much?

[Detale]

I have never read the arctic silver site. Thus I have never done that. Eh you learn something every day right. Now I gotta take my rig apart ;)

What CPU cooler are you using? Again I would think the thing isn't sitting on the chip correctly maybe try re-seating the chip and the CPU cooler.and check up really close for any spaces between the copper/aluminum bottom and the chip.

[Chame1eon]

I reseated the heatsink. I can't see how it's possible for the processor and the heatsink to be misaligned, but with the backplate I can't see anything anyway. Now though, I think I must have trapped some air or something, because now it seems to start near 60 degrees and climb steadily. Nothing seems to change if I take the side panels off. The odd thing is that the fan speed climbs steadily with the temperature. Why would the fan speed stay at a speed that allows the temperature to very slowly and steadily climb constantly. ???

[clocker]

I reseated the heatsink. I can't see how it's possible for the processor and the heatsink to be misaligned, but with the backplate I can't see anything anyway. Now though, I think I must have trapped some air or something...

"Trapping air" is not really possible but improperly seating the heatsink is and that's what I suspect must be going on.
I'd remove the motherboard from the case so you can check if the sink isn't maybe hitting some component around the socket.

[Chame1eon]

Thanks for the help. I still can't see what is wrong.

My retention frame and socket look like the one on page 16 of this manual:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/31684.pdf
neither the frame, nor anything inside it seem to be higher than the processor when it is installed. The frame was installed at the factory and I didn't unscrew it because it seemed tight and flush and that would entail removing the motherboard. When the processor is clipped, but not locked with the arm it is capable of moving slightly and i can feel it sliding over the grease. Once it's locked it's immobile. If I take it off the greased is pressed into a circle that almost reaches the edges of the heat spreader.
The only thing I noticed that I think could possibly affect the alignment are some scratches where the edges of the heat spreader contact the heat sink, and a small misalignment of the clip once it's locked.
The clip starts centered in the middle of the heat sink and once it is locket it is pressed against one side.

I can take the motherboard out, but there aren't any components that are higher than the socket.

[Detale]

Wow this sure does seem odd. scratches and this fear of trapped air need to be ruled out man. Unless you have a gigantic bubble in there leaving the chip without thermal paste I can't see this even being a remote possibility. Do you have another set of clips for the heatsink or another CPU cooler handy? If so try those. Also check and see if the hooks on the clips are bent, not allowing the heatsink to rest flush.

The only real thing that comes to mind now is maybe your board is somehow shorting and getting hot. When the Computer is running (carefully) feel around and feel if you can tell where the source of the heat is coming from.

If you have a camera handy try taking some clear close up pics from a few different angles so maybe we can see what is going on.

[Chame1eon]

scratches and this fear of trapped air need to be ruled out man.

Lol, ok I thought I was being paranoid. I can't tell if the clips are bent but this is what it looks like:
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk138/came1ion/before1.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk138/came1ion/during.jpg
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk138/came1ion/after.jpg

Moving the arm to the unlocked position causes the temperature to drop suddenly. locking it again causes it to jump.



Does that mean the spring is bent?

I'm a little paranoid about removing the only other cooler I have access to atm :)

[clocker]

Moving the arm to the unlocked position causes the temperature to drop suddenly. locking it again causes it to jump.


This just gets stranger and stranger.
I think you need to try a different heatsink- the sooner, the better.

[Chame1eon]

Thanks. I ended up ordering a new cooler from newegg. I know I should verify the problem first, but the only cooler I can borrow atm belongs to someone who doesn't seem to understand/want to know what the question is. It seems extremely unlikely that I could damage anything, but I can't imagine what else the problem could be, and I'm not sure what caused it in the first place.

[Detale]

Moving the arm to the unlocked position causes the temperature to drop suddenly. locking it again causes it to jump.


Unlocking it makes it cooler??!! Ok I got it I know exactly what it is. Your rig is haunted! JK Jesus man I think it was a good idea to get a new cooler for it hopefully this will help you. Post back with the results. Good Luck

[Chame1eon]

I finally got my new cooler:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185044
and my computer will run with cool'n'quiet keeping the processor at about 1Ghz, but even then the processor seems to stay at about 52 degrees which is slightly better than it was before.
I can't figure this out :(

[Detale]

Are you serious!!? That cooler should keep you in the 30's at least. What kind of case do you have? Also what programs are you using to monitor the temps?

[Acid_death69]

Could it be that your sensors are faulty? and also what detale said what programs are you using?

[Chame1eon]

I was trying to correlate the bios readings with speedfan. The temperatures for "cpu" and "core" are way off with cpu being cooler than "ambient", but "remote", whatever that is, seems to correlate really well with what the bois says and it increases when there is a load on the processor.
Either way, if I try to do anything right now, like compress something with winrar, remote climbs slowly untill the pc spontainiously shuts off, so either the sensor the processor uses to determine when to shut itself off is wrong or, depending on what temperature it shuts off at, the bios readings are right and speedfan's remote is really close.
The temperatures were high before, but not that high and I was assuming that the cpu used an internal guage to determine when to shut itself off, so I don't know how it could be faulty.
Also after a high load it seems to take a long time to get back to the prior stable idle temperature which seems wierd to me.
This:
http://www.nzxt.com/products/trinity/
is my case, but when I take the panel off the the temperature seems rise slightly, and according to "remote" even with a box fan in front of the case with the panel off the temperature got to 76 before I turned it off.

[Detale]

OK wow well first let me say that I like the case alot looks cool, simple design. I would say it's not your case as it seems to have adequate air flow at a glance. The temps should rise a bit when the CPU is under load that is normal so don't sweat it. It should not however rise to cause the computer to shut off. This may seem a bit odd and might not help at all but have you tried resetting your Bios? or updating it to the latest one?

Another thing I just re-read your first post and you said "I ended up heating it up" meaning the CPU? I hope not my man because if so then I would imagine you cooked the processor and that would be the problem right away. I tried looking for a bios update for you but I can't seem to find one from Asus. You said it was manufactured for Compaq? Which compaq model did this come out of then?

Also try some different Temp reading programs like Everest and there are a few others out there too that the names escape me ATM

[Chame1eon]

Lol I heated the processor up by turning the computer on before I took the heat sink off, but I can see how that doesn't sound right :P

I updated the bios with the only available one I could find. Oddly everest always says that my processor is exactly 40 degrees celsius.
Is it possible for the heat spreader to get warped or something?

[Detale]

I'm not sure what you mean by "heat spreader" but if the temp sticks then it could be a defect of your processor kind of like the Intel E8400 always has problems reporting temp's. The only thing is that your computer shuts off from the heat rising. Have you tried turning off the heat warning in bios? I mean that could be dangerous in that your rig may melt. I must admit here that I don't know much about AMD cpu's as I am an Intel man:01: but I am going to look around and see what I can find.

[clocker]

... kind of like the Intel E8400 always has problems reporting temp's...
The Wofies don't have a problem...we do.
Intel never intended the sensors to be used as low range temp monitors, they are meant to initiate thermal throttling/shutdown at elevated temps and they are quite good at doing that.

[Chame1eon]

The temperatures seemed ok before I reinstalled the processor the first time, and at that point they weren't high enough cause the processor to spontaneously shut off, so unless the sensor can become damaged or some part of the processor warped, I don't see how the processor could be the problem.

[Detale]

... kind of like the Intel E8400 always has problems reporting temp's...
The Wofies don't have a problem...we do.
Intel never intended the sensors to be used as low range temp monitors, they are meant to initiate thermal throttling/shutdown at elevated temps and they are quite good at doing that.


Well excuse me Clock :P sorry to offend your beloved Wolfdale.

[clocker]

Well excuse me Clock :P sorry to offend your beloved Wolfdale.
Although my Wolfie is beloved (I think it will ultimately take a place next to such fabled chips as the Barton core Athlon 2500...), I was not offended, merely righting a mischaracterization.

I've yet to hear someone complain that the Intel sensors failed their primary purpose, which is to throttle- and ultimately shut down- the chip when it gets too hot.
Since Intel is comfortable with any temp below @95c, they are understandably unconcerned with the much lower temps we want to monitor.

All in all, it's a bit like bitching that your Ford Focus failed to qualify for the Indy 500- you might be disappointed but the car's designers would be amazed that you even tried...

[Detale]

Well excuse me Clock :P sorry to offend your beloved Wolfdale.
Although my Wolfie is beloved (I think it will ultimately take a place next to such fabled chips as the Barton core Athlon 2500...), I was not offended, merely righting a mischaracterization.

I've yet to hear someone complain that the Intel sensors failed their primary purpose, which is to throttle- and ultimately shut down- the chip when it gets too hot.
Since Intel is comfortable with any temp below @95c, they are understandably unconcerned with the much lower temps we want to monitor.

All in all, it's a bit like bitching that your Ford Focus failed to qualify for the Indy 500- you might be disappointed but the car's designers would be amazed that you even tried...

As usual my man eloquently put. What do you think this problem is? Honestly Ive been looking around the interwebs but to no avail. You usually come up with the better suggestion anyway you damn genius :P

[clocker]

No idea...too many contradictory things going on.
If the HSF is correctly installed then you would assume a case airflow problem, yet when the sidepanel is removed and a box fan put nearby, temps go up.

Bring in a priest and perform an exorcism.

[Detale]

LOL Exorcism. Yeah deff a ghost in the machine

[Chame1eon]

I'm convinced the clips on both heats sinks must be bent I'm almost frustrated enough to buy new motherboard memory and processor.

[Detale]

LOL Iv been there man

[TheSickEmpire]

1 degree below ambient isn't bad at all.


Not "bad at all"?
Try "impossible".

@Lizardcreature...I use Ceramique on everything because it's less conductive (and I'm a slob) and find that it works just fine.
Your Speedfan temp of 5-10°c over ambient seems OK as well.

Pull the sidepanels off the case and see what the HDD temps do.
Presumably they will fall and you'll know you have substandard airflow around the drive cage.
This should be fixed somehow.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835227002

Less than ambient is very possible with this cooler.

Of course... if you're gonna spend $320 on a cooler you need to donate some of your money :P

Also, <3 my E7200.. need to get a new motherboard so I can use it again, though. :(

[Detale]

Well this guy doesn't have this Cooler now does he? It is not possible with his Stock AMD cooler is what was meant here bub. BTW What opinion do you offer here?

Also CoolIT has a cheaper version I think it's called the Freezone or something and it's around 180 bucks or so if memory serves.

[TheSickEmpire]

It is not possible with his Stock AMD cooler is what was meant here bub.


Sure it is.. if you live in a freezer.

:cool:

[Detale]

Meh, :dabs:

[clocker]

Sure it is.. if you live in a freezer.


[Spock voice]Illogical and irrelevant, Captain[/Spock voice].
"Ambient" is ambient, be that -10 or +100 and neither air nor water cooling can get a chip below whatever "ambient" temp currently is.
Only phase change systems (such as the TEC CoolIT you cite above) can pull that feat off.

[TheSickEmpire]

Sure it is.. if you live in a freezer.


[Spock voice]Illogical and irrelevant, Captain[/Spock voice].
"Ambient" is ambient, be that -10 or +100 and neither air nor water cooling can get a chip below whatever "ambient" temp currently is.
Only phase change systems (such as the TEC CoolIT you cite above) can pull that feat off.

Aw, you got me. :(

[Detale]

Sure it is.. if you live in a freezer.


[Spock voice]Illogical and irrelevant, Captain[/Spock voice].
"Ambient" is ambient, be that -10 or +100 and neither air nor water cooling can get a chip below whatever "ambient" temp currently is.
Only phase change systems (such as the TEC CoolIT you cite above) can pull that feat off.

Pwnt! :P