Intel CPU Overheating Woes

[doomed@ripping]

My PC-
Intel Prescott 2.8c Ghz (Prescott Core/Hyper Threading)
Intel 865GBF Motherboard
512MB DDR400 (in dual channel mode)
Seagate 80 gb SATA 7200 Hdd
Samsung 40 gb 7200 Hdd
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 128MB Graphics Card
Creative Live Sound Card
Samsung 16X DVD-Rom\CD WRiter
iBall Black Cat Cordless Optical Mouse
Microsoft Natural Keyboard
Pinnacle TV Tuner

I live in India, that too in the middle of the desert so temps sore in the daytime. Still my room temp is around 22-25' Celsius at most times and even lower at night.

I have four fans in the system. One in the power supply, second on the processor (stock fan supplied with the processor) a variable speed fan pulling air in on the front and a fourth fan throwing out air at the back.

At idle my CPU temp hovers around 60 (all readings in celsius)and system temp as reported by Intel Active Hardware Monitor is 52. But while encoding or playing games the processor temp reaches 72-75 and system temp touches 62. The processor fan makes quite a racket as do the rest of the fans. I had tried keeping the cabinet closed but had to open it to dispense the heat.

Are these temps too hot... What are the solutions to this problem? I do not have access to ebay nor can I order anything from outside India so I cant buy cooling solutions that retail in Europe or elsewhere. I have to turn off the Intel Active Hardware Monitor because it throws up a message every few seconds. What's the correct air inflow-outflow way... front to back or vice versa?

[jeremymacmull]

way to hot

REALLY way to hot

front to back is the way it should be. try putting the two fans (on the case ) on maximum constantly and see what your temps are.

check if you can increase the speed of your PSU fan thats where a lot of the heat for the internal of the case is coming from probably.

Check your CPU heatsink fan is fitted correctly possibly get another cooler if you can get your hands on some get some thermal paste to put on between the heatsink and the cpu. also check that none of the cables are impeding airflow between the front and the back fans if they are tie them to the side or something.

You cant have a 2.8C and have a prescott processor all precotts are X.xE while northwoods are x.xC northwoods run cooler than prescotts by a long way.

maybe get another couple of case fans if you can fit them.

I also live in india when not at uni

in bombay

ALSO make sure u got the most upto date BIOS and system monitor as on my Intel 875p when i updated the bios to p21 then the active monitor program worked much better

an internal system temperature of 52 is way too hot thats probably why your processor is getting so hot.

"mai hindi thora thora say bath kartha heh" "bohuth karab "

[ppera2]

What you think, why it's called PresHott? :)

[doomed@ripping]

Hey Jeremy

I have a Intel 2.80E
I just checked the box to confirm... I confused the c for prescott... box says "Pentium 4 Processor 2.80E GHz 1.4V max System Bus 800MHz 1MB L2-Cache PGA-478 Pkg"

The Preshott i've got... It's supposed to give off more heat :( and wow, sure it does bigtime... All the cables are tied up and attached to the sides as neatly as I could make them.

Today I opened up the covers of the unused drive bays and it seems to help a little as the active monitor doesn't act up during normal tasks. But encoding is still a strict no no...

I am installing a small fan with 4inch blades that I got today to see what difference it makes... right now with air conditioner turned up and just Winamp running the processor temp is 55 and system temp is 43. The processor fan is running at around 3600 rpm for this temp and cabinet fans at 2500-3000 rpm. But the daytime temperatures with even a slight load are another story.

Next time ur in India do come down to Rajasthan and look me up, mujhe hindi bahut accha aataa hai :) tum seekh lega (u'll be fluent in no time) :)

[jeremymacmull]

Ok

yep the prescott is supposed to give off more heat and most of the time it does and does so by a large margin.

i knew it was hot but i never knew it was THAT HOT!!

from what youve told me youve got decent fans already uve got them spinning fast and uve got no airflow restrictions.

ALSO u are in an AC room so your ambient temp has got to be a reasonable one

so im slightly at a loss over what to do as you seem to be doing everything right.

about the only thing i can suggest is if you can replace the cooler that came with the CPU with a much much more beefy one (no idea what u can get there so ud have to look) also use thermal paste


HAVE u only just bought this pc

is it still under warranty or did u make it up yourself

cos if it is still under warranty see if you can get it changed for the equivalent northwood processor due to the heat issues

JEREMY

[Angelus]

Another thing you could consider doing although it isnt a solution to your problem is to underclock your CPU. That should reduce the heat to a somewhat desirable level until you can find a suitable solution for cooling your CPU. ClockGen is a good program you can use even with Windows running.

www.cpuid.com/clockgen.php

It stinks that you don't have access to eBay or anything like newegg.com where you could get a water-cooling system or at least a better heatsink for your CPU. You could try to find a friend either in the EU or the US who can buy the thing you want and ship it out to you.

[Solo]

Those temperatures are almost spot on with the stock HSF.

I got a 2.4A Prescott (a 533 FSB Prescott) to play around with and even though I knew the "PressHOT" was known for it's heat output I thought I'd give it a bash (the price was good). I was shocked as well to see it idling at 51'C and 70'C under stress. And thats not the scariest part ! Check your PWM temps around your CPU socket. ie your mosfets and capacitors ! Thats was 72'C as well. So I placed a 80mm fan blowing on that area and it dropped to 39'C. Not funny.
Luckily I was able to swop the chip for a 2.8C Nothwood (straight swop). The 2.4A did overclock very well though i.e. 3.3 Ghz without increasing the VCore and thats only 184 FSB.

My advice though is to invest in a better fan for your CPU. That Intel one is not very good at all. And if you dont believe me then just check this out:
http://www.legitreviews.com/reviews/prescotttemp/2.html

Intel HSF = Idle 51'C / Load 70'C
Thermalright's SP-94 = Idle 44'C / 52'C

Or even better some watercooling ;)

[jeremymacmull]

most intereting article solo

yep it seems that the precott just needs a hell of a lot beefier cooler

@doomed try and get it changed for the equivalent x.xC or northwood chip as they are just as fast and a lot cooler

JEREMY

[doomed@ripping]

HAVE u only just bought this pc

is it still under warranty or did u make it up yourself

cos if it is still under warranty see if you can get it changed for the equivalent northwood processor due to the heat issues


Yes It's a new pc bought a couple of weeks ago. I put in stuff that I could use from my old pc and will upgrade graphics card, Monitor etc. The computer vendor is ready to change the processor for a northwood. But he was more interested in selling me an upgrade to 3.4 GHz Prescott and exchange the motherboard for a MSI MB :) Maybe I should just upgrade to 3.4.. move to the Himalaya's (they're close by) and overclock the hell out of the PresHott:)

Meanwhile my cpu temp @ full load is 60-62 and system temp hovers around 44-45. I gave the cabinet more room and the extra 4inch blades fan seems to be working ok for now. Is this still too hot for the processor?

Regarding switching Prescott for Northwood... Apart from the heat issue isn't the prescott a better choice since it has more cache.. 1MB.. I don't know much about this but applications which use Hyper Threading will benifit from Prescott? What about the future.. is the prescott a better bet than Northwood 2.8 GHz?

http://www.cpuid.com/clockgen.php
the link isn't working for me... is there another program I can use?

[jeremymacmull]

60 - 62 is on the hot side but perfectly fine

i was reacting to the initial temps u put in which were 70-72

if it only gets to under 62 at full load dont worry about it and do all the encoding u want

as far as upgrading dont. the 3.4 prescott is even hotter

the northwoods are actually most of the time quicker for most things than the equivalent precotts ie 3.2e vs 3.2c or 2.8e vs 2.8c the prescott will takeoff once the clock speed is bumped up. read any article on the prescott vs northwood www.anandtech.com has some good ones.

as far as HT goes the northwood more than stands its ground and is mostly faster than the equivalent precott. but not enough to warrant a descision on that alone.

if you temps are what u say they are stick with what u got dont do anything else ie upgrade/change cpu or anything the only thing id say is dont overclock at those temps cos while they are cool enough to run just. if you overclock theyll shoot up. so if you want to overclock then get the equivalent northwood processor fitted

and encode away.

JEREMY

[Solo]

You can check out this massive CPU roundup at XBitLabs.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/prescott-tests.html

I know these aren't realworld DivX benchmarks (i.e. Xmpeg) but the Prescott does have a lead over the Northwood.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/prescott-tests_9.html

Even though the temps are higher than usual it is just part of the Prescott. Remember these current Prescott's are not the true Prescott's IMO. The Socket 775 in a few months should do better.

[doomed@ripping]

Hey Jeremy,

Thanks for all the info. Today's cpu temp 63 in DivX encoding, system temp 51. I have finally been able to find a cooling solution.

Here's the link-
http://www.gigabyte.com/computer_parts/fans/Ultra_Aluminum_Fan_Socket_478_P4_2_8GHz.asp

It's the only option available @ the moment... Should I go in fot this? Are the temperatures likely to drop with this? Is it a better option than the existing Intel supplied heatsink/fan?

Solo,

Thanks for the link... It helped a lot. The site has a very informative article about the prescott and the differences with Northwood. Should I disable HT or leave it enabled?

[Solo]

Leave the Hyperthreading enabled. Not too sure about that HSF though. If you can get access to some Thermaltake stuff they have some good P4 coolers. Preferably something with all copper base. Depends on your budget though.

[jeremymacmull]

leave HT enabled definately

not so sure either about the heatsink as it does not look beefy enough the intel stock one looks like it would do a better job

if your temps are constant at max 62 stick with the intel one for now and leave things

JEREMY

[Angelus]

@doomed@ripping:

I've said this on a couple other posts as well and I highly recommend Vantec's Aeroflow CPU heatsink.

http://vantecusa.com/product-cooling.html#

I have a 2.6 Ghz P4E running at 3.12 Ghz and right now I'm encoding a movie using CCE and I'm at a cool 47 degrees C. PCMagizine used this very CPU heatsink when they had a special where they build their own computer. If you go to the online store part of their website, they have tons of online websites around the world where you can buy them from, so that may be helpful too. I also got the heatsink for about $30 on eBay so it's pretty cheap as well. Just my opinion on a CPU heatsink :D