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939 - Heatsink does not get hot

J

J men

Junior Member
Hi Guys

Just got a 939 3200+ and an Asus Ice Star cooler to go on top of it. I put some thermal gue on top of the cpu before installing and have tried to make sure that the heat sink is sitting properly on the heatspreader of the cpu.

I've been running this set up for a couple of days but the heatsink does not get hot, I'm not sure if this is because 1. it's very big and speads the heat well, 2. it isn't making contact properly (scary) or 3. the 939 really are that much cooler than intel cpus.

The mother board thermometer says the cpu temp is normally around 40 degs, i've seen is got up to 50 degs the first time I played some games, but don't think it's gone up that high again since.

Will lapping the bottom of the heatsink help???

Thanks

Jay
 
40-50 is acceptable, the heatsink appears to be working. What is the temp inside the case? I'd only consider reinstalling the HSF if there's a big disparity between case temp and CPU temp, ie. if your case temp is 30º C while your proc is idling at 40º C, then I'd think about it.
 
Actually I didn't realise quite how giagantic the heatsink was, and it doesn't actually fit in my case. I've taken the motherboard tray out of the case and just have that sitiing on my desk at the moment.

Will get a new case soon-ish, but the one I want is £100 (about $200) and I wasn't counting on needing it so soon.


Thanks for the peace of mind
 
Errrrrr ok, could you two explain why you guys think such opposite things??

just did a quick test with the CPU running a 100% (ATI tool scanning for errors) and the heatsink did start to get warm when I had the fan running on low and the temp was about 51 degs. Then turned the fan up to high and it cooled to 45 degs, and was cold to the touch.

Opinions?
 
The best way to tell the effectiveness of your heatsink is to use a temperature monitoring software that could display them on a graph. Speedfan 4.2 would do that, for one. With the monitoring software running, load the CPU using something like prime95's second test, large inplace FFT for maximum heat. Wait for the temperature to fully stablize, and then stop the test and wait for the temperature to fully stablize again. Obviously the overall shape of the graph should be like
B___C
"____/ \_____"
A D

The sharper the graph transitions at points B, C, and D, the better your HSF is working. When I did this with a stock AMD HSF, the three points were very rounded, and the slope between points C and D (temp drop) was not nearly as steep as the slope between points A and B (temp rise). However with my XP-90 and a 92mm fan, the three points were almost 90-degree angles, and the slope of C->D was as steep as the slope of A->B

I would also calibrate the temperature reported by your monitorning software using instructions here:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article191-page2.html

Make sure you use a software utility to change the CPU speed so you don't reboot every change, since a reboot often causes the internal offset used by the motherboard sensor to be reset.

EDIT: the graph didn't come out well above, so I iwll describe it. point A is where the temp starts to rise when CPU is loaded, point B is where the temperature stablizes when CPU is loaded, point C is when temp starts to drop when CPU load is removed, and point D is when temp stablizes after CPU load is removed.
 
I was just paging through and saw this thought I might add that depending on what mode your running the internal temp sensor will vary slightly(seems to be about 8C for me) if you run in Q&C(mind you the fan speed is controlled independant of the MB in my case) it seems to run a little low, if you you go boosted or stock it seems to run a little high. I put my TT's sensor on to see what I was getting and ran about 4-6C cooler then what ever the sensor was reading on ASUS probe(which of course this was sitting on the surface not really at the heatsink/chip. If I turn my cooling all the way up into jet assisted takeoff mode I only realize about 10C difference. I run around 35C in Q&C to 43-5 in boostmode with my motherboard temps at ilde almost always several higher untill I push her alittle. OC'ing makes it a little less stable and not as trustworth but its still within 5C. And yes after I let the AS5 set in it was pretty much cool to the touch about 30C(the room ambient begin 19C case ambient of 28-30)its also notable to say the BIOS has been know to effect these processors. Most thermal couple style sensors are only acurate to about 3C and variances in voltage will change that even more. Depending on the board you are running it sounds like you are running the pike and don't need to do anything. The abouslute Highest I have seen is 58C(case ambient was 33C) on ASUS probe will OC'd at 2.4 with all settings on auto for voltages, I was running farcry(maxed settings) and forgot to turn up the cooling fans.

Steamnputer

please ignore my system spec temp as I see that I have mis-typed it should read 38 not 48

 
Originally posted by: J men
Errrrrr ok, could you two explain why you guys think such opposite things??

just did a quick test with the CPU running a 100% (ATI tool scanning for errors) and the heatsink did start to get warm when I had the fan running on low and the temp was about 51 degs. Then turned the fan up to high and it cooled to 45 degs, and was cold to the touch.

Opinions?
Click to expand...

Exactly where on the heatsink are you getting your 'touch'? Touching a fin on a heatpipe heatsink isn't going to tell you much. The change in temperatures with the change in fan speed indicates that you have the heatsink in contact with the processor or heatspreader.

The heatpipes between the processor and the first fin should get noticeably warm. Once the heatpipe enters the fins, the cooling begins.

 
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