AMD Phenom II X4 965 Overheating?

[fishingcat]

Last week I bought a new barebones PC system from Novatech. Everything worked fine, but running Battlefield Bad Company 2 my CPU fan started running extremely loudly. I have been considering a new CPU cooler but was willing to live with the noise in the meantime, however today I suffered 2 BSOD's one after the other. Could this be down to overheating?

Edit: Played for 90 seconds to check temps and reached 55ºC.

My Specs:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 @3.4ghz
4gb DDR2 800mhz RAM
ATI Radeon 5770 1gb
Windows 7 64bit
500gb HDD

Also System information tool for windows shows this:

 

[frostedflakes]

It's possible. Download HWMonitor and let us know what the temps are.

Also, Gigabyte boards overvolt Phenom II for some reason (runs mine at 1.4V, but stock Vcore for these processors is 1.325V). Obviously this adds a lot of heat and noise. So if you are having overheating problems reducing the voltage would help. Would also keep your heatsink from ramping up so much while gaming.

 

[fishingcat]

After playing for 10mins the temps were at 57ºC

 

[fishingcat]

How do you change the voltage of the CPU?

 

[FuryofFive]

my 955 also seems like its overheating. amd Overdrive reported 63c at 100% usage on all cores..but my computer has shutdown because i gave it a 70c shutdown temp...
No overclocking of any sort. i think the stock cooler just isnt that great

 

[frostedflakes]

57*C should be fine, I think they're rated up to like 65*C or 70*C.

You have to change voltage in the BIOS. The Gigabyte boards are weird because they overvolt if you set system voltage control to auto. Changing it to manual (without actually adjusting the Vcore setting itself) should stop it from doing this. SPCR discusses this issue a bit in their review of the Gigabyte 785G AM3 board.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1003-page5.html

edit: Confirm using CPU-Z or HWMonitor that the CPU is actually running at 1.4V during load before messing with the BIOS settings, though.

 

[soccerballtux]

more likely there is something else wrong with your systems, my CPU routinely gets to 68C no problems.

 

[frostedflakes]

Yeah what I was thinking. I thought I've heard of issues with some Gigabyte boards and loose chipset heatsinks. This causes it to overheat and then you run into problems.

Of course I read about this mainly from NewEgg reviews, so take it with a grain of salt; a lot of reviewers don't seem to have any clue what they're talking about. But might be worth looking into OP. What is HWMonitor reporting for chipset temps? My Gigabyte 785G chipset temps are about 40*C or so just for reference.

 

[richierich1212]

What cpu cooler does that system have?

 

[nyker96]

I think X4s should be under 60C loaded. this sounds a bit much. check the cooling for the case and the heatsink. see if everything is making good contacts.

 

[busydude]

57*C should be fine, I think they're rated up to like 65*C or 70*C.

You have to change voltage in the BIOS. The Gigabyte boards are weird because they overvolt if you set system voltage control to auto. Changing it to manual (without actually adjusting the Vcore setting itself) should stop it from doing this. SPCR discusses this issue a bit in their review of the Gigabyte 785G AM3 board.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1003-page5.html

edit: Confirm using CPU-Z or HWMonitor that the CPU is actually running at 1.4V during load before messing with the BIOS settings, though.

Glad that i read this thread . Damn you Gigabyte. I didn't know the reason for overvolt until now. My vcore is at 1.36V when it should be 1.3 and when I stress test the CPU the Vcore fluctuates constantly between 1.36 and 1.38 although, the temps are under control.

 

[frostedflakes]

Yeah I've always wondered why they did this, it's stupid, wastes energy and puts more strain on your processor. If you're aware of the problem, though, at least it's an easy fix to go into the BIOS and change some settings.

 

[BD231]

I don't break 40c on a 1000mhz overclock with *any* game title, granted I'm on a X3; my voltage is high. Being that games don't stress your processor (nowhere near full load) I'd do something about your cooling situation, and also check your voltage's like some have suggested.

You may just have a terrible cooler, there's no reason to be in the 50's gaming; that doesn't sound right at all.

 

[Chappie]

Hey Frostedflakes!!

thanks so much for that info about the Gigabyte motherboards!!! Now I can comfortably oc my x3 to 3.2ghz and it doesn't crack 45 Celsius when running OCCT!!

Chappie

 

[fishingcat]

Well whatever was wrong, it's too late now. The computer just got BSOD and now refuses to boot. It said repairing BIOS or something and then stopped doing anything. This is exactly a week after I bought it, doesn't look good for Novatech.

 

[FuryofFive]

whats the required voltage for the X4's?

 

[frostedflakes]

Did you check the northbridge and/or southbridge heatsinks? Did either seem to be loose and not making good contact?

 

[FuryofFive]

i dropped a zalman cooler on it, and the temps dropped like 23c. CNPS9700