Athlon XP 2100 heat issue

[Sephy]

I have been experiencing some instability in games, and attributed it to a bad video card, which I RMAed, but am now experiencing that same type of lockup now with the old card. I run a 2100+, MSI Kt3 Ultra2, 512MB of PC2100, retail fan/HS.
This is a non overclocked system, and the temps are around 70 C. Whats the deal here? Prime95 crashes in the middle of the first test with rounding errors, and just plain crashed later.

 

[Sephy]

Right now, PCAlert4 is showing 67C CPU, 40C system.

 

[mechBgon]

Have you ever taken the retail heatsink off? If so, did you remove all of the stock thermal pad (it's a one-use-only thing) and replaced it with high-quality thermal grease? What's your actual case temperature as measured with a real thermometer, if you can find that out? Below 35C is a good start.

Other than that, you might check to ensure that your heatsink is on in the correct direction and that the fan isn't bogging down and stopping due to a worn bearing/bushing. Some motherboards are in fact calibrated rather high and 70C might be a "normal" temperature for those motherboards, but I don't recall whether your MSI is one of the higher-than-average ones.

 

[Sephy]

Nope, the HSF was applied once. Still has the regular stuff in. I haven't checked the HSF is on correctly, but I can't imagine it isn't.
I opened a window and have a fan pointing right inside now, and the temps have gone down to 54C/32C as we speak.
As for getting the case temp, just hold a thermometer inside the case till it registers?

 

[Sephy]

It is going further now on Prime95 with the fan blowing, max temp has been 62 C. I might leave it overnight and see how it does.

 

[huesmann]

It could be your PC2100...although I wouldn't expect the machine to even boot if that were the problem.

 

[Hallis]

Is yours a palomino core? The palomino cores ran REAL hot, but if i were you id scrape all that thermal pad bullcrap off of the HSF and get yourself some Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound and apply that.. other then that,, make sure the HSF is sitting absolutely flat on the CPU.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Sephy
Nope, the HSF was applied once. Still has the regular stuff in. I haven't checked the HSF is on correctly, but I can't imagine it isn't.
I opened a window and have a fan pointing right inside now, and the temps have gone down to 54C/32C as we speak.
As for getting the case temp, just hold a thermometer inside the case till it registers?

You peeled off the protective plastic sheet first, right? Though I think if you didn't do this, your CPU probably would be a crispy hunk of charred silicon by now.

 

[Sephy]

Yeah, its a Palomino. I've done everything right. I just find it funny that the retail HSF can't run its own processor at normal speeds due to heat.

BTW, did a memtest, everything is good there.

 

[HiTek21]

I ran an Xp1900+ Palomino Core with an Alpha 8045 heatsink and I got temps around 50c with an Antec LED Fan (34CFM). This heatsink is a monster compared to those Retail Heatsinks, might want to consider switching heatsinks.

 

[JimRaynor]

70 degrees is too hot.