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computer overheating while idle

M

meltingplastic8

Member
iv'e bein haveing problems of my cpu overheating while playing games. While i am still gathing information for my solution, tonight i walk away from my computer and on my back back into the room i hear the intel active monior going off and my system 2 zone and cpu are overheating. this is quite annoying. it is only 3 months old its a 3.2 pentium 4 with stock hsf runnign at 2500rpm just now when it was overheating i noticed it was running at 3500rpm. the temps were 66c for system 2 zone and 60-65c for the processor zone. What is wrong

Thanks for the help.
 
what type of case do you have? is it in a cabnet? how many case fans. thier are alot of things that could be causing crappy temps I wouldn't jump all over the hsf yet
 
well the only issues I see are:
the heatsink looks pretty dusty I'd take some caned air to it. other wise it look about right. the powersupply look a little light on the 12v rail but I don't think that can cause a heat issue but will most likely cause an issue if you install a higher end video card.

my recomendation would be to blow out that heatsink get some artic silver heatsink compound and you whould be in the mid 50s under load with that.


what are your case temps?
 
umm just for fun run with the side of your case off and see what the case temps are. those sound really high to me. hell my cpu temp isn't that high, although my cooling is a bit more....exotic
 
haha funny that u menchion the side of the case off, when it stared 2 overheat while it was idle i pulled the side off for faster cooling and left it off and when i took the temps for you the side was still off for a good 2 hours
 
reckon that the guy with the glowing eyes is right - sounds like

1) your fan is dying - but prob. unlikely since it's still spinning
2) the HS is not fixed on right - have you knocked the computer recently?

If you haven't knocked it, it could be that the thermal interface material has dried out. While people claim huge diffs in temp between different TIMs, Dansdata did a great expose a while back where he showed that they were all within a few degrees of each other ... including vegemite (a yeast spread that you can only like it if you're Australian and have been deprived of Marmite all your life) and toothpaste.

The advantage of one of the Artic Silver or Nanotherm or Shin-Etsu compounds over toothpaste or stock white goop is that they don't dry out as fast. If the goop dries out, it no longer works.

Get some TIM and reapply sparingly, and you'll get an improvement. AS and Nanotherm are best - much easier to apply than Shin-Etsu.
 
While one might think that this doesn't explain the bizarrely high system / mobo temp, sounds like the CPU is dumping heat into the mobo - hence the mobo and the CPU look like the same temp.

Your HSF is - to coin a phrase - FUBAR
 
I am definately seeing a few issues you can address.....

1. Dust: Blow all the crud outa there. (canned air isn't all that expensive)

2. Your power supply isn't pulling air from where it should. Most respectable power supplies (Antec, Enermax, etc.) these day draw in air from underneath the unit (processor area) and exhaust out the back. I would consider buying a better unit. You will probably need one anyway when you upgrade your video card.

3. HSF: With the kind of temps you are getting I would definately replace your heatsink with a top of the line unit. (The better the heatsink the quiter fan you can cool it with) At the very least I would pull it off and reseat it with a fresh application of thermal compound.

4. Make sure you fans are blowing in the proper direction: Most case manufacturers just slap em in there without reguard to proper airflow. The fans I see in your pics should be arranged: lower front-intake, side-intake, rear-exhaust.

Another thing to consider involves a little more work. You might want to clean up your wires a bit, hiding them behind things instead of just shooting through the middle. There are a few good guides on the internet that will show you many ways to accomplish this.
 
Something else to try (but definitely take canned air to get all of that dust out of your system, especially off of your heatsink):

With your side panel off, unplug your rear exhaust fans. With those 2 fans there, they're definitely overpowering your fan on your heatsink. I bet your CPU temps will drop 10C just by doing this. That should get your system stable.

Once you do this, let us know if it works. If it does, then we'll help you drop the rest of your case temps.
 
sometimes high temperatures result from improper seating of the heatsink. if your clips are getting loose, that that's probably the reason why. wiggle your heatsink, there should not be any slack.
 
As someone already asked, is your computer living in an enclosed space, such as the cupboard of a computer desk? Sorry if that is answered by your photographs, but they are enormous and I'm on dial-up here. You might want to practice your image resizing skillz and save as .JPG at about 60% quality. Tip: after resizing, apply a Sharpen filter to restore sharpness. 🙂
 
its not enclosed its in the open also i will try the unplugging the rear 2 fans ill let everyone know in a little bit thanks also tonight i shall apply some artic sliver
 
ok tonight i scraped off the oem heatpatch and applyed some artic sliver, while surfing the web and instant messaging im running 34-37c on cpu 28-30c on the system 1 and 2 temps any suggestions on how to bring it down a little more just for some buffer while im doing video editing?
 
Well, those temp are pretty good. Looks like you found out the biggest problem.

Your case still open? or did you blow the dust and close it up?

If you want to see if it can handle processor intensive apps download Prime95.
Run the torture test for at least 15 minutes, then check your temps.
Prime95 will keep your processor @ 98-99% load. I doubt your editing or games are that intensive.

Other than lapping your heatsink, for anything else you will have to start replacing stuff.
 
I have the same problem. My computer in idle is 60-70*. No clue why.
I just changed my graphic card from a radeon hd 4350 to a nvidia 9800 gt.
and when i play a game it goes upto 90*!!

My comp specs.

Amd phenom ii x2 545 3ghz
Main board is msi 785gt-e63
DDR2 4gb ram
nvidia geforce 9800gt 1gb
my psu supplies 450


1) Nothing overclocked.
2) only started heating after i put my new graphic card.
3) i got 2 fans in my cabinet (4 overall with the cpu fan and the psu fan)
4) All the heatsinks etc are stock.
5) My cpu is kept in computer desk enclosed from the left and right side. front and back are open. My 2 fans are on the left hand side (cpu facing me). They both are exhaust fans. ( i had no heat problem with my old gpu )

Please i really need help.
My cpu supports the load? Im really new to this so im just gona clear my doubts too hope u guys dont mind 🙂
What is the problem?
What heat sink do i need to buy? Will it fit in my motherboard? How much will it cost ? We have to put some paste before applying the heatsink?
Is it my psu fault?
Do i need for fans?
Is my gpu spoilt?
 
Read through the post you just brought back from the dead. Answer the questions that other people asked the original poster.

You probably need to switch one of your fans to intake. What case is it? Take pictures.
 
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