CPU Temperatures - over 81 degrees and rising

[iamaelephant]

I have an AMD Sempron 2200+ that I'm overclocking. It's currently running at 1.79GHz (stock is 1.5 GHz) but with a stock voltage of 1.61v. The temperatures looked pretty high so I took the heak sink off and removed approximately three metric tons of dust from the fan and heat sink, applied some new thermal paste and reinstalled. The temps haven't improved.

Motherboard Manager is now reporting 85* and I'm having no stability problems. Is it possible that the program is incorrectly reporting high temps? The heat sink is slightly warm to the touch but by no means hot. The fan is some fancy thing my brother installed a couple of years back when he built this system (it says "Tt" on it, has a variable speed control) which I'm running at the lowest speed because anything higher is way too loud.

I don't really care about this CPU so I might just keep running like this until it either craps itself, or proves that mobo manager is wrong. As I finish this post the temperature is just ticking over to 89*.

 

[John]

If you touch the heatsink everywhere when the software reads 89C, and it's barely warm to the touch, then it's safe to ignore that particular software reading.

 

[iamaelephant]

Hhhmm, well it got to 92*, stayed there for a while then the system just shut down. The heat sink still didn't feel hot (a bit warmer, but not hot). I've set it back to stock speeds now, at least until I can afford a new CPU

 

[akshayt]

a 64 wichester has target temp 72, so that temp is killing the cpu

 

[John]

Are you positive that the heatsink installed properly?

 

[iamaelephant]

Interesting, I've restored all settings to stock and MBM is still reporting 86*. I wish I had checked the temp before doing all of this so I know if it's normal or not (normal as in mis-represented in MBM). I'll wait and see what happens but I suppose it's possible that I need some better thermal paste on the heat sink. The stuff I'm using is generic white ****** that has been in the tube for 3 years.

 

[Dahak]

aslo you can check to see what the tempuature is in the bios. some windows programs may not read the proper temps.

Ive seen on some ecs boards where everest will not show cpu and motherboard temps and there are both listed in the bios as an example

 

[iamaelephant]

Originally posted by: John
Are you positive that the heatsink installed properly?

Yep heat sink is installed properly but I'm dubious about the thermal paste.

 

[Bobthelost]

The rule with the paste is generally if in doubt you've used too much.

 

[jlbenedict]

Check the temperature monitoring section of your BIOS. It may be set to display in F instead of C.

 

[pcgeek11]

If the heat sink is not installed correctly it will not get hot because the heat is not transferring to the sink properly. I say that the heat sink is not making a good thermal connection with the processor. And the readings are correct as the hardware rebooted probably due to heat.

pcgeek11

 

[Slugbait]

Having the fan run at the lowest speed while overclocking isn't recommended. It should be allowed variable so that it will increase cooling when you start pushing the machine, and slowing down when idle.

You don't mention a thorough cleaning of the heatsink and proc of the older paste/pad. If this wasn't done, the new thermal paste does nothing more than to further heat the proc.

If the new paste you applied has been sitting around for three years and has been occassionally subjected to higher temperatures or humidity/moisture, it's likely been broken down a bit by the elements and is less effective.

I assume that your Tt has a copper heatsink with longer, vertical fins, correct?

 

[iamaelephant]

Actually it look like the standard heat sink. This computer was basically assembled from a bunch of spares lying around the house so it's a bit of a mess...

I cleaned the old paste off the heat sink and CPU and didn't apply too much thermal paste, but I think I'll pick up some Arctic Silver today and see if that helps.

 

[imported_crypt33]

it is either giving Fahrenheit reading or the software is reporting incorrectly...i would say it is the former, not the latter...