ECS ks75a cpu temp. too hot?

[LordSnailz]

I've been having a slew of problems with my ecs ks75a / athlon 1.13 ghz computer, finally figured out that it was overheating.

I've placed some arctic silver 3 thermal compound on it and it doesn't crash with the blue screen anymore. But after 10-15mins. of usage, it crashes. Now, I have the case off and a real fan fan blowing at it ... and it's been up for a few hours ... but the temperature is at 40C idle. Is this too hot? Should I get a new fan? Also, does this motheroard read on die temperature? suggestions are greatly appreciated.

tia

 

[Pink0]

No. It does not read on die temperature. I do personally have this board in one of my secondary systems. 40c is a normal idle measurement if you don't have great case cooling. One problem with this board is that the northbridge is loosly attached with some double sided tape and has been known to cause lockups. I would recommend seeing if the northbridge's heatsink is loose. If it is, pull it off and use some thermal adhesive to attach it properly.

 

[LordSnailz]

Thanks for the reply ... after running launching a few programs ... the constant temperature is 43C but that is with a real fan blowing at it ... should I get a better fan that the generic fan I have? TIA!

 

[OulOat]

40 is a normal idle measurement if you don't have great case cooling? Damn, I just got all new fans and hsf, and my idle don't go below 41 with case of 29. But, at least it doesn't go higher than 48 after 24 hours of prime95, even though my room gets pretty toasty.

 

[OulOat]

Put everything back together and give us your case and cpu temp then. If you can get it from mbm.

 

[Pink0]

I'd definiltey look at the northbridge cooling. It's a well known problem with this board. Aside from that I would check to make sure the heatsink is mounted correctly. If it is, then I would recommend a larger copper heatsink with a decent fan. Make sure that your case is closed and that you have no excess cable clutter in the case and that you're using case fans. If the problem still persists, it's unlikely heat related.

 

[LordSnailz]

I had this rig. running for over a year already - but just recently, it crashed (2-3weeks of non-stop running and it was pretty hot here a few days ago). After playing around with a bunch of other options, removing agp cards, clearing cmos, etc. I took off the heatsink from the cpu and noticed that the thermal pads were completely gone. I then went ahead brought some arctic silver 3 thermal compound and it working now with the external fan. Temperature now constant at 44C.

I will check the northbridge heatsink but since this rig has been running for over a year already, I'm thinking that's not culprit.

Is the temp. lower if I put the case together? I'm afraid it won't even boot without the case open and the external fan.

So my question is, how long before the arctive silver stuff takes into effect? Also, what fan/heatsink should I purchase?

TIA!

 

[Pink0]

There are a lot of good recommendations for CPU coolers in the cases and cooling section. It's a sticky. I would be more concerned about your case cooling. Yes, your case will be cooler with the side closed unless there is something badly wrong with yout cooling set up. You should have a front to back air flow. If you are only using your power supply's fan to cool the case, this is your problem. You shoudl leave the side closed and have an 80mm fan in the back of the case (at least.) Also, make sure that the cables aren't blocking the air flow.

 

[N2Ohyeah]

The fan on my Asus A7V-133A died a while back. I didnt notice immediately... (TBird 1200@10x145)
All of a sudden, i had random freezes. I would be dragging a window and BZZZZZ!!! an anoying sound thru the (then) SBLive and needed to reset. It wasnt CPU temp, so i was rather puzzled (for about 5 minutes )

The case of my comp is always off, though I didnt have a light in it back then (now I have a nearly setup UV tube. Yummy), so a chipset fan dying wasnt too noticeable. I had a look inside, to see if any cards \ RAM werent sitting right... lo and behold - a non moving Chipset fan.
Ahah. Culprit found. The ASUS fan\cooler that was on this board was terrible. Just a little plate of aluminium with a fan. No fins, nothing.
Toasty to the touch. I managed to rig an old P200 cooler on the thing, and it was OK for the time being. The next day i went out to buy a Blue Orb.

Surprise surprise, no more crashes

Take a look at the northbridge cooler.... even if theres nothing wrong with it - buy a beefier HS\Fan. Hell, it cant hurt.

 

[OulOat]

I wouldn't go for a fan on the northbridge. First, the k7s5a's north bridge doesn't get hot at all, at least when you have decent case cooling. If yours do, then buy a bigger heatsink, no fan. There are several chipset coolers and the don't cost more than 7 bucks. With just a heatsink you don't have the risk of a fan failing.

 

[dannybin1742]

from what i've noticed, this board tends to run the voltage a bit high too.

my 1000mhz morgan duron will run 39C 1.78volts and at 1333mhz it runs 45C, i'm just gonna get a stronger fan for the hsf

just kinda wierd, i have had no lockups or restarts yet either, but i did notice that occationally the bios will reset the fsb to 100 and its really starting to piss me off

 

[OulOat]

It only resets the front bus on mine when I remove the processors, other than that, no problems

 

[Pink0]

First, the k7s5a's north bridge doesn't get hot at all,

That's the problem. The HEATSINK doesn't get hot at all because it's poorly attached with some double sided tape. The heat just doensn't get to it. It's cool to the touch. After reattaching the heatsink with some thermal adhesive, the heatsink became very hot because it was getting heat off the chip and the stability problems went away.

 

[OulOat]

What thermal adhesive did you use? And did you keep the same heatsink?

 

[colinm]

FYI, I have a K7S5A with a 1.4GHz T-Bird (unoverclocked). It runs ~56C most of the time. never any higher, and rarely lower. case sooling isn't too great. I mounted a case fan blowing over the hs/fan (an OCZ gladiator) and that fixed any crashed but it is still very hot. I tried to get the HALT and STPGNT commands to work on the SiS 735 chipset but they don't help any and it slows down mouse movement really bad. (I figured it out on a KT400 though, my Gigabyte 7VAXP runs my AGOIA 1600+ (at 1750MHz) at a nice mid-20s idle and mid 40s full load) See my post in amdmb gigabyte forums if it hasn't been posted here already about the KT400 cooling. they seem to be down though...

Colin

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

my computer wasn't stable at 133Mhz FSB until i replaces the chipset heatsink.. now its running at 147Mhz FSB all stable!

And yes, the new heatsink is warm to touch while the old one hardly got warm at all.. considering the old one was attached with some form of dodgy sticky tape... Replacing the chipset heatink (put a new one on with thermal expoxy) is definitely a good way to go.. its cheap too.