having heat issues w/ my p4 3.06; looking for advice :(

[Liquidh2o]

I just bought a complete computer recently, and initially after booting it up and giving it the usual run thru, loop tests etc.., i didn't seem to find anything wrong with it.

Today I was playing tribes 2, and lo and behold my computer decided to give me a random reboot. Thinking it odd, and just out of curiousity I checked my cpu temp

it was a whopping 75 degrees Celcius! It eventually idled down to 55c, but from everything I've read on these boards, that still seems very high.

Well I popped the cover off my case, and the first thing I notice initially was the heatsink/fan. It looked like a mean mother to take off, so I went and consulted the manual first. After doing some research I learned the Heatsink/fan(zalman cnps 5500-cu) is only rated up to 2.5ghz.

I was able to take off the zalman and placed the retail Intel heatsink/fan assembly on(w/ some thermal compound of course). Well to my suprise the idle temp. was 70c!

For the interm I've put the zalman back on.

But in the mean time i have a few questions...

(info: p4 3.06ghz, Asus P4PE motherboard, default bios config, no overclocking on my end)

1.) Are these abnormally high temps that I'm seeing?

2.) Will a better heatsink/fan(and something like arctic silver) make a noticable difference in my temps?

3.) Is there anything else i can do(reasonably priced, and nothing fancy like watercooling) to bring down the temps?

4.) If so, what are your recomendations on heatsinks/fans?

I see a lot of rave reviews on the SLK900-U and i've been thinking about ordering it, but I'm not sure what else I'd need. I know a fan is a definite(i've been looking at the Tornado as noise isn't that much of an issue to me), but then there's the screws, and different types of connectors. I figure the screws are necessary, but what about all the other accessories they try to sell to you?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and my computer would give you many thanks as well

 

[Lyfer]

75c for a 3.06HZ p4, thats hella hot. I would get that SLK900 as fast as possible and slap a good noise to CFM ratio 92mm fan immediately. BTW what is your room temp?

 

[Detselom]

sounds like you shouldnt be getting those temps, make sure you put on a little little bit of compound

 

[tommigsr]

hmm...something must be wrong with how u are putting the heatsinks on or something, i got my 2.4 running at 3.06~7 and it idles at around 45c...i only have a regular aftermarket cooler on it. some no name brand

 

[Liquidh2o]

room temp is about 80.

 

[THUGSROOK]

try some serious case cooling.

 

[Icewind]

Please tell me your using real thermal compound like AS3? If not, thats part of your problem. If you are, your not putting enough on or way to damn much. Screw the software temp monitors and get a external temp monitor. Your lucky your P4 has a throttle down feature to keep it from frying itself

 

[Liquidh2o]

it's AS2 as far as the compound goes.

As far as applying it, i've done it the same way w/ the previous 10 or so computers I've had, and never run into this problem, it's always been a matter of putting a small amount of compound on the heatsink then spreading it out with a credit card or something similiar to get rid of excess compound, and you're left with a thin layer. Of course this is my first pc in a year, so i've been out of the loop, so if things have changed, feel free to fill me in

Right now with the zalman, as i'm typing this the temp. is sitting at 50 degrees celcius. Think a bit of it has to do with room temperature, as it's cooled down quite a bit here today, I'm also curious if the bolt down method will provide better contact between the HS/F and the CPU rather than the traditional method.

Probably also going to switch out case fans as well.

Also of note... the zalman does a better job cooling than the retail heatsink/fan, and I think one of the reasons is that the zalman is actually pulling air from the heatsink, whereas the retail HS/F is actually pushing air onto it.

I'd tend to think that in theory the zalman would do a better job of cooling, because the way the case fans are setup, it's to suck ambient air through the front of the case, and then push it out the rear. This provides a pretty constant stream of cool air across the heatsink, and at the same time the warm air is being pushed away from the heatsink and out the rear via the air stream.

The one flaw i see in the "pushing" method, is that with trying to push air onto the heatsink rather than across it, you're assuming you can force enough air in to keep the case cool all the while pushing the hot air out. My case, by design, has an intake in the front(bottom) and an outtake in the rear(also at the bottom). Standing the tower upright, and taking into consideration that warm air rises, there's a good chance you're pushing out more of the cool air and the hot air is just rising to the top and lingering in the case. Also if you have an outtake in the rear and your HS/F is sucking in air to push onto the cpu, it's making them fight against one another, and your outtake will be further decreased.

Just my theory though. Feel free to enlighten me if I'm way off base

btw thanks for the tips so far, I appreciate any help I can get right now.

 

[Liquidh2o]

SLK900-U on the way

Debating whether to slap the tornado on there or not.

 

[batmang]

tornado's are super loud from what ive heard. i have a 2.6c @ 3.11, slk-900u with artic silver ceramique and a thermaltake smart case fan, the original one, running at about 35c idle 45c full load normally, 50c was hottest ive seen it.

 

[spongebobfan]

I've got my 3.06 with the stock intel HSF running @ ~50c with the fan @ ~4000 RPM and under stress @ ~53 but the fan is LOUDLY humming @ ~5300 RPM. These figures are in a warm room without A/C and a case with 2 92mm fans (1 intake @ 1 outflow). Personally going to try to zalman the thing as the HSF is quite loud...

Hope this helps...

Sponge

 

[sonoran]

Originally posted by: Liquidh2o
The one flaw i see in the "pushing" method, is that with trying to push air onto the heatsink rather than across it, you're assuming you can force enough air in to keep the case cool all the while pushing the hot air out. My case, by design, has an intake in the front(bottom) and an outtake in the rear(also at the bottom). Standing the tower upright, and taking into consideration that warm air rises, there's a good chance you're pushing out more of the cool air and the hot air is just rising to the top and lingering in the case.

You very well may be onto the primary source of your problem here. There could be stagnant hot air lingering around your CPU. Have you tried running the system with the side panel removed to see how the temps do? If it's a huge improvement, you may have found your problem.

If that actually does turn out to be it, I could imagine using some cardboard (a piece of a cardboard box?) to put a vertical "divider" into your case, and force the air to flow from the bottom front, up through the top (past the CPU), and back down to get out the back. The real trick might be getting the divider to stay in place.

Myself, I've been wondering why no one makes a case with the exhaust fan in the top where it would make the most sense?