Help with Tbird 1333 cooling.

[PCExpedition]

I Have an Athlon Tbird 1333 on a Gigabyte GA-7DX with 512 meg of Crucial 2100 DDR. I was having many troubles with bsod and various lockups. After some investigation I found that I was running pretty hot. The system ran real well for 3-4 months with no trouble so I did not track my temperature. I was running a Thermal take Vocano 5. I have tried the Vantec CCK-6035d and the Thermal right sk6 with an Y&S 7000 RPM Fan. The lowest Ican get this to run is at about 59 C at idle. I have removed every card and the motherboard from the case so it is open air and at room temp. I have a minum install of Widows Me at this point with only a Geforce 2MX and a Quantum Fireball AS 40 GB hard disk. When running windows the temp goes up to 62 C. When I start to do anything a litlle more cpu intensive than idle It crashes. Do you think that maybe I have damaged my cpu? I am finally at a loss can't think of anything else to try. Thanks

 

[Dan]

Check to see if your HSF is seated correctly on the CPU. I suggest this because I had a similar experience with my T-Bird 1.33GHz. I also have an SK6 HSF and generally run the chip at 1.4GHz with an average temp of 52 degrees. Last week I installed a window in the case, losing an intake fan/blowhole in the process. Along with the window kit I'd ordered some Arctic Silver II so while I was doing everything else I upgraded to a better quality thermal compound.

Imagine my surprise a day or so later when I checked my CPU temps and found they were averaging 62-63 degrees -- and this with a case temp of 28 degrees! I couldn't believe one less fan could make that big a difference. I checked everything in the case and cleaned all the remaining fans. (I have 10 left. ) Finally, even though the HSF appeared to be properly seated, I took it off and put it back on again.

I ran the system for a day but was still averaging 62-63 degrees on the CPU. So I took the HSF off again and put it back on. To my eye I can't see how it's sitting any different on the chip than it was before. However, the CPU's average temp is now 49 degrees.

 

[PCExpedition]

Hey Dan Great Idea!

When I removed the hsf and cleaned it with some isoprobyl alcohol I found a little ireggularityin the base of the heatsink right where the cpu and heatsink make contact. So I turned the hsf around and the cpu lines up in a different spot. Reapplied some thermal compound(Radio Shak brand) and fired her up. Right away I see an idle temp of 40C in the bios. Then I start and run my crippled WinMe(no drivers) and it runs at 48C. I think when I reinstall everything and apply the new AS2 I won on ebay. I will still be in the low to mid 50's. Thanks for your excellent advice.