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How the heck do these people get such low temperatures with air cooling?

S

SeybaNumberTwo

Member
I have an Athlon XP2000 on an epox 8k3a. My room temperature is about 22c, and my CPU is 50c idle and 58c load. I have an Alpha PAL8045 with a Panaflo L1A on it. My case is an Antec 1080 (good case) with 5 Panaflo L1As inside of it.

I see people with this same setup brag about temperatures around 35c, and I wonder how? I have tightened the heatsink again and again, and reapplied thin layers of arctic silver 3 on the CPU. It never helps the temperature. What am I missing here? How am I getting such high temperatures?

And don't tell me that "if its stable, its okay." I'm anal-retentive like that, and I want to know what is up. Thanks.
 
- Try lapping the heatsink (make it smooth like a baby's bottom)
- Check the air circulation in the case (Perhaps try getting rounded IDE cables)
- BIOS revisions (some revisions make changes to the voltage regulator on the boards which affect temps)
- Air intake/outake ratio (I read an article about the importance of this somewhere)
- Get a Swiftech (cuz I like them)
- You can always be evil and go for a P4 and get 30-35C temps
- Accept it (I think some CPU steppings just conduct heat differently)
 
The 8K3A is one of the few boards that reports CPU temps from the internal diode which is usually at least 10ºC higher than in-socket thermistors. With my 8K3A, I got similar temps with my AX-7 heatsink and a Mechatronics fan. It's just not a level field for comparing temps with AMD systems so I guess as long as it's stable it's a-okay 😀
 
I've just built two P4 systems that get widely different temps using almost identical components.

System1
Abit BX7-333
Corsair XMS
RAID
2.4G 533MHz CPU
Matrox G450-Dual Head
Antec SX635II Case
Running @ 152 FSB
Running SETI
MCX-4000 Cooler
CPU Temps stay right at 56C

System2
Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra
Corsair XMS
RAID
2.4G 533MHz CPU
Matrox G400-Dual Head
Andtec SX840 Case
Running @ 152 FSB
Running SETI
MCX-4000 Cooler
CPU Temps stay right at 47C

Both systems are stable.
At 152FSB, the built-in AC97 Sound stops working but using an inexpensive PCI Sound Card fixes that problem.
I'm rather surprised at the high temps I'm getting considering my office stays at a comfortable 74F all the time.

BTW, with the factory coolers both of these systems run approximately 14C hotter and are not stable. :Q

And I'm using the maximum # of case fans on both systems. Sucking in on the front and blowing out of the back.
 
make for dam sure that your 4 bolts arent bottoming the heatsink against the standoffs and holding the heat sink ever so slightly away from the cpu,haha.
 
I've thought about that but how in the heck can I tell? There is no way to see.

Hmm, I guess I could take the motherboards completely out of the case and eyeball them that way. :Q
 
Originally posted by: mxocr
make for dam sure that your 4 bolts arent bottoming the heatsink against the standoffs and holding the heat sink ever so slightly away from the cpu,haha.
Click to expand...

That's what the springs are for....
rolleye.gif
If you think you'll need more pressure, you can use the extra washers that are provided.

As someone noted above, airflow is very important. I'm not sure how you have your fans set-up, but 80mm's all inside the case isn't going to help you that much. They're just going to be pushing around increasingly warm air. I've found blow holes to be very effective 😀 I have one directly above my CPU and one over my PCI cards (set-up so cool air hits in front of my vid card) in addition to the standard front and back 80mm fans. Some people also like blowholes at the top of their cases, but I have 2 fans in my Antec 400W PSU, so I think that would be redundant. Also have a slot blower to pull hot air out in front of my vid card (nVidia should pay me for their new fan set-up 😉 ) and a 5 1/4 slot blower in front.

All of my 80mm's are low rpm low dB Panaflos, so they don't make much noise. My case temps stay around 24C and the new T-bred I plopped in hits 34C max load OC'd.

Your temps will obviously be higher due to the internal diode vs. external thermal diode used on my board.

Chiz


 
make sure there is no dust on you HS. my gets coged bout every 3 weeks cause the dorms are so damn dusty

MY sys runs at 35C load. room temp 24C

XP1700+ @1600MHz
SK-6 W/ Delta Screamer. Not lapped
GF4 TI4600 320/760
512 PC2100 DDR
Runnin Seti
Evercase mid tower
SP audigy

5 case fans
120mm frint intake
2x 120mm side case. 1 intake 1 exaust
80mm Blow Hole
80mm rear exaust. vantec tornado
Antec Truew Power 430W PS Dual Fan
 
LoL...with all those fans, you'd pick up dust in a biomedical clean room 😉 J/K, I know dorms get dusty, that's why nasty stuff like meningitis crops up in dorms 😕 Nice set-up, custom case mods?

Chiz
 
Well, I went to the trouble and took the motherboard out and there was plenty of "take up" room. So the high temps are still a mystery.

I finally got tired of the plastic nuts coming loose (MCX-4000) on the bottom of the motherboard and this time I super-glued those suckers including the standoffs. That way I can change out the CPU without completely disassembling the system. :Q

I've noticed the temps on the system (Gigabyte) have risen to 50C after I put it back together. The CPU might need to settle in on the thermal grease a little while before it returns to the usual 47C for that system?
 
The trick to 35ºC temps with air cooling is simple...blow more air over the thermistor.
I get 36ºC idle and 40ºC load. On the other hand, I know it's BS. So if it's stable...
rolleye.gif
 
yea i drilled holes in a bunch of places on a mil.- big drill press like aparatus for thoes who dont know. so much easier then usin a dremmel or drill. and it is actuall that cool. every program ive used to check temps gives teh same thing. rock solid stable also.

the addition of teh blow hole made the biggest difference sucks so much air out
 
Originally posted by: Cerb
The trick to 35ºC temps with air cooling is simple...blow more air over the thermistor.
I get 36ºC idle and 40ºC load. On the other hand, I know it's BS. So if it's stable...
rolleye.gif
Click to expand...

Hmm..that'd be hard to accomplish without drilling through my mobo, the mobo tray and modding the other side of my case with a fan on the other side of it. My thermal diode, as flawed as it is, is underneath the CPU in the center of the socket which is then eclipsed by my monstrous Pal 8045 🙂 I don't think much airflow could get underneath the CPU to hit the diode.

Chiz

 
They may be using a bios revision that reads the in socket thermistor as the 8K3A with the shipped bios reads temp from the XP's on-die temp sensor by default so the readings are pretty damned accurate, many were sending that board back at first, believeing something was wrong with it due to the higher reported temps using it than the same CPU,case, cooler, ect on another board. 50's on that board are good and well within the "safe" zone so relax 🙂 EDIT: PliotronX mentioned this first, I just thought I'd 2nd it and add a little personal take as well 🙂
 
Even without airflow interfering with the socket-thermsitor, the reading is crap. 10C over system temp with any heatsink on a modern day CPU is impossible while under load. 60-70W running 10C over ? a .15C/W with conventional air cooling... Sure 😉 And horses fly, fairy's exist, Dragons are real, etc 😉.

And to get it straight from the horses mouth, here's an AMD pdf for it. 😛

AMD Processor FAQ

pay close attention to Our current AMD processors are specified to have a die temperature of 0°C - 90°C or 0°C -95°C, depending on the CPU model.
These are the temperature ranges we specify our products to. We cannot guarantee any reading you get from the motherboard, using the BIOS or
third party monitoring software. As a general guideline, the temperature difference between the die and the bottom of the CPU is about 30°C.
It is worth noting that the maximum temperature of the CPU is reached when running heavy applications such as 3D Games etc? Therefore one
should allow an extra 10-15°C for safety if you are reading from the BIOS set up.
An approximation to the typical reading from a BIOS or an external software utility is expected to be around 60ºC-65ºC or lower.


Mike
 
as always where matters of cooling are concerned I bow to your superior knowledge.
 
sure, i think DapUnisher gets 48C with a severely overclocked Athlon XP @ 1.9V.

Its possible to get 40C range temps with the 8k3a, wtih an ideal combinatino of heatsink and case temp. It sure aint easy though. Since these are internal temperatures, you're not gonna see temps as low as socket-thermistors when using standard air cooling. Bear in mind a lot of motherboards "support" the diode, but dont' actually show the end-user the temperature.


Dapunisher,

my post was not meant for you, rather some of the above posts 😉



Mike
 
Thanx Mikewarrior2 🙂 However I did misspeak when I said "pretty damned accurate" and as your post pointed out it most likely is not! so I stand corrected with the rest. 😉 and yeah I had SETI load temp of 46c-49c, case temps 28c-31c with a 1600+ AGOIA@1.87ghz,1.9v(1.88v or so actual) using a SLK-800, 52cfm 80mm fan and ASIII, I also had a 8K3A 52-53ish celsius SETI load temp about the same case temps, 1600+ AROIA@1.75ghz, 1.775v(1.76 or so actual as both boards seemed to undervolt a little) using the 8045 and ASIII which before the 8045 had a gc68 and SETI temp was 64c-66c! but it ran stable no issues so I was just looking to assure him his temps were fine with that setup. BTW, Sold the 8K3A setup and the 8K3A+ died 🙁 so I sold the AGOIA and I just have 2 Northwood rigs and a 2000+ laptop now 😀 Anywho, good to see you are still around keepin' us straight and stamping out system/CPU cooling related FUD 😎
 
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