How to lower temperatures of a Northwood? in a SFF?

[DaFOBulous1]

I'm running it at 1.5V but I would like to lower the temperature as much as possible since there wont be any overclocking at all.

 

[stevty2889]

60-62c at idle is a lot more than a bit too high. What heatink do you have? Did you use thermal paste? Sounds like the heatsink isn't making good contact.. Do you have any air flow in your case? Is the CPU fan running??

 

[Matt2]

2 eggs, overeasy please.

 

[CheesePoofs]

That is way too hot. You've either got the heatsink seated incorrectly, the heatsink was installed incorrectly (no thermal paste), or a dead temp probe.

 

[Matt2]

What's the kill tmep for a northwood anyways?

I hope it's not 70*C

 

[yourdeardaniel]

crispy bacon

 

[stevty2889]

70c is about where it starts throttling. I would deffinatly not run it at that temp for long. I think it will shut down around 80c, to keep itself from frying, but you really have some major temp issues.

 

[DaFOBulous1]

It's the stock heatsink for the AOpen.

 

[CheesePoofs]

So the computer came pre-built? Does it have any case fans?

 

[DaFOBulous1]

Well it's a AOpen EA65 IIa, a HTPC. At full speed, 6500 RPM, the CPU does go to around 48-51C on idle. It was not pre-built but the temperature settings I enclosed were in SmartControl where it runs at optical speed which I noticed has been 2800 RPM.

Perhaps I should just remove the pre-thermal grease on there and replace it with AS5? Not sure how much that would really reduce the temperature though.

I got the Northwood since I knew SFF has heat issues or you have to be more concerned but Im think its quite too high since the Northwood are suppose to be less hotter than the Prescott...

 

[CheesePoofs]

It looks like that case doest't have any case fans (can you confirm that), but it does have a side grill. You just might be able to screw a fan into that side grill if there's enough room in the case. It might be very worth it, because I'm guessing thats a big factor contributing to your heat.

 

[DaFOBulous1]

Thx for the help. The way it works is that the fan sucks the air horizontally but since I put a 9800 pro...it's basically sucking the air from the back core of the graphics card. I'm sure that contributes to it but do you think applying AS5 will help it?

 

[CheesePoofs]

I think AS5 will only help if your current thermal paste was installed incorrectly or has worn out (which some do). Can't hurt though, so you might as well give it a shot.