overheating, looking for cooling tips & info

[drednox]

hi

i'm runing the following setup:


abit IC7-G mobo
P4 3.06 GHz (533 not the 800 FSB)
corsair twinx 3200 RAM

ATI Radeon AIW 9700 Pro

sound blaster audigy 2

utilizing onboard gigabit LAN adapter for networking.


ALL is stock, all is upgraded to newest bios and drivers naturally, nothing is overclocked.

the only thing that is on manual is the CPU strap setting (in bios) which has been suggested to me by the Corsair RAM Guy in order to achieve the most stable config.

system appears to be runing rock solid stable except for the heat. for some reason the CPU even is puting out at least a third extra over a crappy generic granite bay board it was in before. the ram is hot to touch, and the little part on teh mobo with the fan (forgot its name) is also geting really hot.

i am already runing it in open case, with 2 extra case fans mounted appropriately blowing all the heat away. so what else can i do to bring the temps down ? i dont wanna end up disabling all the temp alarms and stuff just to run it and then maybe frying my system.

any options ? ideas ? is there anything i can change settings wise in bios to make the heat come down a bit ? i looked on google gear but all there is there is just more fans, which i already have plenty of and they are ineffective.


thanks

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

You can use Artic Silver 3 thermal compound.

 

[drednox]

k, what is that ? hehe

is there a direct link to it ?


sorry, i never ran into heat problems before so i'm ignorant when it comes to them

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Its the paste that goes over the CPU. Search for Artic Silver 3 or OCZ Ultra 2 at newegg.com

Both are good, reviews show the OCZ to run a little cooler though.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

What case are you using?

 

[Jeff7181]

You never said what your temps are...

 

[drednox]

using a generic case ,case in my case doesnt matter much anyways, as i almost always run my rigs open and i care nothing for aesthetics of it, so i forgot what case it is, but its a fairly decent mid size. PSU is good.

the majority of the heat comes from something called "PWM" according to the Hardware Monitor that came with abit mobo. as far as hw hot it gets, i dont know, i had to disable it to play games, and when i quit a game and turn it on it goes into immediate alarm and shutdown mode and shuts down windows in 1 sec, literally. so its way too fast for me to read the temp, but its obviously over its maximum which is set to 60 degrees celsius, or at least i think thats it if i understand the prog correctly.

i checked the prog on startup and it doesnt have any options in it as far as wether to shutdown or not shutdown my system.


paste ? what will paste do ? i thought that was just for gluing things together. isnt it better to just have the heatsink sitting on the CPU ? also CPU doesnt go pass the limits, it generates more heat, but not too much, while the RAM and mobo seem to be the worst culprits. RAM has platinum heat spreaders on it (corsair 3200). how can i cool down the ram and the mobo ?

 

[farmercal]

As AgaBooga said Arctic Silver 3 is thermal compound found Here and it is really good stuff. It transfers heat from your CPU to the heat sink while the fan cools the heat sink. As far as running you case open, how much dust are you accumulating on the CPU heat sink? Dust can prevent the fan from cooling the heat sink sufficiently thus causing higher temperatures. You might want to invest in a quality case with good airflow.

 

[HappyCracker]

Okay, are you using the retail version (did it come with a heatsik in the same package) of the processor? If so, there was probably a square of silvery looking stuff on the bottom of the heatsink. This aids in the transfer of heat from the processor to the heatsink. If there was nothing there, this could be your problem.
What strap setting are you using? I have an AMD setup and what it does for me is lets the processor run idle when it's not being used.
Did you play around with the CPU health settings in the BIOS? I have mine set rather high, but that's just me.

 

[drednox]

its a P4 and the heat sink + fan is not the original retail, i forgot its name and dont have the box, but its pretty good.

but the CPU is not the problem, its the overheating mobo and ram that are really hot, the CPU is quite below them and i wouldnt be surprised at all if it had no heat problems at all and what i am detecting is heat ransferred from other components.

i really need someone thats familiar with the new Abit boards and the HWM utility that came with it to pinpoint it exactly. then i need to find a way to cool down RAM and mobo, other then fans. while i can glue heeatsink to CPU which isnt the problem anyways, how will it help with overheating RAM ? i have never seen any extra heatsinks and fans that i could glue onto ram unless i am missing something.

this is the board http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=4 and the 2 parts generating the heat are the RAM and the whatever it is thats under the green fan located between the AGP slot and the CPU.

if you meant take that off and glue that with the heat transfer paste, then i will try it, however the heat is geting transferred just fine, there is just so freagin much of it its geting out and even with a 4" fan blowing it all away directly its still very plan to feel.

also this doesnt happen unless i run games or other highly demeanding applications. i dont get the overheating just browsing web etc. but the rig is built for gaming so i will be really pissed if i wont be able to play games in it

 

[Regs]

Is your PSU located right above your CPU/HSF unit? If so, does it have a intake to suck in air than an out take?

 

[HappyCracker]

but if he's running open case, he should have no heat problems. in the hardware monitor, you can move the sliders around and adjust the temps at which it will go off. as far as ram heating, it will get warm obviously, but with sdram technology, there's really no need to cool it. i know on my abit board they didn't put any thermal compound on the northbridge (the thing under the green fan) and putting some in there let me overclock a bit, but it might be worth a try.