Stupid and Need Help with Cooling

[jasonbarnes]

Hi, let me start off by bowing low the the tech-lords and ladies who frequent Anand's wonderful site. Over the past couple of years I have greedily injested almost all my knowledge of computers from this site. Until now, I had no need to post directly (being naturally inclined to lurking) but alas, I could not solve this dilemma alone. So I call upon help here where I know the answers abound.

All righty then, here's the problem. I think my computer is hot. Using Sisoft, I have noticed an average board temperature of 24-30'C (about 10 degrees above room temp) and a processor temp - in idle - at about 45 to 55'C. That seems from the research I've done to be a little warm, especially the processor. WHen I do anything intensive, especially play ANY 3D game, the temperature slowly rises until it gets to 150'F at which point the BIOS shuts down the computer. I have also noticed a few other glitches, including strange desktop resolution changes. In fact one time the res changed suddenly to something like 200 by 320, and I had to use that "move" window command and TAB key to reset the resolution. Weird. ALso a few BSODs and other minor stuff. I have to turn the computer off every night, and had to disable all the various Sleep and suspend modes because they would cause lock-ups. The 3D thing is the breaker though.

My system is a recently upgraded T-Bird 1.4 with an AK31 (don't know which version) and 256 DDR RAM. I have a TNT2 Riva 32MB card, all the latest drivers (23.11) and the Via 4-in-1 driver. I also have a standard AMD heatsink, a case fan drawing in the front of my ATX mid case, a fan on the power supply blowing out the back, a little fan on the TNT2 and a little fan on the Via chipset.

I think it is a heat problem. So what I really want to do is buy a good heatsink/fan for my Atlon online -- nothing extravegant, just a good wholesome solution, and have my local computer store install it, since I am afraid of sticking my fat fingers in there. Afraid for my computer not my fingers mind you!

I have looked at a few of the websites mentioned in other threads, but they all seem too powerful or too confusing. Could someone tell me if they agree with my diagnosis of a hot processor causing the problems, and maybe reccomend a good heatsink/fan? I am also thinking of getting one of those case fans that fit into the PCI slot, but its the Athlon thats hot, not the board, so would that help?

Tearing my hair out; sad about my wounded computer; fingers crossed for solutions.

 

[SWScorch]

sounds like the heatsink isnt getting good contact with the CPU. Even a marginal CPU cooler should keep the CPU from overheating so bad that the computer shuts itself off. However, I have a few suggestions:

Do you have any case (chassis) fans? You should ideally have at least 1 intake fan in the lower front and at least 1 exhaust fan in the upper rear of the case. This helps immensely with case temps.

You say you have a standard AMD heatsink... this is usually good enough to at least a CPU cool enough to keep from overheating, but apparently it is not so in your case. Like I said before, it sounds as if its not attached correctly.

When you mentioned the resolution changing, I thought maybe the video cards was overheating as well. If it doesnt have a fan on it, it might be a good idea to attach one. Or, I'd actually suggest upgrading to a newer card. You can buy a decent GeForce2 or GF3 Ti 200 for under $150, and not only will it be much much faster than your TNT2, but it will come stock with a GPU fan (or at least most do)

Ok, now onto the heatsink recommendations.

A good no-frills heatsink is a Vantec CCK-6027, which isnt too loud and does a good job of cooling. Also, an Arkua 7528 seems to be doing well. HardOCP also liked the Spire 5T060B1H3R and gave it a recommended product award. Either of those would be a good choice, as you said you didnt want to go for an all-out extreme heatsink like an Alpha PAL8045 or a SK-6.

 

[Bglad]

I have to disagree. If you are not overclocking, a standard heatsink should be good enough to keep you from crashing.

Everyone always thinks that a new hetsink and fan is the answer when this is not the case. No heatsink will work well if it is surrounded by warm air. I would seriously experiment with your case airflow first. 1 intake and 1 output in the psu is likely not enough to get your internal case temp down. Take the side off your case and point a regular house fan at the interior of the case and run it like that. See if the temps stay lower. This will tell you if case airflow is the problem.

You said you just upgraded. What was this puter before? Athlons put out a lot more heat than most. It is likely that this case was desinged for a cooler running processor and that Athlon is heating up that case.

 

[Jeff7]

I'd have to recommend using something other than Sandra for temp reporting; it is not the most accurate monitoring software out there. Motherboard Monitor is considerably more popular and accurate.


And might I say, it's nice to see a newcomer who acknowledges that fact; too many "newbies" come here and think they're the new god of the domain. Course, so do many of the diamond members, but that's another story...

 

[scoobydooby]

Yeah I think bglad is right, your current HSF should work fine. You might try moving your 1 intake fan to the rear of the case and making it an exhaust to see if temps drop. But I can tell you I have a gateway 1 ghz mid tower that has no intake or exhaust fans save the PSU fan and a stock HSF and it runs fine. And upgrading to a geforce3 ti 200 should help your performance a bunch and it's not too expensive. Can we say christmas? Hope that helps.
Scoob

 

[jasonbarnes]

Thanks folks. I am getting a lot of good ideas here. I appreciate it. I consider myself a "permanent" novice, since the more I learn about this stuff, the more I realize I don't know!

I upgraded from a T-Bird 900 with an MSI K7t-Pro 2-a with PC133 RAM. It was crashing alot and would do this weird thing where it would crash and wouldn't restart for 24-48 hours. (Going into BSOD during the boot-up) It was still under warranty from the shop where I had it built, so I took it in and they said it was probably the motherboard. Since they were going to replace it, I decided to upgrade (Isn't that always the case)

So the horrible crashes I had before are gone and now I'm only having these minor things. I thought about getting that geforce3, but if the processor is getting hot with my puny TNT2, wouldn't that hefty GCard make it heat up all the worse?

Maybe I will get the new 3D card and the PCI Slot fan and see how that goes. Not being made of money though, it is difficult to "experiment".

I hope someday I can help out a "newbie" with a problem, but I fear that will be a long time coming! By the way, I chose the components I di from all the great things I've read on Anands site as well as the message board. Thanks again folks!

 

[scoobydooby]

Well the video card shouldn't really affect your stability problems either way. Your problem with cooling, if any, is your case cooling. I would say pick up an exhaust fan that'll fit in your case and see if your problems go away. If that doesn't fix it then it's probably something else. The only reason I recommended getting a new vid card is because a TNT2 is kinda old and you said you play games so might as well. Hope that helps.
Scoob