I’ve been messing around with my system (Athlon XP 2000+), have bought and returned several different heatsinks in my quest for low temperatures. The best I’ve ever gotten was 51c, which is supposedly very high, and not healthy for my cpu. I eventually exchanged that heatsink because it was far too loud, and now I have a quiet Zalman copper setup, which is running at 56c idle.
Am I worrying too much over this? Every review I have read for the heatsink/fans I’ve tried have rated them as operating well below 45c; I cant even break below 50, no matter what.
FWIW I’ve been running an Athlon 1.4GHz at a reported 50-60c for a year now (65c+ at full load) with no problems at all. I also have a 5 year old Celeron 400 which ran at ~75c for at least a year until I got round to fixing it. Turned out the heatsink had ever-so-slightly detached, so I reseated it, and immediately it dropped to ~45c. But in all that time the CPU functioned perfectly. It still works fine today and I use it a lot.
Coincidentally, the human pain threshold for heat is right about at the same temperature where the reliability of integrated circuits starts to drop. Ideally, every chip in the system should be cool enough that you can leave your finger on it, which means nothing should be hotter than about 40 to 45 deg C.
By the way, don’t touch anything in the computer unless you know quite a bit about electronics. It’s very easy to damage the computer or yourself.
56 is well below the temperature at which the chip will likely go “poof” in an afternoon, but it doesn’t pass the “ouch” test (if you can touch it and not say ouch… highly scientific). What you can expect is that as a very rough and general rule of thumb, every 10 deg C above room temperature cuts the expected life of the chip in half. This rough rule is notoriously inaccurate at either end of the scale. There’s not much of a long term hit going from 30 to 40 deg C, and at the top end of the scale the chip dies much earlier than that quick and dirty rule predicts, but as far as quick and dirty rules go it’s not all that bad. So, what you can expect is little trouble in the short term, but in the long term it’s likely to die an early death.
The thing about PC chips though is that they are obsolete after only a few years. It’s not all that uncommon for some of the cheaper computer manufacterers to let their CPUs run at 50 deg C. If it dies after 3 or 4 years, oh well, time to upgrade anyway.
Personally, I won’t run any chip over 45 deg C, but that’s my choice. I tend to keep computers longer than the average PC user.
There are a couple of things you can check before you go spending a whole lot of money. First check to make sure that the heat sink sits flat on the chip. I’ve seen some that if you install them just right they tilt, and if it’s not making good contact then its ability to draw heat out of the cpu goes downhill quick. Second is to make sure you’ve got a nice little layer of thermal paste in between the heat sink and cpu. That will take up all the gaps that otherwise act as insulators which will also help.
If that doesn’t fix it, then you need either a bigger heat sink/fan combo, or maybe even something more serious like a peltier or a water cooling system. Then you need to consider whether the expense is really worth the possible benefit.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but could inadequate case ventelation cause high CPU temperature? It seems to me that even the best CPU fan won’t do much good if it just blows the same hot air on the CPU over and over again.
My Athlon XP 2000 runs about the same temperature, even though I have good fan and heatsink. Still, unless you are overclocking, the CPU will be obsolete before the heat damage sets in. I am planning to build a watercooler, but I like to overclock.
AMD’s Maximum Operating Temperature for its products varies between 69C and 73C depending on the model. This is the temperature where you can expect the CPU to start giving erroneous results and/or crashing. Between 85-95C, depending on the model, is the Absolute Maximum Operating Temperature, where permanent damage to the CPU is expected. That said, a system that conforms to AMD’s recommended operating specifications in regards to case airflow, heatsink, thermal interface, and voltages should run about 50C. Remember, every 10C increase in CPU temp will halve the CPU’s lifespan.
My guess for why your temperatures are high is improper case ventillation or thermal interface. The proper way to install a heatsink is that you completely remove ANY plastic protective pads or thermal pads from the bottom of a heatsink, leaving no traces, then apply a PAPER THIN, EVEN LAYER of thermal paste to the CPU core (blue square) only, then install the heatsink. Using the thermal pad that comes on the heatsink will result in CPU temps approximately 10C above normal. In addition to this, there is a 1:1 ratio between case temps and CPU temps. If case temp goes down 10C, so does CPU temp. It’s good to have your case temp below 30C, below 35 or so is the maximum acceptable. I would personally NEVER allow a processor I owned to reach 60C. I would certainly prefer it to be below 50C max load, but I accept temps between 50-55C max load. Above 55C, I work on reducing the temps. If it hit 60C, I’d turn it off until I fixed the problem.
If you want lower temps, first tackle case temperatures. Bundle cables out of the way of airflow, and install more fans if needed. After this, upgrade CPU cooling. You DO NOT need to sacrifice performance if you want low noise. A good cooler from Thermalright such as the budget-minded SK7 or higher performance SLK-800 combined with a good low-noise 80mm fan will provide EXCELLENT cooling as well as being quiet. So called “silent” coolers such as the ones Zalman or Thermaltake produce tend to be rather cheaply and shoddily made, and combining a low performance heatsink with a low-performance fan is a recipe for disaster. Combining a high performance heatsink, such as Thermalright’s models, with a silent fan such as a Vantec Stealth or Panaflo L1A will result in a very cool CPU.
Speedfan is a free program that monitors CPU tempteratures using the motherboard’s CPU Temperature monitor (also accessible in the BIOS if the motherboard is equipped) and supports quite a few boards.
I have a side intake and a rear exhaust, with the heatsink fan in between. Should I re-arrange this setup somehow? Maybe move the rear exhaust to top blowhole?
My thermal grease application was nicely done, and the wiring inside my case is pretty clean. There should be no reason why I am getting such high temps, and its pissing me off. This is the third heatsink I’m on now, and I do intend to keep it, despite its poor performance because its QUIET. But even if its an underachiver, it shouldnt be getting over 50.
Regarding your fan setup, it looks alright - but if your case has a front intake spot, I’d put a fan there, and if it has a top exhaust and a rear exhausted, I’d put outward blowing fans in both places.
If your side fan is above your CPU/Heatsink, it should only be sucking air from inside the case and blowing it outside if your heatsink fan is arranged to draw air across the heatsink, and exhaust it upward away from the CPU (which isn’t the norm - usually they blow air downward on top of the heatsink). If you have both fans blowing away from the area between them, it’s going to leave them both with less air to blow. ← AIR →
However, reversing the blowhole to exhaust air outward, and also the fan on the heatsink to blow fan upward away from the processor isn’t a bad idea, as that’s where the majority of the heat is generated anyway. Either way, though, airflow should be exactly that - a “flow” of air, not a tug-of-war game.
I’m glad this issue came up, because it made me check to see what my 1.4ghz athlon was running at, and I was quite suprised to discover it was hovering around 73º c, just a hair under the point where the mobo is set to sound the alarm and shut down.
I discovered that having 4 cats means I have to clean my heatsink more frequently than I used to in my pre cat days. It was pretty well insulated with fur. I took it out and cleaned it in the yard, lest all that dander get back into the air inside.
