I have just upgraded my computer. I had a look in the bios at the PC health page. The CPU temp is 72C. This is a heck of a lot higher than the temp my old CPU used to max to - 45C. Is it safe?
(The mobo/case/cpu/memory were assembled by the shop tech guy. I added the hd, fd, graphics, sound etc. I am going to switch off the comp after posting this, and check replies at work)
Thanks.
I am assuming you are using an AMD Athlon, since Pentiums generally don’t get this hot.
Although within the published operating parameters, 72 Celsius is WAY out of the comfort range. Was anyone messing with the heatsink on that puppy and maybe reinstalled it wrong?
What’s the info on your chip? Is it a T-bird 1400, by any chance?
Because the Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHz runs notoriously hot, of course. Thing is, I have one of those CPUs, to which I’ve fitted a rather quiet (read: not very effective) fan, and it still only gets up to 60C under heavily load, 52C right now. While temperature readings from CPUs are not terribly accurate, a figure of 72C is worryingly high - your CPU probably won’t die immediately, but it might have a shorter life. Sounds like the techie didn’t fit the heatsink properly, or used an inadequate one.
Just looking at the title I winced, 72 C is pretty damn high. Even my 1.2ghz T-bird only got as high as 60 something at its worst. You probably wanna either get a new heatsink + fan, or get some thermal paste/arctic silver and reseat your current one.
Does sound rather on the high side.
Regarding Lobsang’s post, the most recent Athlon’s that I have installed came with a fact sheet that discouraged the use of Arctic Silver and stated that warranties would be invalidated if it were used.
Have no information as to why that might be, you may know better?
Sorry, not Lobsang but Darkravel - looked at the posts in the reverse order…theminal stupidity taking over.
Hmm… not good news. The fan on it is pretty beefy. It’s running at around 2500rpm. I guess I’ll be ringing the shop. Another damn morning of no sleep! Thanks for all the replies.
On another note - within windows it’s quoted as being about 2.2 GHz. I hear AMD processors actually run lower than intel but are the equivalent of higher numbers. So my processor is the equivalent of an intel 3GHz.
Should I be able to make the fan run faster? (I’ll have a look in the documentation when I get home, but may as well ask)
Is it possible that the chip is overclocked?
I inadvertantly underclocked my first Athlon setup and was a bit mystified untill I worked out what was wrong, error with FSB/multiplier. This one may have gone the other way, which would account for the exess heat generated. There should be a monitoring widget that will show the actual clockspeed of the chip.
Where would I find this widget? (is it software or is it in the bios?).
On bootup it shows that it is an AMD Athlon XP 3000+
It is in software, would have been loaded along with motherboard drivers, depending on your instalation, it could be in the system tray, or more likely an option on your ‘programmes’ list on the start menu - look for something like ‘System Monitor’
Sorry I can’t be more specific but I don’t use Windows and have a crap memory for stuff like this - I have to relearn most of it as the need arises, not so difficult with the macine in front of you but otherwise…
I just upgraded to an Atholn XP 3000+ as well, and it was also running hot - about 60 degrees celcius.
It turned out that the ram I had was PC2100 ram, which ran fine with the old processor (Athlon T-bird 1400) but is too slow for the new processor. I needed to upgrade to PC2700 ram to support the new processor’s 333 mhz bus speed. Once I upgraded the ram the processor temp dropped down to 40 C, and peaks at about 45 C under load. I have no idea why the ram was causing the processor to overheat, and why it passed the boot up ram check with the faster processor.
Though I would like to assume that the guy putting the machine together used the right ram, it might be something to check. I also think it might be quite possible that the guy either didn’t put on heatsink compound, or as I’ve seen on other people’s computers, forgot to remove the little protective plastic cover on the pre-installed heatsink compound on the bottom of the heatsink. Either way, if you just bought it, return it.
And my new Athlon XP 3000+ didn’t have anything about not using Actic Silver. I’m kind of curious about that. One thing I’ve always wondered about Arctic Silver is how electrically conductive it is, since the Athlons have all those tiny components and contacts on the top. I’ve been super careful to not get it anywhere near those, and just keep it on the CPU die area.
Update:
I rang the shop, and as they suggested I’ve taken it back. Luckilly they admitted it was too high (instead of trying to bullshit me, which I kind of expected, I guess I am a cynical bastard). They are going to replace the heatsink/fan and test it.
I am not sure weither my ram is PC2100 or PC2700, all I know is that it’s “400MHz DIMMS” and that it’s DDR.
I might buy an extra 500MB to go with the 500 already in. It seemed more ‘active’ than my 1000MHz with it’s 1 gig of SDR ram, so I guess 1 gig wasn’t overkill.
If I remember I’ll update you again when I get it back (if I remember) Thanks for all the help and replies.
Not much chance of remembering to update, as I can’t seem to remember having typed “If I remember” 3 seconds before typing it again 