EXTREME overheating problem!

[kardinal]

here are my specs first off:

ASUS A7A266
AMD T-bird 1.4 GHz (not OC'd)
ThermalRight SK-6 + High output fan
512 MB pc2100
Geforce 3
SB Live xgamer 5.1

here is my problem...
my computer at idle runs anywhere from 55-59 deg Celsius and at a load rund 60+ with all the crap i have it SHOULD NOT do this... i have no clue why it does this but can anyone shed some light?


its at 60 right now, sigh.....

[Kendan]

It sounds like the heatsink isn't seated on the processor right. Did you use arctic silver? look closely at the heatsink where it touches the core is it flat and not hung on anything?

[]-[itman]

Oh GEEZE that's high! Ok first thing, how are your intake/exhaust fans setup? Are there a lot of cables in your case blocking airflow? Do you have Arctic Silver II on? <---If so you might want to reapply it. Make sure your hs/f is on properly and working right! Take off your case sides and run it and post temps. Did you chip the corner of the die? I heard this can lead to bad heat problems. Ok do this and post results any other idea from fellow oc's? Oh ya, what are you using to read the temps?

[kardinal]

its seated.. and i used arctic silver two, it had this same problem before i got the sk-6 first it had an orb (yuck) then it had some other heatsink, and when that didnt fix the problem i got the sk-6 with a YStech fan and now its still hotter than hades.!

[kardinal]

im using MBM5 to view my temps, but it reads the same in the BIOS. the cables arent all too much in the way and there is a fan on the bottom in the front and one on the top in the back, the front one sucks in air and the top one blows it out. and my case sids are already off.....

[SteenkyBastage]

hola kardinal, welcome to oc forums.

do you have stability problems as well?

there have been lots of complaints about the method used by asus to get their temps (namely that they report really high temps). if you're running rock stable i wouldn't be all that worried about that considering what i've heard about asus.

but there's a few more things you should check on to see if you could help lower the temps.

first off, do you have any case fans? if you do, how many, and where are they placed/which direction do they blow?

when you have the case open and the computer running, does your temperature go down at all?

if you have no case fans, or just bad case airflow, your ambient temps may be high, which will degrade the performance of any HSF, good or bad.

if you have good case temps, and good case airflow, you might next check the HSF itself.

with the case side off, and the computer running, touch the heat sink with your finger. if it's really hot, i'd say bad airflow. if it's too cool your heatsink may not be seated properly (or the thermal compound may not be applied correctly).

post back with what you find out after trying some of this stuff and we'll go from there.

[kardinal]

http://www.winxpforums.com/img/temps.jpg

there is a ss of the temps..

[]-[itman]

Originally posted by kardinal
its seated.. and i used arctic silver two, it had this same problem before i got the sk-6 first it had an orb (yuck) then it had some other heatsink, and when that didnt fix the problem i got the sk-6 with a YStech fan and now its still hotter than hades.!

If the case sides are off it's got to be a prob with the hs/f or the arctic silver. Try reapplying it but remember that it's only supposed to be a verry thing coat. How did you apply the silver and what did you use? Maybe the heatsink isn't touching the die properly. Did you take it off to see if the die is chipped?

[]-[itman]

Wait a sec, isn't sensor1 supposed to be the cpu sensor or am i wrong on this? I haven't used mbm5 much so corrrect me if I'm wrong but the sensor you're looking at might be the motherboard temp. AGAIN don't trust me on this because I'm really tired right now and not thinking all that good. Also, Rapid Bob pointed out some good things.

[kardinal]

do you have stability problems as well?

sometimes my computer will lockup out of left feild and repeat the same sounds over and over again (whatever sound it was making at the moment of the crash)


there have been lots of complaints about the method used by asus to get their temps (namely that they report really high temps). if you're running rock stable i wouldn't be all that worried about that considering what i've heard about asus.

but there's a few more things you should check on to see if you could help lower the temps.

ive heard that too, i emailed asus earlier today but they havent replied back to me.


first off, do you have any case fans? if you do, how many, and where are they placed/which direction do they blow?
as i stated above, i have 2 case fans one on the bottom in the front, and one on the top in the rear. the one in the front blows in and the one on the top blows out.


when you have the case open and the computer running, does your temperature go down at all?
my case is ALWAYS off.


if you have no case fans, or just bad case airflow, your ambient temps may be high, which will degrade the performance of any HSF, good or bad.

if you have good case temps, and good case airflow, you might next check the HSF itself.
there are some cables in the way but not many, and if you reach inside you can definately feel air flowing.


with the case side off, and the computer running, touch the heat sink with your finger. if it's really hot, i'd say bad airflow. if it's too cool your heatsink may not be seated properly (or the thermal compound may not be applied correctly).

it wasnt hot but it wasnt cool it was kinda just warm.


post back with what you find out after trying some of this stuff and we'll go from there.

hope that helps

[kardinal]

http://www.winxpforums.com/img/temps2.jpg
here is another ss of the temps in ASUS's mother board monitor program

[kardinal]

i have a medium sized case if that means anything, would a larger case help airflow at all?

also my friend said that my geforce 3 could contribute to some of the heat.. is that true, or was he being a wiseass? :D

[Thelemac]

*Moved to "Cooling"*

[Kendan]

Your vcore is a little high which will cause the temp to go up. But I don't know the specs for your board so wait and see if anybody confirms this. Mine was at 1.8 not overclocked even though in the bios it was set at 1.75. I reduced it one notch and now I am at 1.75 and my load temp dropped 2-3 degrees celsius.


Edit: you can change which sensor reads what in MM5.

[robertm]

I think its going to be the Mobo is reporting high look at the case temp its 98 I assume you dont keep you room 98?. :) Sense you keep your case off I would have to assume that temp is way to high as would be your CPU

I tested mine to some degree by using a infrared temp sensor on my case thermal coupler they matched so I would assume mine are somewhat close to the correct temps.

[kardinal]

the lowest setting in my bios for the vcore is 1.75 and its already set at that. what would cause both these programs to read 1.84?

[SteenkyBastage]

hey kardinal,

after seeing that pic you sent, it seems to me that one of two things are happening. either your probes are reporting incorrectly (saying it's too high) or your room is HOT!

the probe says your motherboard is close to 100F!!!

when you've had the computer off for a while (overnight) does it immediately boot up and say the motherboard is 37C? (or close) the next step i'd take if i were you would be to determine what the temp is in my room.

if it's not extremely high (above 90 or so) then i'd point a fan (a big, loud, 2 foot floor standing fan or any other large type fan you have) into the side of the case. that would DEFINITELY get air circulating well in there. if your temps dont immediately drop on the MB and CPU sensor with the fan pointed at it (witin 30 seconds) then i'd feel confident saying one of two things: your room needs airconditioning, or the temp readings are way off.

i have heard (but never owned an asusu board so cant verify) that different bios updates can change the readings from those probes. you might check and see if you have an updated bios or not.

i hope (for your sake) it's not the room at 95F+ LOL, hope its just a buggy temp sensor.

[kardinal]

hehehe, its a bit hot in my room but not that hot... hehehe... still it does crash at least once a day, when it crashes it loops the sound it was playing over and over again. u think this could be related. and also, is there a way o change my vcore? my bios says that it is already at 1.75 yet all the sensors read 1.84...

[kardinal]

and also i put the computer right in front of the A/C duct and when i crank the a/c on the temps drop to the 40's (which is still hot i think)

[CrystalMethod]

Check for a BIOS update for your MB. Might be a source of the problem, but there may be more, causing your high temps.

[SteenkyBastage]

welll, that shows it is a bit toasty in the room.

when i get repeating sound and computer lockup it's been irq (hard drive controller) related. windows2k put all my irq's on the same number and expected everything to work fine. i had to disable acpi to get them to go their separate ways. no problems after that.

so my guess is the lockup could be related to hard drive freezing (always happened to me when playing an mp3 or some other file with sound off the HD) possibly from a conflict (even tho my device manager never said it was conflicting, it was).

depending on what OS you have, this could be happening to you too. hold down the windows key (between the ctrl and alt) and press pause. go to your device manager from there and see if all your pci and such are sharing irq's. winME and win2k seem to do this to me all the time when i install.

[kardinal]

i am using windows xp, and i thought it was a possible irq problem myself however when i checked not a single device is sharing an irq... so i kinda ruled that out.

oh yeah and btw,

i upgraded my bios from build 1004 to 1009 and its running @53 degrees celsius (still says its 98 degrees in my room tho) but the new bios helped a lot.

[mw521]

Originally posted by kardinal
and also i put the computer right in front of the A/C duct and when i crank the a/c on the temps drop to the 40's (which is still hot i think)
You think it might just be a sound card issue? Just what do you do when it locks up? ie: gaming? Any particular game? What sound card do you have?

[kardinal]

i had to disable acpi


how would one go about doing this?

[kardinal]

Originally posted by mw521

You think it might just be a sound card issue? Just what do you do when it locks up? ie: gaming? Any particular game? What sound card do you have?

well, at first i thought that it was gaming because MANY MANY people who play counter-strike get the same problem. so i thought it was half life, but then it started doing it whenever it felt like it. usually when it does it and you restart, it doesnt do it again that day. but i always have winamp on (its a sin not to :D) so the sound card is always being used. the card i have is a

SB Live XGamer 5.1 (with the newest xp drivers)

[mw521]

Originally posted by kardinal


well, at first i thought that it was gaming because MANY MANY people who play counter-strike get the same problem. so i thought it was half life, but then it started doing it whenever it felt like it. usually when it does it and you restart, it doesnt do it again that day. but i always have winamp on (its a sin not to :D) so the sound card is always being used. the card i have is a

SB Live XGamer 5.1 (with the newest xp drivers)
I had that in CS 1.1 I believe. Finally completely deleted sierra files games and folders. Got the latest detonator drivers and reinstalled game haven/t had it since. Not saying that is your problem, but it could be. If it only locks up at the same time or game could be. Worth a try anyway.

[kardinal]

nah, its a random lock up, totally unexpected when it happens

[mw521]

Originally posted by kardinal
nah, its a random lock up, totally unexpected when it happens
Dunno, but don't think it is heat related. More like hware/sware problem. Take your game out completely and try another one. Heck, wolfenstein or sumpin using another engine and see what happens.

[kardinal]

i had to disable acpi to get them to go their separate ways. no problems after that.


any one know how to do this in XP? even though my irq's arent shared it may still help

[SteenkyBastage]

hey kardinal,

if your irq's aren't all piled up on the same number you really wont want to disable acpi, as it controlls the automatic power off function and issues halt commands to the cpu when it's idle (aka, turns the power down when the computer isn't needing it).

but if you really want to know, i can only tell you how to do this in w2k, not winxp. hope it's the same there.

in device manager, go to computer and hit the plus next to it. inside there is one computer icon with "advanced configuration and power interface (acpi) pc". you've gotta open that up and change the driver to "standard pc".

after you do that you'll have to reboot and windows will make you re-install all drivers (in win2k most of them will auto-detect, but not sure about winxp). and that will turn off acpi, as well as acpi's death grip on the irq's it seems to like to force onto the same number.

about the lockup again...

i too have a sblive 5.1 and had the problems a lot when using mp3 programs and CS (of course, this is what i do 95% of the time when im on the computer to play or listen to music when animating). so yeah, i guess the sblive could have been conflicting, altho it always happened to me right after there was a large access to the hard drive, that's why i always related it to hard disk controller conflicting.

the sblive was one of those devices that shared number 9, so that could have been my problem. (i think there were at least 5 items sharing that irq)

[kardinal]

yeah when i was running 2kpro half my devices were on 9 and the other half were on 11. ill try it but like you said my irqs arent shared and it happens with audio goin on, so i actually think it may be SB conflicting.

[kardinal]

Dear customer,
Thanks for choosing ASUSTeK.
The temp issue is not caused by our motherboard, this should be the AMD processor, Please refer to the
following link with regard to the AMD thermal information. Under page 4 of the document it says that the
maximum die temperature is 95 degree celcius for 1100MHz and higher. http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/techdocs/pdf/23794.pdf.
The thermal resistor used for monitoring, is placed at different locations on both motherboards. It is closer to the
CPU on A7A266, thus registering a higher temperature. The temperature is actually more accurate with the
A7A266.
The BIOS version may affect the accuracy of the readings. 1004 for A7A266 is most accurate. at first, our early bios also report the temp is only 3X~40c, but this isn't the real reflection from the cpu temp, so
from the 1005 bios, the temp report is tuned according to actual temperature. though it seems too high as
6X~7X, but it is the real temp of cpu, and the user can do something if the cpu is overheat as fast as possible.
It should be more safety.
For further questions please do not hesitate to contact us again.


that is what asus told me when they replied

[SteenkyBastage]

yeah, since you changed bios and got a lower temp, i think it's ok at where you have it. i am pretty sure your daily lockup isn't heat related (otherwise it would only happen when you were stressing the cpu and not randomly). and would say it's just the tendancy for asus to have high temp readings.

man, i've gotta go home, it's almost 10 and i'm still "working".

good luck with the sblive thing.

hope that solved your temp crisis.

i'm off to cstrike for a half an hour or so and then hit da sack.