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70 degrees celcius.

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Sliver

Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2004
That's what my CPU hits after 5 minutes of Prime 95. At stock settings. There are two things that I think are doing this.

1. My dirt cheap second hand motherboard.

2. The mystery power supply.

See, it's started doing this after my PSU died and took the motherboard (my NICE A7N8X-E Delux motherboard) with it. And so I got two new parts. the PSU which is a 450 watt from new egg. And the motherboard, which is an extra one my uncle wasn't using. My knee jerk reaction is to blame the motherboard. It sucks beyond all reason. It's a biostar that supports for SD and DDR RAM, and only goes at 4x AGP. JUST the switch in motherboards cut 4k off my 3dmark scores. which went from 12k to 8k. I also have next to no control over memory timings or CPU voltage. (But I think I may have found something that will let me mess with the FSB.) Maybe the board is just so old it wasnt made to support the T-Breds. I honestly don't know.

But then again, I've seen this kind of problem happen TWICE before. And both times it was the PSU. I noticed my old Athlon XP 1600+ was hitting 70c and overheating to the point where just to keep it stable in WINDOWS so I could browse the net, I had to stack two CPU fans on top of eachother and keep the side of the case off. When I popped in the new 420 watt PSU the CPU dropped to 50c and was rock solid. Then I went and tried out the 350 watt in my brothers comp and guess what, same problem. I can't see what would cause it.(I'm 90% sure this is the PSU I'm using.) But I really don't want to think that I need to replace a brand new power supply (Got it a few months ago but still over a month old so I can't get the free replacement.) :(


I've already checked the fan/heatsink. And after blowing off all the dust and making sure the heatsink was sitting right, and that the fan works, there was no change. The fan and heatsink seem to be sitting right and in perfect working order.

Another thing is that despite the temps my CPU hit, I've never seen ANY instability of any kind. It wasn't until I saw the temps after a reset in the bios that I saw the problem and proceded to defecate in my pants. So MAYBE, the temp monitor is broken, but I am not quite sure how to tell.

If anyone has any ideas where to start looking I'm all ears.
 
it may also be that the temp reading from your motherbaord is wrong, happens alot on older cheaper boards
 
Yeah, thats the only other explanation I can think of. Unless you aren't getting enough exaughst air. I don't think there is any real way that a psu or motherbard could effect your temps that much, unless the temp probe is broken. Get a real temp probe and use that. Its a good idea anyways, as motherboard probes are never very acurate.
 
aeiou said:
Yeah, thats the only other explanation I can think of. Unless you aren't getting enough exaughst air. I don't think there is any real way that a psu or motherbard could effect your temps that much, unless the temp probe is broken. Get a real temp probe and use that. Its a good idea anyways, as motherboard probes are never very acurate.

So, asuming it's the temp probe I need to get another one to compare. Where do I get one and how much does it cost? Is there any way I can test it right now without buying anything?

If it IS the temp monitor that's the best cace scenario. I'll tell you that right now.
 
Just open up your case, fire up Prime for your five minutes, and then touch the heatsink quickly. If it is really running at 70C your heatsink will be very hot.

Or, if the heatsink is cool, it could just not be seated correctly.
 
Well. Asuming I were to try this. Exactly how can I tell between 50c and 70c by touching the heatsink really quick with my finger?
 
Sliver said:
Well. Asuming I were to try this. Exactly how can I tell between 50c and 70c by touching the heatsink really quick with my finger?
You should be able to hold onto your heatsink, indefinitely.

The heatsink (with active cooling) will always be cooler then the processor core itself.

If it is too hot to keep your finger on it for more then 5secs then your processor will be roasting.

If however, it feels cool when you touch it then it means that either your temperature sensor has gone nuts, or that your heatsink is not mounted correctly.

This isn't exactly the most high tech way of testing, but it is quick and free, and should help diagnose the problem.
 
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