P4 3.06 Hole in IHS and thermal spikes

I thought I'd be 'smart' and put a 478 P4 3.06Ghz processor in an old Sony VAIO All-In-One...

The case is a thermal nightmare. I got the best 478 heatsink Newegg had to offer... Used Phoebe Thermal paste and even had to cut the case to get the eat sink to fit...

I've noticed two things that have me 'interested'.

First, there's a small hole drilled in the heat spreader and it appears that the space inside the processor is 'empty'. I was wondering if there was ever any thermal goop inside the processor? Whether anyone has tried to put anything in there or not. Good idea or bad?

Which brings me to the second issue. I am seeing what appears to be thermal spikes when doing videos. It appears that the processor temp jump to the mid 50'a and then settles back down. But, always near 50 for video. It's the delay between the initial temp spike that's making me think something's wrong with the heat spreader.

Obviously... I can't exactly overclock (or even under-clock) on a Sony MB as the bios is so completely locked down.

But, I would like to be able to run full bore without hitting that magic 57c and black screen.

So... Does the little hole in the top of the Processor indicate a 'cut-out' like the old unsold vinyl did. Or, is it really nothing to worry about? (I honestly don't remember seeing 'holes' when I worked at Intel as a contract tech...)

Does the delay in thermal settling, with a load change, indicate that the internal connection in the heat spreader may be flawed?

Has anyone tried adding thermal goop to the innards of processor? Just curious? P4's are getting a bit rare and I'd hate to kill an otherwise functional computer. Especially one that has such a sweet display...

Why? Being 60 I am a little sensitive about 'obsolescence'...

The hole in the P4's heat spreader is a result of the manufacturing process. The IHS is glued to the processor substrate with epoxy at the Intel plant. The hole allows gases and pressure to escape while the epoxy cures. Without the hole the pressure would deform the epoxy bond and make the connection between substrate and IHS uneven. It's perfectly safe to cover and/or fill it with thermal paste / TIM.

And TjMax (Thermal Junction / TJunction Max) for the P4 is ~100C w/ max. Tcase at 69C, so even if the 57C you're seeing is Tcase (CPU Temp as read by some software), the distance to max. is 12C while distance to TjMax is ~43C.

redduc900 said:

The hole in the P4's heat spreader is a result of the manufacturing process. The IHS is glued to the processor substrate with epoxy at the Intel plant. The hole allows gases and pressure to escape while the epoxy cures. Without the hole the pressure would deform the epoxy bond and make the connection between substrate and IHS uneven. It's perfectly safe to cover and/or fill it with thermal paste / TIM.

And TjMax (Thermal Junction / TJunction Max) for the P4 is ~100C w/ max. Tcase at 69C, so even if the 57C you're seeing is Tcase (CPU Temp as read by some software), the distance to max. is 12C while distance to TjMax is ~43C.

Click to expand...

darn beat me to it! long story short P4's run hot anyways, and the hole IS supposed to be there.

Thanks... I had a reboot where SpeedFan was still reading 57c when it came up. I still don't know what was going on to make the processor spike that high.

When the Display is leaned back to a good viewing angle the distance between the heat sink fan and the back of the display is about 0.5 inches. Also, the fan is sucking into the heat sink.

I plan to enlarge the hole at the side of the case and add a fan blowing into the case and turn the heat sink fan over so that it pulls air through the heat sink. Lastly, I will take the finger guard off the heat sink fan and that will gain almost another 1/8 inch clearance with the display leaned back.

I may have no other choice but to add a keyboard at desk level and elevate the display to maintain good clearance.

The heat sink is a masscool 9T370B1M3G If there's something better I am open to suggestions.

http://www.houseofmyrrh.com/vaio_front.jpg Sony VAIO All-In-One
http://www.houseofmyrrh.com/vaio_open.jpg Display Straight Up and Down
http://www.houseofmyrrh.com/vaio_closed.jpg Display Leaned Back

I would just uninstall Speedfan and instead use either Core Temp or Real Temp to monitor the core temp's (Tjunction). The case temp. (Tcase / CPU Temp.) doesn't really tell you much of anything.

As far as I know neither RealTemp or CoreTemp allows me to control the Fan Speed.

I will see how close the temps are between the programs...

The Sony BIOS runs the fans at idle until the processor is already much hotter than I want it to be. Leaving no head room for short term heavy loads. This is why it was given to me, w/out CPU upgrade, was it kept rebooting. With what I've seen... This box could never not have had a thermal problem.

I've been running then all at 100%. It's a bit noisy but not so bad as to make me not want to run the computer.

Honestly, I don't know how Sony ever marketed this thing. I's a great idea, maybe, for a consumer's media device.

Of course... Can't argue with free...