prescott running hot as an oven and no chipset fan

I have a p4 3ghz prescott, 4x512mb ddr400 ram, 4 hard drives (2x160 ide, 2x200 sata), antec sonata case, abit ic7-g mobo and a geforce 6800 standard.

At 0 load, the prescott runs at 53-62c, and can shoot up 5 degrees with only 5% load put on it for a few seconds. At full load, it gets up to 75c. I have a volcano 7+ xaser edition (copper heatsink i think) where the fan can run up to 6000 rpm, but its way too noisy at that speed, so I run it at 3000. The chipset fan on my mobo has virtually died, i can only get it to run at 200rpm max, and its noisy as hell, so i have a 120mm fan about 5cm from it trying to blow some cool air on it. The chipset runs at 46 at 0 load, 55 at full load. Hard drives stay at about 35-40c, and up to 48c when one is being read (one warms up the others). To replace the chipset fan, apparently i have to ship the whole board back.

Is the cpu running too hot? Is the chipset running too hot? What about the hard drives? I have a "badong" heatpipe, with one end sucking air in from outside the case, and the other end mounted over the cpu fan (though it doesn't quite fit) and 2 fans at the rear sucking air in, 1 external, 1 internal, right at the rear of the case. I also have a 120mm blowing air onto the hard drives. I think the main problem is having a sonata case, thick aluminum, and the drives are mounted only 2cm or so apart from each other, and theres no way for the heat from them to escape. Theres no real way for the warm air to escape the case, because theres just nowhere to put a fan to blow that air out. I had someone drill some ventilation holes in the cases side panels, and attempt to mount a few fans so there was proper ventilation, but they gave up half way through the job and i spent a week putting the pc back together, so i'm reluctant to do anything major inside the case.

With the temperatures I've described, is my mobo/cpu/drives going to meet an untimely death? Also, should i remove the chipset heatsink/fan, and is the fan on it even nessecary? I think the early pentium-1's ran at a much hotter temperature, without a fan, and they never seemed to die early...

yes, the CPU is running too hot. At that temp, your CPU is probably throttling to save itself from burning up. That heatsink is not very good for a Prescott to begin with and running the fan slower does not help at all. I would recommend you get a better heatsink.

Rearrange the fans at the rear of the case to become exhaust, see if that helps.

I would replace the northbridge heatsink with a passive one like the Zalman NB-47J.

your hard drives are within operating temp specifications but I would expect their life to be shortened if they are kept running at 48c on a consistent basis.

the Sonata has ONE fan which is probably the cause. If you want something cheap yet still quiet, get the slk-3000B but I like the P160 (both from antec) better because of the functionality. I'd also get a better heatsink like a thermaltake big typhoon or a scythe ninja with a delta. Your northbridge could be replaced with a MicroCool Northpole if you'd like. The fan from the P160(not sure but i think you have to buy one cause it only comes with one) on the front should blow sufficient amounts of air over the hard drives.

-1cem4n

Know Nuttin said:

yes, the CPU is running too hot. At that temp, your CPU is probably throttling to save itself from burning up. That heatsink is not very good for a Prescott to begin with and running the fan slower does not help at all. I would recommend you get a better heatsink.

Rearrange the fans at the rear of the case to become exhaust, see if that helps.

I would replace the northbridge heatsink with a passive one like the Zalman NB-47J.

your hard drives are within operating temp specifications but I would expect their life to be shortened if they are kept running at 48c on a consistent basis.

Click to expand...

I've disabled throttling so I don't have a performance loss in games etc, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't my cpu temps within intel specs for operating temperatures? (still not pleased with the current temperature though)

Oh yeah, the power supply temperature is 62c. The hard drives only run at 48 when they are being really churned, normal temp for them is 35-40. If I have the fan at full speed, it only makes 4-7 degrees difference. I would mount an exhaust fan at the rear, but the thing is, the heatpipe is mounter there, and theres nowhere else to mount it, so that option's out, and before I installed the heatpipe, the cpu was getting up to 85 at full load. Is the chipset running too hot, or shouldn't I worry about it unless the system becomes unstable? In fact, why are the temperatures as problem as long as the system is stable? (apart from cpu etc life). Anyone is welcome to comment on this.

it is within spec's if throttling is enabled. If you disabled throttling, you are burning your CPU up.

electronics can withstand high heat but they aren't really designed to withstand them for long periods of time. You may be stable now but you may not be able to POST tomorrow. Instability is not the only bad thing that can happen from high temps.

Get a new case, heatsink, chipset heatsink if you feel like it.

-1cem4n

Know Nuttin said:

it is within spec's if throttling is enabled. If you disabled throttling, you are burning your CPU up.

electronics can withstand high heat but they aren't really designed to withstand them for long periods of time. You may be stable now but you may not be able to POST tomorrow. Instability is not the only bad thing that can happen from high temps.

Click to expand...

My cpu is at load maybe 4 hours out of 24, MAX, more likely 2 hours, but most of the time, its at 0 load, 24/7, so i wouldn't say its undergoing high temps for long periods of time. Hopefully the same is true for the chipset. If i open up the side panel, and put a 40cm desk fan next to the side, hard drives go down to 30c, cpu is 53 at 0 load, 67 at full load, chipset is about 40-45.

If i drill a bunch of holes in my side panel, and when the cpu is at full load, position the desk fan at the side when I'm going to be using cpu intensive tasks, that might be a temporary measure until i can get my case properly sorted. The main problem with the hard drives is that theres 4 of them, and their so close together, and a few millimeteres from them is a sheet of thick aluminum (the side panel) would drilling holes on the side panel near the drives position help? Or maybe mount a few 120mm case fans on the outside of the case, with the air coming through the drilled holes.

Before, to keep things in check, i had a 40cm desk fan at the rear of the pc, running 24/7, particle board and cardboard surrounding it to control the airflow, i thought this was a fire hazard, so after 10 months i decided not to do it. It only dropped temps by 5c anyway.

I understant it seems like i'm ignoring suggestions to install new fans, heatsinks etc, but i've had a lot of badluck when it comes to fiddling with the inside of a case (except for installing new drives, ram etc). I would gladly pay a tech $100 to do it for me, or just drill the holes and ventilate the case externally. A great solution would be to buy a whole new case, but the last time I put a system into a new case, i spent days getting it up and running. If i get a tech to do it, they would take my main system off me for a couple of weeks, and would no doubt be wary of touching it because i can't prove that i have a legit copy of xp.

In addition to my solutions above, i have 3 5 1/4 drive bays, the top one une unused, could i use a few 40mm fans as a means to bring cool air in to the pc? This would be pretty easy to do, as i would either have to mount a big *** fan on the side panel for air intake, and the hard drives at the front of the case block the front fan from getting cool air, and since the hard drives are warm, any air would be warm anyway. Would a few fans at the top of my drive bays be adequate for geting cool air into my system?

So you say you have the Sonata but I dont' understand how you have 2 rear fans...

can you post a picture of the innards of your PC?

Also, you can install a 120mm in the front for intake, that may help cool the hard drives down, as well as the rest of your system.

Electronics do not need to be exposed to high temps long to be damaged beyond repair. The only reason Intel put throttling into the CPU was to protect itself from such potentially hazardous situations.

It's very easy to cut a hole in the side of your case side panel to bring air in. I'm sure a metal shop would do it for cheap. Maybe that is an option since you're uncomfortable doing so yourself?

Please get a better HSF before your CPU dies. But the real issue is airflow, and you have none.

And while you're waiting take of the side panel.

Know Nuttin said:

So you say you have the Sonata but I dont' understand how you have 2 rear fans...

can you post a picture of the innards of your PC?

Also, you can install a 120mm in the front for intake, that may help cool the hard drives down, as well as the rest of your system.

Electronics do not need to be exposed to high temps long to be damaged beyond repair. The only reason Intel put throttling into the CPU was to protect itself from such potentially hazardous situations.

It's very easy to cut a hole in the side of your case side panel to bring air in. I'm sure a metal shop would do it for cheap. Maybe that is an option since you're uncomfortable doing so yourself?

Click to expand...

I have an 80mm fan inside the case, on top of my video card. I have another 80mm fan outside the case, sitting on top of the AT power supply (380watt antec that comes with the case wouldnt cut it to power 4 fans, 6 drives, and a gf 6800).

Would drilling holes for a fan, and cutting a big hole for a fan make any difference? Its just that the former option is free. I'm also considering only using this system for gaming, but then again, i've heard that turning a system on and off all the time shortens its life too...

for gaming, it's even worse, as you are now adding the video card into the high heat producing component mix, as opposed to just something that is only CPU intensive.

Again, it's hard to get a real idea of your setup without a picture. Can you possibly get one or two?

There are many ways to get your system cool without costing alot of money. Mostly time. A picture will help for sure in getting a better idea of how to do so.

He could put 10 120mm fans in the case and he's not gonna get the CPU temps down with that Volcano. It needs at least a XP120.

If you are OC'd turn it down, and enable the Throttling. it is there for a reason. By turning it off, you are increasing instability, and seriously degrading the life of the CPU. It will also heat up the surrounding components like the caps, mosfets, and pll's and may also take your board out. 2-4 hours of load at 70+ temps IS a long period of time. A short period would be like 5 minutes max for benching.

Electricity does not flow right at high temps. Increased temps causes resistence to go up further increasing the heat, and it's a vicious circle. Cooling is the first thing you should get straight before putting any kind of a serious load on a system. Gaming is what will bring a system to it's knees. Gaming a system that is overheating will destroy one.

Do anything you can until you can get a cooler on that thing that will keep it below 60 full load, and preferably 50 full load. Take the case side off remove the mobo from the case and put fans on both sides, turn the OC down, etc..., but you definitely need better cooling on the CPU.

I dont think this has been brought up, but how is your cable management. Poor airflow is only compounded by cables in the way.

You might consider under volting and under clocking until you resolve this....

Know Nuttin said:

for gaming, it's even worse, as you are now adding the video card into the high heat producing component mix, as opposed to just something that is only CPU intensive.

Again, it's hard to get a real idea of your setup without a picture. Can you possibly get one or two?

There are many ways to get your system cool without costing alot of money. Mostly time. A picture will help for sure in getting a better idea of how to do so.

Click to expand...

These pics are excluding a couple of fans... imagine an 80mm, at the inside rear of the case, sitting on top of the video card, suck air towards the front, and a 120mm positioned diagonally, near the end of the video card, with the top reaching the heatpipe, pointing air towards the cpu and chipset. Sorry i dont have pics of these 2 fans included, but its a ***** to set up my capture card, i dont have a webcam, and to capture the images i would have to charge up my video camera.

EDIT: gah, the attachments arent showing up, here are the links to the pics... also, i know i should cable tie the wires, but its a pain to cut and re-tie them when you need to move molex connectors etc to another location... the last time someone cable tied stuff for me, the molexes wouldnt even reach the places they were needed...

here and here AND here

bump and solidsnake if you see this post some tips for him cause you have cable management to a science.

3DFlyer said:

He could put 10 120mm fans in the case and he's not gonna get the CPU temps down with that Volcano. It needs at least a XP120.

If you are OC'd turn it down, and enable the Throttling. it is there for a reason. By turning it off, you are increasing instability, and seriously degrading the life of the CPU. It will also heat up the surrounding components like the caps, mosfets, and pll's and may also take your board out. 2-4 hours of load at 70+ temps IS a long period of time. A short period would be like 5 minutes max for benching.

Electricity does not flow right at high temps. Increased temps causes resistence to go up further increasing the heat, and it's a vicious circle. Cooling is the first thing you should get straight before putting any kind of a serious load on a system. Gaming is what will bring a system to it's knees. Gaming a system that is overheating will destroy one.

Do anything you can until you can get a cooler on that thing that will keep it below 60 full load, and preferably 50 full load. Take the case side off remove the mobo from the case and put fans on both sides, turn the OC down, etc..., but you definitely need better cooling on the CPU.

Click to expand...

I've just installed 3 80mm fans (outside the case on the side panel, but with holes drilled to allow air in) so hopefully that will cool the case down. When i get the chance, I'm going to remove the heatpipe and install a 120mm at the back (the heatpipe is blocking rear airflow atm). Either that or move the heatpipe to enter at the side panel as well. BTW, i think i have a volcano 11+, if that makes any difference. Maybe i should be applying more thermal paste? I had a pro at cooling install the new hsf, so i reckon he would have applied enough paste. Does airflow HAVE to be "in from the front, out at the back" or can i have it coming in and out from the front side, and out from the rear side? That would help matters a lot, all i would have to do is reverse a couple of these fans. When i get a 4th 80mm fan, for near the pci cards, should I have it sucking air in, or blowing out? (considering the gf 6800 has a fan) Also, the power supply temp is 63c, i'm guessing thats too hot? Maybe because thats the only way for warm air to escape atm, or am i overloading the supply? Would i get crashes/shutdowns/sparks if its being overloaded?

The cpu is at 65 full load, for now, so thats a start

wow, you need some serious cable management. Holy shnikies!!

More thermal paste isn't necessarily better. You don't need much, it's not like cake icing.

Case air flow normally would normally have air coming in from the front/side and exhausting out the rear/top. Other variations have worked though so it's not a commandment to have it set up a certain way.

Do you keep referring to the CPU ducting as the "heatpipe"? That's what got me confused from your first couple of posts. If you are, it's incorrect, it is not a heatpipe. Just to avoid further confusion.

adding more fans is not always the solution. Proper placement and cable management is very important. Putting a fan in, while blocking it with cables, is pretty much useless. Do some cable management first, then strategically place fans and see the results.

Know Nuttin said:

wow, you need some serious cable management. Holy shnikies!!

More thermal paste isn't necessarily better. You don't need much, it's not like cake icing.

Case air flow normally would normally have air coming in from the front/side and exhausting out the rear/top. Other variations have worked though so it's not a commandment to have it set up a certain way.

Do you keep referring to the CPU ducting as the "heatpipe"? That's what got me confused from your first couple of posts. If you are, it's incorrect, it is not a heatpipe. Just to avoid further confusion.

adding more fans is not always the solution. Proper placement and cable management is very important. Putting a fan in, while blocking it with cables, is pretty much useless. Do some cable management first, then strategically place fans and see the results.

Click to expand...

Yup, when i say heatpipe, i mean cpu ducting. I couldn't find the proper word for it at the time.

I thought i might get a few comments about the cables any idea on how to tie them without having to cut them each time i need a molex plug in another location?

BTW, i did an accidental test tonight. I unknowingly left a game running in the background, leaving the cpu at max (well, 50%, since HT is enabled, it never hits "100%") and the cpu stayed at 64, chipset 50, and power supply (i think) 54. Someone said they wouldnt leave a cpu going above 70 for more than 5 minutes (benchmarking) are these figures close enough? I left it running for 5 hours. I figured that even though my wiring is a mess, this was a big improvement (normally cpu would be 70-75, chipset 55) and still there's no exhaust for the warm air. Are these approaching acceptable temperatures? From whats posted, i know the cpu is pretty reasonable, but my main concern is the chipset and power supply.

Know Nuttin, you said get my cables managed first, then "strategicly" place fans... i placed the fans first, but in locations i thought most needed cool air (hard drives, chipset, cpu) once i get the cables managed, will this be OK, or should i have waited and mounted the fans away from cables as well? (there isnt any chance of wires getting stuck in the fans, their all external, since theres no room for them inside, at least for the hard drive ones). I have holes drilled ready to position a fan near the cards, with an emphasis on the geforce 6800, should this be sucking air in, or blowing out? Also, does having lots of little holes drilled and having the fans externally make much difference compared to having a big circular hole, the same size as the fan, and having the fans external?

3dflyer, /me probably should underclock until i get cables and cooling PROPERLY sorted, though i'm pretty impressed with temps as they are now, bearing in mind the cpu is a 3ghz prescott, how much could i underclock to, without hardly noticing a speed decrease? Here are the voltages, if it makes any difference:

vcoreA: 1.34
vcoreB: 2.54
+3.3: 3.23
+5: 4.92
+12: 11.67
-12: -8.41
-5: -2.99
+5VSB: 5.48
VBAT: 3.25

Whats the normal RPM for a case fan? The 3 i brought 2800-3500, though their molex, so the speed isn't variable

Thanks everyone for their patience so far.

that 50% is misleading, you were probably using more than 50%.

That may be the best placement but with those cables all in the way, you just never know.

One way to cable manage is to mount your hard drives in backwards. So instead of the connector end facing the open side panel, have it facing the other one. I'm not sure if there is room for the SATA cables or not though, I don't have that particular case and haven't used it with SATA drives.

cable routing is pretty tough to describe. sometimes, the best way is not the direct way. route cables along the edges of the case. Use ties to hold them together. Sometimes, bunching them together into a ball is not as good as stretching them out and tying them in a longer strand, if that makes any sense.

if you want, you can run your fans at 5v or 7v, this is easiest done when fans are using molex connections. you will lose airflow but they will be quieter.

your chipset is rather high, imo. that is probably a consequence of the cabling.

jesus christ, are you listening? no offense but we keep saying the same thing over and over and you keep asking the same questions. lol how much are you willing to spend to get the temps down? my suggestion(and i said this before) is to get a NEW case, NEW heatsink, NEW northbridge cooler, More case fans.

-Antec P160
-XP120 w/ Delta Tri-Blade
-Zalman Passive NB Cooler
-new fan grills
-clean up the wiring(sleaving and hiding it behind the motherboard

cut your fan grills off and put something like this on: http://www.frozencpu.com/ffg-06.html

get a sleaving kit or something and start sleaving ALL your cables and then hiding them

-1cem4n