Please help me save my CPU

Wow, has this been a nightmare.

This zalmain HSF has been making an annoying noise, which I thought I could get rid of by manually stopping and starting (i.e plunging my thumb into the middle to stop it) - seems that it didn't like that, and after a week or so, a FIN broke off - now I'm stuck with an even noisier, hopeless stock fan.

the sink

the missing fin

The stock one (thank God I had a working HSF at all) runs a little faster, but is HOPELESS. 24c case temperature, launching firefox can push it from 56c idle to 62c. A virtualdub will get it going up to 74.

I did the old "wipe down the cpu and sinks' old paste, put a blob on the middle of the cpu and attach the HSF", so I've done the right thing there. It's going to take me time to find a sink that I can install myself as I'm pretty immobile. That zalmain was a pain, as it had to be screwed down by a see-saw like device - you'd screw down one side, and the other would have to be really held down, and you had no way of holding the thing. Even the stock one was hard, I had no idea how to get the levers to work, just clipped the thing in place.

How can I keep this CPU cool until I can get a new sink? Tried underclocking it to 1.5, no temp change. About this thermal throttling, my manual says:

CPU THRM-throttling

this item controls the cpu speed by cutting down its regular power to a percentage during the suspend to ram state

Click to expand...

Wow, so thermal throttling only works when you put the thing in standby? That's useful!

Nowhere you can tell it at what temp to throttle, either...

What's worse is that it's winter here, and that means in order for me to not freeze my *** off, the case temp can get to 33c. Now if this thing idles at 56 at 26 case temp, then at 33c, I hate to think what temp it will get to...

How can I work this damn throttling? Is there a program that may allow me to control it? Is underclocking meant to make the cpu run cooler? Short of leaving the thing off, how can I have this thing survive until I can get a HSF?

And finally, WHAT brand cooler is EASY enough for an IDIOT to install, no clips, screws, or any of that junk. And you can tell how much of an idiot I am going by the fact that I ruined a perfectly good sink (which always kept the thing below 65c) by trying to shut it up, managing to knock a FIN off!

Do you have an extra 120mm fan? You could jerry rig it so that it sits above the heat sink and blows on it for a temporary fix.

Unfortunately every HSF assembly will have some type of screws or clips for installation but believe me any Idiot can install one! I would try Robot's method if at all possible otherwise I would suggest buying any cheapo HSF to keep you up and running.

hot glue gun? lol

Mr. Roboto said:

Do you have an extra 120mm fan? You could jerry rig it so that it sits above the heat sink and blows on it for a temporary fix.

Click to expand...

Can't attach it to the sink as the fins are too brittle and thin. Torrents checking existing data heat this thing up to 66c, and that's still at 26 case temp. Once the case temp gets higher, should I see the cpu temp, with the stock, rising only marginally (happened with the zalmain)? Theres a 120mm intake only a couple of inches from the HSF.

I reckon ideally, I'd go with the same kind of zalmain. I mean, at least I have had experience in installing it. I must say it was easier than that thermaltake... with those levers, ugh...

I'm going to leave this thing running, just to see how it copes with rising room temp, and do an audacity recording overnight, and see how it heats the thing up when encoding. It's idling far below the 70(?) "limit", so I should be safe for keeping it on...

One thing though, is there any more insight you can give me into hyperthreading? Honestly, what I quoted in the manual is the only mention of it in the BIOS. I remember a program where you could adjust it, but damned if I remember where that was from...

There is a fan mod, where the fan from the zalman sink is taken off, and reaplced with a different fan.


theres a thread somewhere i think.

They make replacement fans. Here is a site that has alot of the Zalman replacement fans...

http://www.sharkacomputers.com/cpucoolprod.html

invictius said:

Can't attach it to the sink as the fins are too brittle and thin.

Click to expand...

Pfft, nonsense. I've modded a 120mm onto a CNPS7500 (What a horrible cooler), using only some metal wire. Spend an hour on it, and you'll fix it, or buy an F7P for $30.

Freezer7Pro said:

Pfft, nonsense. I've modded a 120mm onto a CNPS7500 (What a horrible cooler), using only some metal wire. Spend an hour on it, and you'll fix it, or buy an F7P for $30.

Click to expand...

Hmm, not sure how to anchor such a thing... not sure what to tie it onto? And wouldn't it still vibrate?

All fans vibrate, but just about any fan vibrates less than your broken fan. Just take it off, and use the cooler's "V-shaped" design to anchor a new fan. Or get a new cooler, or even a replacement fan.

invictius said:

Wow, so thermal throttling only works when you put the thing in standby? That's useful!

Click to expand...

The name your looking for is Thermal Monitor it does reduce your cpu speed and voltage when the pc is running hot.

I tested a E 8400 and it's 94c

LINK http://download.intel.com/design/processor/datashts/318732.pdf

Thermal Monitor
The Thermal Monitor feature helps control the processor temperature by activating the
thermal control circuit (TCC) when the processor silicon reaches its maximum operating
temperature. The TCC reduces processor power consumption by modulating (starting
and stopping) the internal processor core clocks. The Thermal Monitor feature must
be enabled for the processor to be operating within specifications. The
temperature at which Thermal Monitor activates the thermal control circuit is not user
configurable and is not software visible. Bus traffic is snooped in the normal manner,
and interrupt requests are latched (and serviced during the time that the clocks are on)
while the TCC is active.
When the Thermal Monitor feature is enabled, and a high temperature situation exists
(i.e., TCC is active), the clocks will be modulated by alternately turning the clocks off
and on at a duty cycle specific to the processor (typically 30–50%). Clocks often will
not be off for more than 3.0 microseconds when the TCC is active. Cycle times are
processor speed dependent and will decrease as processor core frequencies increase. A
small amount of hysteresis has been included to prevent rapid active/inactive
transitions of the TCC when the processor temperature is near its maximum operating
temperature. Once the temperature has dropped below the maximum operating
temperature, and the hysteresis timer has expired, the TCC goes inactive and clock
modulation ceases.
With a properly designed and characterized thermal solution, it is anticipated that the
TCC would only be activated for very short periods of time when running the most
power intensive applications. The processor performance impact due to these brief

Can't attach it to the sink as the fins are too brittle and thin

Click to expand...

You could hot glue a new fan onto it no problem. Copper isnt brittle at all, it's quite malleable in fact. That's why they make wires out of it.

Mr. Roboto said:

You could hot glue a new fan onto it no problem. Copper isnt brittle at all, it's quite malleable in fact. That's why they make wires out of it.

Click to expand...

The glue wouldnt melt due to the heatsink temp?

And, I guess it would have been a good idea to keep the screw for the 2nd clamp it just fell into the case, can't find it

Oh, you see how the fan "sinks" into the heatsink? Would, say, an 80mm, mounted closer to the cpu, be more effective?

And how can I tell if any of my fans are spinning slower than the original?

wingman99 said:

The name your looking for is Thermal Monitor it does reduce your cpu speed and voltage when the pc is running hot.

I tested a E 8400 and it's 94c

Click to expand...

Hmm, ok, I thought suspend to ram was some sort of sleep state. Is there any program to monitor when thermal monitoring kicks in? I have it disabled because, I thought it reaches high temps all the time, thermal throttling will always be on...

invictius said:

The glue wouldnt melt due to the heatsink temp?

And, I guess it would have been a good idea to keep the screw for the 2nd clamp it just fell into the case, can't find it

Oh, you see how the fan "sinks" into the heatsink? Would, say, an 80mm, mounted closer to the cpu, be more effective?

And how can I tell if any of my fans are spinning slower than the original?

Click to expand...

If you heatsink is getting that hot, than there are other problems. Heatsinks should only get a little warm if run with the correct fan, if it is hot, than you need a new sink

invictius said:

The glue wouldnt melt due to the heatsink temp?

And, I guess it would have been a good idea to keep the screw for the 2nd clamp it just fell into the case, can't find it

Oh, you see how the fan "sinks" into the heatsink? Would, say, an 80mm, mounted closer to the cpu, be more effective?

And how can I tell if any of my fans are spinning slower than the original?

Click to expand...

It shouldn't get that hot. Also, if your fans have a tach output, and are plugged directly into the motherboard, you should be able to see the exact speed they are rotating at with a program like Everest.

Mr. Roboto said:

It shouldn't get that hot. Also, if your fans have a tach output, and are plugged directly into the motherboard, you should be able to see the exact speed they are rotating at with a program like Everest.

Click to expand...

Ok, looks like until I do this, I need to use throttling, but something confuses me in enabling it in the BIOS.

It says "CPU THRM throttling - xx.x%" (you can choose 50/25/75% disabled)... now does this mean if I set it at say, 25%, my cpu will be throttled to 25% of its normal speed, or throttled 25% LESS than its normal speed?

While I'm at it, at what temp does throttling kick in?

And, I remember using some util to be able to control by software how many mhz it would be throttled to (I remember being able to just use a slider to bring the CPU down to 400mhz) - rightmark won't do this, what program does?

^^ yes

which I thought I could get rid of by manually stopping and starting (i.e plunging my thumb into the middle to stop it)

Click to expand...

the worse thing you can do, cause your forcing it to stop while it wants to run, this will kill it.

Mr.Guvernment said:

^^ yes



the worse thing you can do, cause your forcing it to stop while it wants to run, this will kill it.

Click to expand...

This is the second time I've found this one out, so both of them must have been pretty noisy to force me to do such an act...

Anyway, I've read that with prescotts, throttling starts at 70c, but it starts at 80 with mine. Coincindently, my "cpu warning temperature" in the BIOS is 80. Is this adjusting throttling, or is the temperature non-adjustable? (seeing I actually WANT the thing working...)

just buy a thermalright U120-Extreme, my not be easier but it sounds like it will be