Holy !!! - Proof CPU's can handle HEAT

[ps2cho]

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1205470

Holy CRAP!!

I'll quote what you need to read:

I just recently installed a new upgrade into my computer. An AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ was the CPU I chose. I've been fooling around and trying stuff out and it performs fantastically, but I have a bit of an issue. I'm part of a group for distributed.net, which is similar to the Folding@Home situation. CPUs run at 100% whenever they can to help achieve something. I was planning on overclocking my CPU to improve the number of keys I could crack in distributed, knowing that the 3800+ is well-known for overclockability, but decided to check my CPU temperature to see how much room I had. Sisoft SANDRA 2007 reports my CPU temperature to be at 113 degrees Celsius (254 Fahrenheit) when being under 100% load after a few hours. I saw this and I almost flipped! That seems incredibly high, and my comp should have blew up by now. I stopped distributed from running and after a few minutes checked again. My CPU temp was down to 65 idle. Right now it's at 50C idle.

This seems like it could really damage my computer. Last time I heard, your CPU shouldn't be over 50C period to ensure you don't shorten its lifespan. I'd appreciate some input here. I'd like to know how much damage I've already done and if I should consider getting extra cooling and maybe underclocking a bit.

Okay, I went into my BIOS and got this info from the PC Health area:

CPU Tcontrol: 65C
System Temperature: 61C
CPU Fan Speed: 0 RPM
System Fan Speed: 3020 RPM
CPU Vcore: 1.23V
VDIMM: 1.87V

The fan speeds reminded me of an issue I faced while assembling the parts. The CPU fan's power connector has 3 pin holes. The CPU fan power connector on the motherboard has 2 pins. I asked my more knowledgable friend over MSN about this and he said to look for an alternative for plugging the power connector into. I asked him if the "AUX power" connector on the motherboard, which had 3 pins like the CPU's, would be okay, and he said it would. So I took his word for it and plugged the CPU fan into the AUX power connector on the motherboard.

Therefore, the CPU fan is running at 3000 RPM right now. This seems low because when I was in my brother's computer's BIOS I remember his fan running at 4700 RPM. Maybe this is the reason my CPU is overheating?

It sounds like your monitoring software is reading temps incorrectly...unless...you did use thermal paste, right?

I didn't use thermal paste/thermal grease...

All right. I'll make sure I get some ASAP. Thanks guys.

Found the problem:

Upon reading the manual, I noticed that it mentions thermal paste being already applied. I unmounted the heatsink, and checked for it. There was this thick solid plastic cover still attacked to the bottom of the heatsink! Apparently, I went a little too quickly while assembling the parts and didn't notice the plastic covering. This was the first time I've put together a new CPU and motherbaord in my computer myself (the alst time I did, I was 13 and had my dad assemble that), so I can use that as an exuse I guess . Either way, I was an idiot and in the future I'll go slower and check for plastic coverings on CPUs prior to putting them onto a motherboard.

I removed the plastic, it wasn't melted in any way (thank god), and now Sisoft SANDRA reports the idle temp to be 29 C down from 67 C. As for peak temp, 10 mins of full load has the CPU running at a cool 38 C down from the 113 C earlier. I have plenty of overclocking room now. ^_^ Though I do plan on buying a few fans and a high quality thermal paste in the future just for good measure.

p.s. To the guy who asked about cut-off temperatures in X2's, I noticed in my BIOS that the default cut out temperatures were disabled by default. To all people owning EliteGroup Sys (ECS) motherboards, I advise you check your BIOS's concerning the cut-off temps.

113c !!! THATS CRAZY!

If this really did occur, this shows you that the CPU's can handle heat for SHORT PERIODS OF TIME. It's not going to kill her! Long periods of time though is a different story.

It would actually be interesting if someone did a test where they made the CPU do full load at like 125c and see how long it took for the CPU to fail. (full orthos 24/7 til it died).

 

[nd4spdbh2]

WOW thats hot lol... my friend has a E6400 and with the stock cooler he didnt get all 4 pins in the mobo so there was super poor contact... needless to say it loaded at about 90*c while playing WOW (i dont play wow and never will dumbest game ever) and he probably played a good 10 hrs a day... this went on for a good month or 2 till i caught wind of this and headed over with some AS5. also one time my friend had cleaned his comp and a wire got stuck on the VF900 of his 6800gt... playing css for about an hr till he checked temps were ate 110*c.... but thats a gfx card, they have much higher temp tolarances.

 

[lenix]

113 :O I'm impressed it stayed alive, he should be happy.

 

[Omsion]

That is absurd. Fry an egg, anyone?

 

[>HyperlogiK<]

I doubt it could do that without sustaining some damage. Ages ago I had an Athlon XP 1700+ Palomino system and I left it running in a student flat for 1 week while I was away. Unfortunately the CPU fan mysteriously died during this time, and the CPU was left running at moderate load for what must have been at least a few hours (and possibly a few days) at ~80 Celcius. The chip still worked acceptably but the machine was noticeably less stable, it tended to crash once every 3-4 days after that.

 

[Clockwork_Apple]

That CPU isnt as healthy as it was before its ordeal, like Hyper said CPUs wont take that heat without sustaining some sort of damage.

He'll probably find that it wont OC for crap anymore, or needs crazy volts to achieve anything. The old AXPs were bad for that, after fan/pump failures and being exposed to high temps, they just wouldnt clock anymore.

 

[freakdiablo]

113C, wow. Thought I smelled smoke. I mean, cpus have some heat tolerance but thats just wrong. No cpu deserves that.

 

[Nebulous]

Yep, it will sustain high temps for a short amount of time. That being said, that chip is a sure waste now. All he can run it at is stock speed. He better reseat that sink or get a better cooler if he wants it to last a little more.

I remember some time ago a video showing some asian guy makin mac-n-cheese . He removed the sink and used a small pot, then used the cpu as the stovetop.

I saw another video with some dude frying an egg in the same way. I'll have to agree with freakdiablo tho, poor cpu.

 

[AsusLover]

what i'm trying to figure out is how the heck did he get it to latch onto the mobo with the plastic still on the bottom of the HSF? Poor CPU indeed I would imagine the plastic would've started to melt or atleast give off some sort of smell from that.....

 

[shirker]

i just read the bit about him forgetting that "There was this thick solid plastic cover still attacked to the bottom of the heatsink!" and died. you think people would notice things like that

i wonder how long he had it running at 113c, but the accuracy of the SiSoft temperature readings are a bit debatable

 

[AlabamaCajun]

I wonder if this CPU "Burn In" will improve his OC

 

[Nebulous]

I wonder if this CPU "Burn In" will improve his OC

ROFLMAO!!

 

[ps2cho]

I wonder if this CPU "Burn In" will improve his OC

LOL !

Yeh I don't think that CPU is going to become the new overclocking winner this month

His first built system, so at least it wasn't an expensive high end CPU.

I couldn't believe how he could miss that plastic block. I see it everytime. I guess if you didn't know or see youl could....somehow....miss it...?

 

[Gautam]

I once had an AXP running without a pump...made it to windows fully oced, folding opened on startup, and my shutdown cutoff was at 110C. It managed to run up to that temperature before it shut itself off, which was about a minute or two. No decrease in performance or overclocks or anything.

Arguably more extreme was when some negligence on the part of me and my dad left an A64 rig idling in windows for 45 days without a fan. (My family was out of the country for this period) Luckily enough it was at stock.

You couldn't imagine my horror upon returning home seeing my system on, with the heatsink absolutely scorching to the touch. IIRC it somehow managed to stay at "only" 75C or so. No harm seemed to come to it whatsoever. I went right back up to my regular overclock without a hitch.

These processors are tougher than you'd think.

 

[ps2cho]

I once had an AXP running without a pump...made it to windows fully oced, folding opened on startup, and my shutdown cutoff was at 110C. It managed to run up to that temperature before it shut itself off, which was about a minute or two. No decrease in performance or overclocks or anything.

Arguably more extreme was when some negligence on the part of me and my dad left an A64 rig idling in windows for 45 days without a fan. (My family was out of the country for this period) Luckily enough it was at stock.

You couldn't imagine my horror upon returning home seeing my system on, with the heatsink absolutely scorching to the touch. IIRC it somehow managed to stay at "only" 75C or so. No harm seemed to come to it whatsoever. I went right back up to my regular overclock without a hitch.

These processors are tougher than you'd think.

I wonder if its possible to run a new generation CPU without a heatsink at all, only airflow over the core?
If it were underclocked to lets say 1v and 1000MHz I wonder if its possible?

 

[Tserrof]

I wonder if its possible to run a new generation CPU without a heatsink at all, only airflow over the core?
If it were underclocked to lets say 1v and 1000MHz I wonder if its possible?

Well if you look at it from a strictly hypothetical situation it is without a doubt possible. Because it's simply a matter of moving enough air across the core I would think. In practicality it's beyond me as to whether or not standard PC fans would be up to the job. If it's worth anything, tom's used to have a video (it's still there but you have to hunt for it now) with a willamette P4 at 1.5GHz running without the heatsink. The proc throttled but otherwise remained functional the entire test with nothing but the IHS. I guess the ambient temp in the room, the TDP and the thermal threshold just happened to be balanced well enough to cause that. That chip had a 55W TDP so I'm sure it could be recreated with one of the cooler running chips of today.

 

[JamesXP]

My old axp 2600 kept over heating went all the way up to 90c my dad told me it just got very very dusty it still works, infact i'm on it right now

 

[||Console||]

This must be fake , how did the plastic not melt @ over 100deg ?

 

[FastRedPonyCar]

My old p4 2.4c showcased incredible heat tolerance.. They're made to deal with cpu overheating. the plastic bracket that holds the heat sink retention clips had a tab that holds it to the mobo break and this resulted in the heatsink not touching the cpu all the way...actually very little. But I noticed the machine was much slower and I couldn't figure it out so I rebooted and hit the bios and noticed that it was idling at around 85*C and that the motherboard's thermal throttling was getting put to good use and that it had cut the CPU's operating frequency down from 2.4ghz to 600mhz and was to the system shutting itself down via the maximum temp threshold which was at like 120* or something.

It's still running strong at 3.3ghz in my wife's computer now.

 

[Tserrof]

Yeah, thank goodnes for thermal throttling. Remember the old A-XPs that didn't have a throttle or shut down feature and just went up in smoke if the hsf fell off? I knew a guy who refused to use one in his car pc build for that exact reason and went with a willy instead.