What is a goin' on with my temps

[Matthew A.]

Okay, I cannot figure out why my temps keep climbing the way they are. I live in San Diego, CA. USA. where the current air temp is around 80 degrees F. But my cpu temp as I write is at 104 and the mobo is at 91. I have tried relapping my GORB which I have modified by removing the OEM fan and replacing it with a 60mm box fan attached atop of it. It has done a decent job so far except now. Everything, cooling wise and speed and voltage wise is the same as I have been running for the last 5 months or so. I have (2) 80mm fans mounted low blowing in onto the PCI cards, another 80mm attached to the bottom of my PSU exhausting out, a 3" 120v Radio Shack cooling fan exhausting, positioned at the rear 2/3 up from bottom of case. I also have replaced the HSF that came OEM on my GForce 256 with the OEM HSF that came with my PIII600EB flip chip. And then I even went as far as to place an PII350 slot 1 fan atop the GPU and ram chips. &*#@ ! my temp alarm just sounded temp now @ 105 set for 104. I am miffed. 600 eb @657 FSB @146 Vc1.65 I/O @3.456 I would greatly appreciate any and all explanations as to what is happening here. Goto go and let this thing cool down.

 

[Fink]

You temps sound OK to me. you are only 11F over ambient on the mb and 29 on the CPU. I would say that those temps are pretty good.... If you have lapped everything then you might want to rethink your case cooling and make sure that the CPU is not sitting in a local hotspot. But I don't think you will get much better cooling unless you go to H2O.

My conclusion, your temps look just fine, stop worrying about them...

 

[Matthew A.]

Thank you for the reply,
Did I forget to mention these temps are pretty much at idle. I noticed my temps slowly increasing as time goes by. I removed one of my 80mm fans that I had attached to the under side of the PSU. Cut another hole in my side panel and placed it where it now blows directly onto the ORB as well as the mobo's clock generators HS. I has lowered my average temps but not the spikes. As soon as there's a load on the cpu my temp rises about 15 degrees F. Maybe I need to bend the spring tensioner mechanism out some so it makes better contact. I have the ORB on a slocket adapter.

 

[Fink]

Matthew A. (Feb 05, 2001 03:08 a.m.):
Thank you for the reply,
Did I forget to mention these temps are pretty much at idle. I noticed my temps slowly increasing as time goes by. I removed one of my 80mm fans that I had attached to the under side of the PSU. Cut another hole in my side panel and placed it where it now blows directly onto the ORB as well as the mobo's clock generators HS. I has lowered my average temps but not the spikes. As soon as there's a load on the cpu my temp rises about 15 degrees F. Maybe I need to bend the spring tensioner mechanism out some so it makes better contact. I have the ORB on a slocket adapter.

Well, I must admit that I am not a fan of the ORB coolers. I found that alpha's or GlobalWin coolers worked far better.

Again, I must say that your temps sound about normal. A rise of 15F is not unusual for idle vs loaded temps. It sounds like you need to make sure that you are venting hot air out of the top of the computer and getting cold air in the bottom. Cutting a hole over the CPU will be benificial to your CPU, but could serve to disrupt smooth airflow throught the case.

a great soltuion for cooling unusualy hot CPU's is to take a look at a ducting system by southbay coolers. They have a cool (literaly) system that pumps intake air onto the CPU and videocard. Works pretty good too.