P4 Overheating

[kumo]

hi i just purchased a new 3.4ghz p4 lga 775 and an abit aa8 duramax motherboard... the processor was overheating before i could even get into bios when i first installed with stock cooling and so i bought better(silver) thermal paste and that seemed to get the temperature under control a little but it i still running very hot 60 degrees idle and up to 75 degrees under full load!! i looked around on intel's website but can't find the normal operating temerature for this cpu also some games and things have begun to freeze up... do you think it is possibly a damaged cpu and i should return it? should i just try to get some better cooling? the stock cooling is already huge and seems like it should do the job... do you know of a good free cpu burn-in type utility that will check to see if the cpu is making errors and that is causing the freeze ups?

 

[LTC8K6]

It is unlikely to burn up because it is well protected against that. It is probably clock throttling to protect itself. I would use the stock HSF and make double sure you have it installed correctly. Make sure that the fan is working properly as well.

Did you use the thermal pad that came with the stock HSF? I am not sure what the newer ones come with. If it has the TIM pad on the heatsink, that is a one time use item. Once you put it on, if you take it off, you have to replace it with thermal compund. If you have taken the stock HSF off a couple times, you definitely need to remove the pad and use some arctic silver.

 

[kumo]

yeah the fan is working properly. i used the thermal pad on the HSF first time i installed it but that is when it was overheating like crazy the one time i got into bios the motherboard said it was at 84 degrees celcius... shutdown temp is at 85 but i lowered it to 80 once i got it running kinda stable i already went out and bought new silver thermal paste and that's what brought it down(10-15 degrees) to a working temperature but it still seems to hot

i am pretty sure everything is installed correctly and there is enough thermal compound between the heat sink and the processor... if the processor is throttling itself down when it gets hot will it not run as fast as it should? because it doesn't seem to running as fast as it should be with the hardware i have and a clean install... is there a program i can run to see how fast it is actually running at or somethign?

i hear people talking about their processors running at like 30-50 degrees and a shutdown temperature in the 60's do these new p4's run that much hotter or is mine abnormally hot?

 

[klah]

Originally posted by: kumo
i hear people talking about their processors running at like 30-50 degrees and a shutdown temperature in the 60's do these new p4's run that much hotter

yep: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...c.aspx?i=2249&p=13

 

[bacillus]

Even for a Prescott, and idle temperature of 60°C seems a bit to hot in my book. I suspect that your heatsink may not be properly seated on the CPU core if as you say the heatsink fan is working correctly. Putting too much thermal grease can also cause is problem.

 

[LTC8K6]

You have some sort of a problem. All P4's do what is called "clock throttling" when they get too hot. When the clock throttling no longer keeps them cool enough, they just shut off. They are very difficult to harm through overheating.

Abit boards tend to read high, but if you are experiencing clock throttling then you definitely have a cooling problem.

A fellow just posted that he has his P4 3.0E socket 775 chip overclocked to 3.6.

Clock throttling is not actually reducing the clock speed of the chip. It is actualy intermittently halting the chip. Think of it as rapidly turning the chip off and on.

 

[LTC8K6]

A chip with low power and a tiny core could be hotter and harder to cool than a higher power chip with a larger core. Power consumption by itself is not definitive regarding the ability to cool a given chip.

There is definitely a problem with the OP's setup.

 

[kumo]

hmm these people said there chips were running at 30 to 40 degrees...... even if my motherboard is reading it a little too high that wouldn't explain the freezes... i will try to re-install the heat sink and give it a clean fresh layer of thermal compound but i don't think it will help since i'm fairly sure it is currently installed properly...

is it possibly a defect in the specific cpu i got because if it is i only have a couple days to return it

 

[Markfw]

Those people are full of it. Check anand's site, THEY RUN VERY HOT. The one guy says this 3.4 smokes his FX-51, and thats BS per anand's benchmarks. I wouldn;t believe these customer reviews. That chip is the hottest one out there now !

 

[klah]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
A chip with low power and a tiny core could be hotter and harder to cool than a higher power chip with a larger core. Power consumption by itself is not definitive regarding the ability to cool a given chip.

There is definitely a problem with the OP's setup.

Neither of those is the case.

Prescott's core is 25% smaller than Northwood in addition to using more power: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...oc.aspx?i=2178&p=3


Abit recommends you set the shutdown temperature to 90*C on their P4 boards: http://forum.abit-usa.com/show...c55&threadid=11496

This is the official update from ABIT regarding the temp issue on our P4 motherboards. If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment and I will forward them to our FAE team in Taiwan. Thank you all for your patience.
...
The "CPU Shutdown Temperature" in "PC Health Status" page could be enabled and set to 90 degrees C (194 degrees F).

 

[kumo]

ok i just reseated the heat sink and cleaned off the old thermal grease and put new stuff on and so now i'm completly positive that everything is installed properly and the cpu is now reading a little over 60 idle and i have yet to test it under full load in a game... according to that abit article mine is a little hot but doesn't really go over th 75 degrees under full load that they say even still my computer is freezing up... could it be some other problem? my system teperature is 33 degrees which is under what they recommend.

when i took the heat sink off it was very hot to the thouch...

is there a program to put my cpu under full load and check to make sure it isnt' making errors that would be more reliable then just testing out a game?

 

[kumo]

ok i just got it up to 79 degrees... even if it is safe to set the shutdown temperature to 90 that is to protect it from getting fried if a fan dies or something and it shouldn't be regularly running that hot right?

 

[Markfw]

79c sounds a little high, but your motherboard sensors/and/or software could be off a little. You bought the hottest cpu made (except the 3.6), why ??? Thats why Intel stopped and didn;t go to 4 ghz. You know of cource the Athlon64 runs MUCH cooler 45c full load for example.

I'm not trying to talk you into an Athlon64, but just trying to point out the facts.

I would set it to shutdown at 85c, but then again I would never buy such a hot running CPU.

 

[kumo]

i guess i just didn't do enough research beforehand and assumed that intel wouldn't sell a cpu that didn't run reliably at reasonable temperature

 

[Markfw]

Actually thats a very valid excuse, everyone assumes that Intel is king because of their advertising. But now you know. If you want more info on the Athlon64, let us know, but I won't offer anymore unless you ask, so I am not accused of being a flaming fanboy.

 

[imported_SLIM]

Just a thought, but in my experience, most lock-ups on a new rig have more to do with memory than the cpu. LTC is right about the overheating protection on the P4s, THG showed a long time ago that you could stop the fan and the cpu would continue to function, even removing the heatsink on led to a system shutdown and no damage. I would look to see if abit recommends your memory and at the timings you have set in the BIOS. Try relaxing the timings some and see if you continue to have the same problems.

 

[kumo]

yeah after a little more messing around i'm pretty sure it isn't the cpu even though it runs very hot i left a burn-in program running it at full load around 78 degrees for over 5 hours and no lock-ups or anything so i'll check out my ram... i've never messed with ram timings before but i'll just have to look around in my bios and motherboard manual and see if i can fix anything

 

[PumpActionWalrus]

Originally posted by: SLIM
Just a thought, but in my experience, most lock-ups on a new rig have more to do with memory than the cpu. LTC is right about the overheating protection on the P4s, THG showed a long time ago that you could stop the fan and the cpu would continue to function, even removing the heatsink on led to a system shutdown and no damage. I would look to see if abit recommends your memory and at the timings you have set in the BIOS. Try relaxing the timings some and see if you continue to have the same problems.

Yes, that is true, on the old p4s that is, the chip they used was maybe 84 watts at most, new ones are outrageous.

 

[gururu]

i got a northwood 2.8@3.4

runs 40 C idle and can hit 60-65 C under load in air with an open case. your problem is probably air flow. what is your system temp.

FYI mine is 39 C

 

[kumo]

my system temp is 33 degrees i have front panel and back panel fans everything is very cool in there except the cpu

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Actually thats a very valid excuse, everyone assumes that Intel is king because of their advertising. But now you know. If you want more info on the Athlon64, let us know, but I won't offer anymore unless you ask, so I am not accused of being a flaming fanboy.

playing it safe, eh.

kumo, feel the heatsink while it is running. at those processor temps the heatsink would feel really hot. i suspect it's a fualty temp sensor. unless of course the heatsink is still not mounted properly

 

[BKF]

I've got a LGA775 P4 @ 3.4 mounted on an ASUS P5AD2 Premium mobo in a Thermaltake Tsunami Dream case. I'm not overclocking, and the processor is typically 47C at idle and 62C under full load. This is using the stock Fansink.

Room temps have typically been in the 70s F.

 

[Keysplayr]

I'm sticking with my Northy til this whole Prescott architecture blows over. 79C sounds SUPER hot to me. Try running your rig with the case open and a small house fan blowing into it. Monitor your temps.
Does anyone know of a utility that can be used in Windows XP to monitor CPU and Mobo temps besides the hardware monitor software that comes with the ASUS boards (ASUS Probe). I would like to check my temps under load. Thanks.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Prescott run hot but 60C is way too much, I'm running a 3.0ghz right now with stock heat sink and fan with AS5 and Im getting 43C

 

[LTC8K6]

I stand by my point. Power consumption by itself is not necessarily indicative of the ability to cool a chip.

The OP has a cooling problem of some sort, a bad temperature reading, or a defective Prescott.

A chip with low power and a tiny core could be hotter and harder to cool than a higher power chip with a larger core. Power consumption by itself is not definitive regarding the ability to cool a given chip.