SKBrown

Been having a what I am told is a heat problem with my computer as I have been having a number of unexplainable crashes for a considerable period of time.

Motherboard temp shows 43C/109F, CPU shows 46C/115F and hard drive hows 39C/108F. Ambient is warm, approx 80F. System is not overclocked and under no stress. Heatsink on video card is VERY hot to touch and back of video card is quite hot as well.

Computer technician says that I need to replace OEM fan on video card with higher capacity fan and to cut hole in side panel of computer and add large (108mm) fan. There is an existing 80mm fan on this side panel near PCI & AGP slots on motherboard.

Under ordinary circumstances, what should the motherboard, CPU and hard drive temperatures normally be? Recommendations for an aftermarket fan for my video card? Is it common for ATI video cards to run hot, even when not stressed?

Any advice, thoughts or recommendations that all would care to provide are sincerely appreciated!

SKBrown

Bindusar

GPU's typically run hot...like really hot, 65-70C. I'm more concerned about your CPU...it'sis roughly 51-52C and for no load that is quite high. My guess is that you built the rig...did you use Arctic Silver 5 when you put on the CPU HS or did you use the thermal paste that came with it? You really should get AS5 on there...and apply it thin....hang on...sorry, forgot to look at your heat sink spec. Yeah, that is a decent HS so the only issue there should be the AS5 and how good a job you did puting it on. Should be about a pea sized blob on the center of the CPU so that is really thin, almost transparent, once the HS is mounted.

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YiffyGriffy

Yeah I actually have to agree with the computer guy for once, that's a little warm for a stock idle system. There's a lot of choices for a CPU heatsink, and you can get a lot or a little depending on how much you want to spend. If you have no intentions of overclocking, you should look into either Arctic Cooling Freeze products or a Thermaltake equivalent, which I guess would be the Spark series. As for the video card, my 9700 Pro always ran pretty warm as well, and I ended up getting an Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer Rev.3 for it and it solved all my problems, so you may want to look into that as well.

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Went almost two years without any major system overhauls, so I'm treating myself

clueless-oc

u dont need to add a 108 fan just more 80mm if u can. and for the hsf on ur video card you can just put a fan on it. like a cheap cpu fan and it works good for me. your mobo temps arnt good but not horrable chipset heatsinks are fairly cheap and u can put a fan on em too.


EDIT: USE the overclockers best friend. ARCTIC SILVER 5 everywhere there is a heatsink

SKBrown

Reply to all above:

As I said I'm a "non-techie", so I selected the parts and had a guy assemble the system (this was about 2 1/2 years ago). When I installed the Zalman CPU fan, I used Silver Thermal Compound made by Cables Unlimited not Arctic Silver as that was what my neighborhood computer store had.

Is my Zalman CNPS7000A fan not a good one? Is the Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer Rev.3 the VERY BEST aftermarket fan for an ATI Radeon 9700 video card? Any comments about adding a large additional fan on the side of the case?
Thanks!

SKBrown

YiffyGriffy

That Zalman fan should be able to handle the heatload no problem, perhaps you installed it incorrectly? It's pretty easy to use too much of the thermal interfact material, which can raise the temps quite significantly. There are other heatsinks out there, but the VGA Silencer is good and it's cheap, like $15.

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Went almost two years without any major system overhauls, so I'm treating myself

SKBrown

Its possible I used too much compound. As I recall, I tried to use just enough so that the heatsink would be evenly covered as I was instructed. When I put the fan on the CPU I twisted it back and forth in order to make sure the compound was evenly distributed, but still could have used too much? Anyway, (this is another, unrelated issue) but recently found out (using Everest) that one of my DIMMs only shows 64MB rather than 256MB of memory and so just received new Mobo to be installed and, as a result, will have the CPU and fan "reseated". As the Moderater, do you have any comment about adding a large fan to the side of the case as was recommended to me? And, given my system configuration, what temperatures should I expect - idle and under load. Additionally, are there aftermarket temperature sensors with related software for the video card CPU so that temperature can be monitored as well? What temperatures (idle & under load) would you expect to see from a video card temperature sensor? Don't mean to be so "anal" about this, but my system has been (is) very unstable for months and months and no one, so far, has been able to come up with a solution. Many thanks for your thoughts and comments!

SKBrown

YiffyGriffy

Generally, for the advised application of Arctic Silver, and really any liquid/paste thermal compound, you want to take and dab a little in the center of the CPU, about the size of a pea or a BB, then just set the heatsink on top of it and let it do the spreading. As for cutting a fan in the side, sure, if you think you can do it, go for it. I added a 120mm fan to the side of my case, dunno if it really helped anything, but what's done is done You can buy external temperature monitors at places like www.frozenCPU.com or www.sidewindercomputers.com but they give a hard readout on an LCD screen, not in software directly on the computer, still better than nothin though. Your CPU should only be running abour 45C load, maybe 50C, and idling in the mid to upper 30C range. Video cards do tend to run hotter, should be idling around 50-60C, and loads should be kept under 80C if at all possible.

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Went almost two years without any major system overhauls, so I'm treating myself

SKBrown

Thanks for the response. When I get it re-assembled with the changes, I'll report back with, hopefully, lower temperatures.

Really do appreciate your help!

SKBrown

SKBrown

Sorry, one more post! Went to the sites you suggested. What is your opinion of the DigiDoc 5+? I have one empty 5 1/4" bay. Specifications state that the DigiDoc can monitor the temperature of 8 separate devices as well as control the fans to maintain optimal temperatures.

Or would this be overkill for my system? I'm desparate to get a stable system without having to start all over. (Besides, at cost, I've got a lot tied up in this machine!)

Thanks again. (BTW, I'm in TX too, Houston)

SKBrown