Cooling issues.

[Eaglestrike]

So this'll be my 3rd thread on the first page, I own.

My brothers computer is up and running and he has OS installed and such. But he's having constant heating problems and often the computer reboots itself when running too hard (for instance I tried to run the FFXI benchmark and it rebooted halfway through). Currently I have the heatsink/fan that came with the processor, a thermal compound I bought today from Best Buy, a case fan, as well as having the side cover off and another fan blowing on the computer. It's winter and thus a lot cooler where the computer is than it will be, so I'm wondering if there are other things I can do to help cool his CPU off. I've heard mention of Zalman heatsink/fans, is it THAT much better than the CPU one? Is there some other cooling system I should get?

The problem is only the processor so I'll just say that I'm running the intel dual core E2180 processor, not overclocking (unless for some reason it came out of the box overclocked, guess I should check that) at all.

[Robert]

what proc?

[Avanarius]

Somethings not installed right if it's thermal throttling/restarting with stock

[Isiolia]

Somethings not installed right if it's thermal throttling/restarting with stock

Sure it's all seated right? You didn't put too much thermal paste on? etc etc

[Rags]

I take it your CPU fan runs normal for start up and then kicks in high gear huh? My experience stock fans are not suitable to run anything anymore. MY system had a stock cooler for the CPU and it would do the same thing.An thats with me running 3 extra fans.

Though I would check everything else before trying to fix the CPU. IT could very well be faulty hardware on your system. It could be your power supply is going. It could be overheating.

Overheating ::The processor, video card, or chipset

Hardware:: Have you Added new hardware, Check Ram, Check Video Card.

Power Loss:: Faulty or insufficient Power.

Maintenece:: Clean all fans , and components with canned air. ( yes I know a few peeps who don't do this)

Also when applying thermal grease make sure you cleaned off all traces of the old paste. Adding more on top of the old is never good.

[Eaglestrike]

My computer is almost all brand new. I was having major heating issues and couldn't even install the OS, then put on thermal paste and was able to install it fine. But if the CPU is working extra hard it'll let out a rapid succession of beeps, and if it keeps pushing hard will reboot. I've been fine taking the load off the CPU for a couple minutes and resuming.

I'm fairly certain the heatsink/fan are on correctly, that was an issue earlier and I took care of it and was careful to keep making sure I did it correctly. Thermal Paste I can't promise is 100% effective but I couldn't even install the OS before I put it on and now I can play for hours on end, depending on what I'm doing, after installing it, so I think it's doing its job well. I guess the main question would be about the standard heatsink/fan I do have, and how big of a deal that is and if it's really vital that I should upgrade it when I can. I'm assuming yes, and I'm assuming recommendation is going to be Zalman, but just want to make sure on things cause my mother is getting annoyed by me spending my brothers money (...on his computer...) so just double checking stuff.

[Epical]

Wait wait... you had a CPU in there with a heatsink attached to it without any thermal paste at first? That's so so so sososososoososo bad. D: If the case, chances are you've ruined your processor.

[Isiolia]

Most stock ones come with a sticker sorta thing of thermal compound.

The catch with thermal compound is that -too much- can cause a larger gap and in turn cause things to run hot. This was a common issue with Apple laptops for a while, actually. People would take 'em apart, clean off the sloppy factory applied stuff, apply an appropriate amount, and the things would run cooler.

I've never had a problem using a stock cooler at stock speeds though, which is why I'd question it. Wouldn't rule it out though. Never know if something just isn't working right, or the CPU might not be fully capable of running at the speed they rated it at. Running the stock cooler should keep you within warranty, and the manufacturer would warranty the CPU running with the supplied cooler. So if everything is installed right and spinning as it should, I'd check with the manufacturer about a warranty replacement before you get too far into 3rd party solutions.

[Rags]

Well if he built the computer and he didn't have thermal on when he fired up the CPU then in all essence he might have fried the CPU. But if its a store bought PC then it should have thermal paste on it. All be it I am not sure how reliable of paste they use.

If he did install his own CPU with new paste it might be caked on, or not enough put on. With both actually being harmful. Then again if it is maybe he bent or snapped a pin when he put it in. Or maybe its a defective CPU.

[Eaglestrike]

Well if he built the computer and he didn't have thermal on when he fired up the CPU then in all essence he might have fried the CPU. But if its a store bought PC then it should have thermal paste on it. All be it I am not sure how reliable of paste they use.

If he did install his own CPU with new paste it might be caked on, or not enough put on. With both actually being harmful. Then again if it is maybe he bent or snapped a pin when he put it in. Or maybe its a defective CPU.

If I fried my CPU...would it work? Because the computer works, wonderfully most of the time. It just occasionally sends me the message that it's overheating. I've turned the extra fan (the big one that I have blowing into the computer) off and ran WoW for around an hour without any signs of overheating (WoW at the highest settings possible) but when the processor gets pushed a lot, like if I'm around a lot of mobs at once or something, a rapid succession of beeps will come out of the computer. If I don't ease the load on the processor fairly quickly, it'll beep 1-2 times and then the computer will turn off.

I was warned by a friend before I put the thermal paste on about not putting too much on but not putting too little. I didn't use the entire tube of paste (like 80% of it?) and while trying to level it off took some more off. Maybe that's still too much, though?

[Shuemue]

Maybe that's still too much, though?

Good:

http://tools.corsairmemory.com/_imag...2490/wc003.JPG

Bad:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/coolers/5-cool/p3s.jpg

[Eaglestrike]

Yeah, it's not anywhere close to the Bad picture. It came with a smoothing card and I ran that across a few times to level things out and not have too much on. I was careful.

[Grandcross]

Could be the voltage that your CPU is getting is too high/low, but usually the default settings are fine.

The stock Intel coolers for LGA775 are actually pretty decent and can handle a mild overclock.

Whats your motherboard's temperature like? I know with my motherboard the northbridge gets extremely hot all the time, and will cause my computer to freeze.

Do you know what your CPU temperatures are at under load? There are programs like Prime95(which you can get here) which can stress different components of your computer to check for errors and heat issues. You can then use Hwmonitor or CoreTemp to see what your temperatures are like (Hwmonitor reports back more information like motherboard temp, cpu temp, gpu temp even harddrive temps.)

If your computer ends up crashing or prime95 comes up with an error after running prime95 after a while, I would definitely remove the heatsink, scrape off the thermal compound thats on there, and reapply it back on. Then put the heatsink back on and see if that makes any difference.

[levish]

Take off the heatsink and see if you get contact with it (should smudge the base pretty well).

You can check if it's temps pretty easily by just using intel thermal analysis tool (TAT) and running it.

My money is on either bad contact due to mis-installation of the oem heatsink or some other unrelated bios configuration issue, most commonly memory settings (or just a bad stick of ram) in my experience.

You can run memtest86+ v1.70 from a bootable cd iso to rule out memory configuration issues:
http://www.memtest.org/
Download - Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip)

Burn the image to disc and boot the computer from it and let it run for a few hours. Really bad settings will typically show up within 15minutes but let it run 3-4 passes to be sure (some errors don't show up for 24 or more hours).

Also adding on a thick dolop of paste won't lead to these sort of problems, sure you may get 5c higher temps but the oem heatsink usually has tons of headroom built in.