My temperature readings make no sense, now...

[KnifeMissile]

I was concerned that my prcessor was running too hot since several people were surprised to hear that it runs between 30° and 60° centigrade. So, they asked me if I made sure to apply "thermal goo" to the processor. Well, I certainly didn't but I'm pretty sure that my processor came with thermal interface material already on it. However, after doing a little bit of research, I discovered that some of these built-in thermal interface material have tape covering them for protection and that I am supposed to remove this tape before installation. Well, I certainly don't remember doing this so, to make sure everything alright, I take the heat sink off the take a look. Indeed, there's no tape and the "thermal goo" is there, doing its job. Well, it looks like I did all this for nothing. What's worse is that the act of checking for termal interface material has now created the need to apply some before putting the damn heat sink back on! Well, I didn't have any so I figure "what the hell" and try putting it back on, as is, and see what happens. The processor will protect itself so, if it gets too hot, it will simply slow down and I can get some thermal interface material, later. To my pleasant surprise, not only did it work fine but it actually ran cooler now than it did before, operating between 20° and 40° centigrade.

So, it's tempting to think that all is now well. However, I just noticed that my motherboard temperature operates between 35° and 40° centigrade. According to thermodynamics, this is impossible. How can the environment of the processor be warmer than the processor? Something is clearly wrong and I can't trust any of my instruments (the processor and motherboard thermometers and Asus Probe).

What's going on? Has anyone else had this problem?
Thanks...

[Dragonlich]

Calm down, it's not a problem. Your computer will not explode.

First, what processor are you using (Intel P4, AMD athlon, athlon 64). If your temperature ratings are correct, I'd say it's a P4 or athlon 64. For those systems 20 to 40 C might be normal, provided that the 20C is at startup, and it levels out around 30C. My P4 (2.6c) starts at 20, room temperature, goes up to 30, idle temperature, and jumps to 40 to 45 during stress situations.

The 35-40 C motherboard temperature isn't measured in the environment of the processor. Generally, it's a measurement of the computer's chipset, which tends to get as hot as that. (That's the reason they have a heatsink on there.)

As for the drop in temperature after replacing the cooler: perhaps your cooler wasn't placed properly the first time, or your replacing it improved the fit. It happens.

[Lasereth]

CPU temps are never gonna be "normal." Lots of people ask what temperature their processor and motherboard should be running at but it all boils down to the ambient room temperature where the PC is located. In my non-AC'ed dorm last year, my processor ran at 45-58 celsius during the summer time and 25-40 during the winter time. People can argue all day about what your processor *should* be running at but none of that information matters if you take into account that room temperature matters more than anything.

Anything below 60 celsius is perfectly fine. AMD says their processors will run fine with a decent lifespawn at 80 or 90 celsius. My Athlon XP 1900+ ran at 50-65 celsius for two years and is still kickin in another PC.

If you're worried about the true temp of your motherboard and processor you could always buy a manual thermometer. My brother bought one...it came in handy when I ordered a faulty Gigabyte motherboard that was reporting my CPU at 65 celsius (we used the manual thermo and tried another motherboard...the CPU was running at 35).

-Lasereth

[KnifeMissile]

Originally Posted by Dragonlich

Calm down, it's not a problem. Your computer will not explode.

First, what processor are you using (Intel P4, AMD athlon, athlon 64). If your temperature ratings are correct, I'd say it's a P4 or athlon 64. For those systems 20 to 40 C might be normal, provided that the 20C is at startup, and it levels out around 30C. My P4 (2.6c) starts at 20, room temperature, goes up to 30, idle temperature, and jumps to 40 to 45 during stress situations.

Well, I don't think it'll explode, I just get irate when things don't work properly and I worry about my computer working at peak efficiencies. I mean, not only is it brand new but the thought of fucking up a computer I put together myself kind of sucks...
I'm using a LGA775 P4 3.0 GHz with HT. It levels out at about 20° or 25° (something like that. I don't know what it start at since my machine is always running...). I'm glad your P4 behaves much like mine. It leds some credibility to my instruments...

The 35-40 C motherboard temperature isn't measured in the environment of the processor. Generally, it's a measurement of the computer's chipset, which tends to get as hot as that. (That's the reason they have a heatsink on there.)

Really? Well, that's good to know. I wonder what chipset I have. Do you happen to know what chipset the Asus P5AD2 uses? What's a VIA chipset? What's a chipset, for that matter?

Thanks!



edit - it's been a while since we measured prcessor frequency in MHz...

[bal8664]

Via is a company who make chipsets. The Asus P5AD2 uses an Intel 925X chipset.

A Chipset is the main component of the motherboard, it consists of two chips. A North Bridge(Memory and Expansion BUS) and a South Bridge(I/O)

The North bridge is the interface between the CPU, the RAM and the Expansion BUS (AGP and PCI) The South Bridge handles the I/O system, Usually IDE drives and the USB ports, but can also contain onboard sound, onboard ethernet, firewire, and a number of other things.

That clarify things?

[Dragonlich]

Originally Posted by KnifeMissile

I'm using a LGA775 P4 3.0 GHz with HT. It levels out at about 20° or 25° (something like that. I don't know what it start at since my machine is always running...). I'm glad your P4 behaves much like mine. It leds some credibility to my instruments...

The 3.0 you have should be a hothead. In my experience, the idle temperatures can be as high as 45 to 50C, with the fully loaded temp being around 60 to even 70C. If it levels out at 20/25C, you must be in a *very* cold room. (That, or you have one of the newest P4s with zero execution bit enabled. Highly unlikely, but those are much cooler in idle mode.)

Originally Posted by KnifeMissile

Really? Well, that's good to know. I wonder what chipset I have. Do you happen to know what chipset the Asus P5AD2 uses? What's a VIA chipset? What's a chipset, for that matter?

As bal8664 said, the P5AD2 uses an intel chipset, the 925X. It's one of the newest, shiniest chipsets around.

[KnifeMissile]

Originally Posted by Dragonlich

The 3.0 you have should be a hothead. In my experience, the idle temperatures can be as high as 45 to 50C, with the fully loaded temp being around 60 to even 70C. If it levels out at 20/25C, you must be in a *very* cold room. (That, or you have one of the newest P4s with zero execution bit enabled. Highly unlikely, but those are much cooler in idle mode.)

Well, that's funny. The temperature in my living room is a reasonable 23.6° centigrade. Is it really that unlikely the chip has the zero execution bit? Just so we're straight here, you're talking about a feature that prevents certain memory pages from being executed, right? I'm using the Intel P4 530, which has a MB of L2 cache. Asus probe really does report the processor at 25° right now so I hope there's some explanation to this. Again, I don't like it when things don't work properly...

[KnifeMissile]

Originally Posted by bal8664

Via is a company who make chipsets. The Asus P5AD2 uses an Intel 925X chipset.

A Chipset is the main component of the motherboard, it consists of two chips. A North Bridge(Memory and Expansion BUS) and a South Bridge(I/O)

The North bridge is the interface between the CPU, the RAM and the Expansion BUS (AGP and PCI) The South Bridge handles the I/O system, Usually IDE drives and the USB ports, but can also contain onboard sound, onboard ethernet, firewire, and a number of other things.

That clarify things?

Makes perfect sense to me, thanks!

[Dragonlich]

Originally Posted by KnifeMissile

Well, that's funny. The temperature in my living room is a reasonable 23.6° centigrade. Is it really that unlikely the chip has the zero execution bit? Just so we're straight here, you're talking about a feature that prevents certain memory pages from being executed, right? I'm using the Intel P4 530, which has a MB of L2 cache. Asus probe really does report the processor at 25° right now so I hope there's some explanation to this. Again, I don't like it when things don't work properly...

The zero ex bit is part of a few design changes that make the processor more economical with it's power consumption. AFAIK the new 6xx series uses that. So your 530 shouldn't have it.

25C for a P4 530 is low, very low. Perhaps it's because your cooler is running at full speed? That'd explain at least part of it, especially when combined with a *lot* of extra case fans. In a "normal" computer case, with normal cooling, a 530 should run hotter. Hell, my own 2.6c, which is known to be way cooler than the new P4s (like yours) runs at 30C, in a 20C room. In my experience, the newer P4s (Prescott core) should run 15 to 20 degrees hotter than the older Northwood ones (mine).

I suggest that you use some other means of getting the CPU temperature, and compare that with the Asus' reading. Or you might want to try a program like "speedfan" or "motherboard monitor", to see if it's the Asus Probe program that isn't working right.

If you want some other option without having to install/buy anything: turn off your computer for 30 or so minutes, turn it back on, go into the bios, and look at the readings there. If it reports 10C or something like that, you'll know it's wrong.

[guthmund]

Originally Posted by Lasereth

CPU temps are never gonna be "normal." Lots of people ask what temperature their processor and motherboard should be running at but it all boils down to the ambient room temperature where the PC is located. In my non-AC'ed dorm last year, my processor ran at 45-58 celsius during the summer time and 25-40 during the winter time. People can argue all day about what your processor *should* be running at but none of that information matters if you take into account that room temperature matters more than anything.

-Lasereth

How true. How true. I just moved mine from the basement, where it was considerably cooler and it ran at a nice steady 30-35 C, to a room upstairs where it's considerably warmer and it runs at a nice steady 45-50 C.

I had an older Athlon XP 1800+ that's always ran on the warm side. It's been in various PCs and in various configurations and it's still kicking.