Processor Overheating
 

I have a temperature monitor on my system, and recently It has been giving me warnings that my processor has reached a "warning zone" about 155 degrees F. I checked my fans and they are all operating. I know heat = death of processors, but how high is too high? I have a 3.2Ghz Pent 4..

It's hit the sensor twice on 2 games, and it just started after I downloaded the latest ATI vid driver...Could that be the problem? When no games are running it's around 100 degrees...

Well, with a P4 prescott at 3.2ghz, 155deg is acceptable.

Prescotts are hot, but that's a little ugly.

The most common CPU temp problem has to be too much thermal compound. If more is used than required to fill the tiny gaps in the metals then it will insulate the junction and reduce efficiency. Bare metal to metal would provide the best conduction if the materials and surfaces could be perfectly matched.

A "grain of rice" is about right on a clean processor. Heatsink surfaces vary, so short of resurfacing it's sometimes better to leave the grain centered. Others work better if you spread the compound evenly. Try it centered first since that's where 90% of the heat transfers. If compound oozes out like a squashed PB sandwich it was way too much.

Start clean. Isopropyl alcohol on a rag helps remove crusty compound.

The other problem I've seen more of lately is people plugging the CPU fan into a temperature controlled case fan power source. That can mean your cpu fan is running at reduced speeds until the case warms up.

You need to purchase a new CPU fan and some thermal grease such as Arctic Silver (voids the warranty on your processor if you use it, so think before you squirt that shit on there) to reduce the temperatures. 155 Fahrenheit is closing in on 70 Celsius which is absurd for a CPU temperature. That's way too hot. 50 Celsius is pushing it for my own personal tastes.

Anything Thermaltake will get the job done for CPU fan issues. I have a Volcano or something like that I believe, my Barton 2500+ runs at 30-40 Celsius (depending on room temperature) with it on a low RPM.

Hmm, 155 does seem high now. I just check and my prescott 3GHZ is running at 90 degrees. Then again, it's really, really cold in here .... and I have artic silver on it :)

I think it's OC time!

It was running in the 140s yesterday, and it's only on games like HL2. I may go ahead and try cleaning off the heatsink and see if that helps.

You might want to upgrade your heatsink if you have the cash

I use the same processor with the OEM heatsink and had heat problems while compressing DVDs. I had to relocate some cables and shim a case fan toward the processor to improve air flow.

ive done that but a cercit cought on fire not ON fire but sparking

if u have an intel go hear http://www.casecooler.com/temandvolgui.html and if u have a amd its 45 C is on the warm side (113 F)

Well, over the weekend I cleaned all the fans and the heatsink with compressed air and that seemed to do the trick, played CoV and FEAR and it didn't crack 50C until I had been playing for a hour or so..

Thanks for all the feedback

first off clean your pc (fans, remove all dusts from all sockets), might want to use some thermal grease on your cpu, did you overclock it? what's your powersupply?

i had some troubles with my cpu temp climbing pretty high during some games after playing for a long time. i cut a hole and mounted a 120mm fan in the side of the case basicly right over the motherboard. it dropped the temp a ton case temp went down 20 degrees and cpu temp went down about 15. I already had 3 80mm fans in the case 2 exhaust 1 intake. that one 120mm fan really did the trick though and it hardly makes any noise at all. Might want to look into better airflow in your case if your going to be playing any of the newer fps games they are pretty good at changing a computer case into a space heater.