Running too hot?

[Feralidragon]

Well, latelly I have been following my CPU temperatures:

CPU: Pentium Dual Core E2160 1,8GHz - NOT Overclocked and stock cooling
Ambient temperature: 25ºC

Now considering RealTemp TJuntion of 90ºC:
Idle: 37-40ºC
Half-load: seeing videos, listening music, doing my mods and browsing internet: 45-52ºC
On load: emulators optimized for dual core, some games, UT playing really spammy SLV, testing my mod with max settings: 60-67ºC


Now considering summer coming, where the max temperature of my room ever achieved was 35ºC, so basically add 10ºC to those temperatures on summer.

The rest of the other temperatures are normal (GPU, disks, MB, etc), but the CPU one is ticking me, sometimes I think it's ok, other times I think it might be too hot.

Btw, I plan to clean it up soon and I will add today a 80mm fan to it (and old fan I have here, to exhaust hot air), but I don't know if at least the fan will make too much of a difference in the temperatures, or how much... And I can always higher the CPU fan speed (in Optimal right now, and it's a bit noisy already if you don't have some music on).

So tell me honestly (since in the store support forums no one is replying to me for some reason), what do you think? Should I worry with these temperatures or are they safe or even normal to be like that (with and without the fan I am about to install)?

[Myth]

It's always better to have it cooler. My last computer had temperature problems. I cleaned it up, installed a chassis fan and it ran better. Make sure that the safety measures are activated. I knew that it because when the temperature goes over a certain value (I think, over 80 by default) the peformance is reduced to 25%. You can configure these safety measures in BIOS and if your computer goes over these temperatures then you seriously need some new fans or a water cooling system. (or put your pc in an aquarium and fill it up whit the cheapest sunflower oil)

Just make sure that you have these safety measures on and you'll know when you have problems.

[][X][~FLuKE~][X][]

as you know feri, i am near you and the temps are the same, My CPU can hit 70c without a problem in the summer but it can decrease the performance slightly.

take the side panel off and see if you can get a bigger heatsink and fan to replace the standard one.


in short, i wouldnt worry too much but if you want to maintain max performance, replace the heatsink and leave the side panel off.

[Feralidragon]

Thanks for the replies (shame on the support forum of the store I bought this thing 3 years ago, got more replies here than there...).

Well, I don't mind if the CPU decreases the performance a bit, since I can always lower the detail of certain games, and since if it decreases a bit it won't make any difference in UT and mod/model/texture making.

Also it's nice to know that this kind of temperatures are common in "our" area of the globe Fluke

Besides, this weekend my younger brother kinda tested my CPU to its max performance by testing an emulator (since he's a beta tester in a emulator project), and this emulator is optimized for Dual Core, which means it uses fully both cores at their max speed and performance, and this emulator is still a bit slow with some games, a really fluid and fast with some other ones, and it happens that I noticed the speed/noise of the fan changing after 10min of testing, and my brother continued testing/playing for about 2/3 hours, and right after he left the emulator testing, the speed of the fan decreased immediatly and the temperature was nothing more and nothing less than:

62ºC in a 25ºC environment (this CPU is rated warm only when it hits 70ºC and its throtling/TJunction temperature is around 90ºC, so I guess it's more than fine),

and the fan wasn't anyhow rotating at its full speed, I believe it was rotating at somewhat 2500/2600RPM or so, where the normal values are between 2100 and 2200RPM, and it can reach and maintain max speed of 4500/5000RPM with no problem (at the cost of the noise of a jet engine as you know rofl, but nothing to get ticky about with some music playing). So basically, if I have any problems in summer, it's not exactly temperatures, but noise from the fan cooling it down to 60ºC, but since I am going to place a fan anyway to exhaust the hot air out and clean the PC, I think I should get the same temperatures in summer which I get now.

So, for now, it's all cool afterall

Also, btw, I always heard that taking out the side panel of the PC case is a big mistake to attempt to cool down the PC, for the simple reason that cases are built to run closed and therefore they have a air flow design for optimal cooling, while if you take one of the PC case panels off, you interrupt that flow, and while some components might get cooler, others get hotter. So it's preferable to spend a few coins in a fan or two than take out the side panel.

Thanks for your replies They really helped me to figure out what I am going to do and if it was really hot or not

[Feralidragon]

Yesterday I chose by hand all the UT2004 textures I had to use for the new weapons/ammo/vehicles skinning on my new mod, as well for future mapping (SP), and I ended with around 2,5Gb of bmp files, so I zipped them up to transport them as well, and it took around 20min doing so, and when it reached 55%, the fan speeded up from 2200RPM to 2350RPM, but it was stable (CPU usage at constant 50-60%).

Well, today was the last straw. My brother was again running one of his emulators (playing a Naruto game lol), and after a little while the fan started again to climb up as the temperatures started to hit the 70ºC, and it speeded up, and up, and up and during 5 min it sounded like a real jet engine, then lowered for about 1 min and then again at a high speed (so I guess it was at 3200/3500RPM), and still it was slowlly climbing up (CPU at almost 100%, since the emulator is optimized for dual cores).

Also run Prime95 and the temperature went to 73ºC in 5 minutes, while the fan was already very noisy (3200RPM), but then I stopped to app since it was exhagerating and that could damage or at least reduce my CPU lifespan.

So I decided to take action before things got out of hand.

I removed the warranty stamp on my case for the first time (the warranty expired August last year) and only today I noticed how small was my case actually (since I am used to look at bigger ones), and the hot air that was there and the whole dust inside (the CPU was basically covered in dust, like a cape), so I decided to clean it.

However I don't have air compressor or a can of compressed air, nor thermal paste to reapply, or other acessories for proper PC cleanning, so I did simply this:
- Cleaned the whole PC myself with: paper (panels and fans of course), a swab (for CPU heatsink and difficult spots) and blowed a bit of air myself for final touches (being carefull with the dust to not breath it for course and being sure my air was "dry", like when you blowed in the old gaming cartridges when they didn't work). Took around 1 hour to clean the CPU since I didn't want to take it out of the motherboard (no thermal paste to reapply), and since I had to clean it with the fan on (this fan doesn't come off without the heatsink).
- After all the cleanning, I installed my 3 years old 80mm fan in the back of the case to exhaust the hot air from the case, it is now 2 fingers from the CPU (so you can imagine the size of my case inside).
- Got some problems in the boot later, but all I had to do was to reseat the memories (since it already happenned once at the shop 1 year ago by the same reason: cleanning).


So basically I placed a new fan and the computer wasn't cleanned as I wanted to, nor the paste replaced, and so on.

Still, everything is working, and now temperatures and speeds are:

Ambient Temperature: 25ºC

BEFORE:
Idle: 37-40ºC
50% Load: 60-65ºC
100ºC Load: 70-73ºC+ (stopped Prime95 since I knew where it was going to lead)

CPU Fan speed idle: 2150-2200RPM
CPU Fan speed load: 2500-3200RPM (extremelly noisy)

GPU: 59-60ºC (passive cooling)

System/Motherboard: 38-40ºC
HDDs: 40-42ºC


NOW:
Idle: 25-26ºC
50-75% Load: 36-40ºC (same emulator running for 10 minutes)
100ºC Load: ? (didn't test yet, and not going to for now)

CPU Fan speed idle: 2250-2300RPM (higher speed but much less noise )
CPU Fan speed load: ? (didn't test yet, and not going to for now)
Rear case Fan installed speed: 2400RPM (not noisy at all after 3 years)

GPU: 48-50ºC (passive cooling)

System/Motherboard: 26-28ºC
HDDs: 33-35ºC


No typos there, it really made a huge difference in my system, and basically when idling my CPU is at the ambient temperature (sometimes even cooler than that with just air, believe me or not), and motherboard as well, and I have a bit less noise now even with a slightly higher speed in my CPU fan and a new fan at 2400RPM, and yet, I still didn't clean it properlly (even CPU) nor changed the thermal paste, it was just the old fashion ways of cleanning a PC at home and a 3 year old fan to make a difference.

This long post for what? Well, just to say if there's someone in somewhat the same situation as me, well do the same thing (although in a better way than what I did of course, if you have the tools), since summer is coming and things will heat up.

[rohitggarg]

Maybe you can use the heat sink used in http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2 ... _to_8ghz/1 .. jus kidding

I too have a dual core CPU but the temperature never went above 65ºC.. I think you should consider replacing your heat transfer fluid beneath the CPU fan....

[Feralidragon]

That heatsink would be nice Although it would be too dangerous rofl

Well, but it seems it's very stable and cool now since I cleaned it and added an exhaust rear fan to the case, and in time since things are starting to heating up (environment I mean). Basically now my processor is at the same ambient temperature +/-1ºC when idling. Also, now under load (40%) it gets almost the same temperature as when it was previouslly idling (before cleaning and fan install), so everything is good now (not only the processor, but all the parts on my PC are very cool now, and the box doesn't heat up anymore like before, even under almost 30ºC ambient temperature, like yesterday and today).

Everything thanks to a clean up and a rear fan.

[Lee_Stricklin]

EDIT, didn't read the whole thread when I posted

Holy crap! You can grill steaks on that thing! lol not really though that is a bit hotter than what I would like. If I were you I'd get a tube of some Arctic Silver Ceramique (don't screw with anything else) and a new heatsink. If you can I would recommend slapping a GeminII with two 120 aluminum fans that move at about 2000 RPM. That's exactly what I have on my 3GHz Phenom II X4 Black Edition and it has NEVER gone over 30 Celcius even under load and stress and Cool N Quiet turned off.