How hot is too hot? Slow is too slow?
 

My daughters PC is running VERY SLOWLY lately. Even opening the Control Panel takes a minute but once I am in it the performance is acceptable.
It is a AMD Duron PIII 1.3 GHz.

I tried a few things (I am only a rank amateur in these things).

1. Virus scan is clean (so says AVG) ... GOOD

2. Spam scan found 201 critical modules including 6 at rank 10 (so says Ad-Aware from Lavasoft) ... BAD however trying to delete them causes Ad-Aware to crash ... very BAD. I will get a friends boot CD with resident Spyware and Virus cleaners for that. Until then I won't know how much this impacts the PC.

3. I also pursued the core temperature angle. I fould some free software called MBM (MotherBoard Monitor). It gives me a temperature reading of 70 - 73 degrees Celcius (158 - 163 F). Is that TOO HOT or NORMAL? It appeared that as the temperature rose Prime95 slowed down. I was running a TF of 67 Bits of M50533961. As the temperature rose the time to complete 1% which worked out to almost 15,000 iterations rose from 15 minutes to 18 minutes. Am I anywhere near the expected speed?

Can anyone respond to point 3 above.

Thanks

[quote=petrw1;148582]3. I also pursued the core temperature angle. I fould some free software called MBM (MotherBoard Monitor). It gives me a temperature reading of 70 - 73 degrees Celcius (158 - 163 F). Is that TOO HOT or NORMAL? It appeared that as the temperature rose Prime95 slowed down. I was running a TF of 67 Bits of M50533961. As the temperature rose the time to complete 1% which worked out to almost 15,000 iterations rose from 15 minutes to 18 minutes. Am I anywhere near the expected speed?

Can anyone respond to point 3 above.

Thanks[/quote]
Whether or not that is "too hot" depends on the CPU. First of all, what CPU do you have? If it's an Intel, you can probably look up the "Thermal Spec" rating online; AMD probably has a similar thing on their website. The "Thermal Spec" is the temperature at which the computer begins automatically slowing down the CPU in an attempt to stave off overhigh temperatures (so that, hopefully, it will keep the temperature from reaching the "critical" thermal rating, at which point the computer will immediately power off to prevent damage to the CPU). Your specific temperature readings of 70-73 degrees are somewhat of a tossup--whether or not they are enough to trigger slowdowns depends on the thermal spec of your specific CPU model. (From what I've seen so far, thermal spec ratings tend to be around ~70-75 degrees Celsius.)

However, I can't imagine that thermal slowdowns alone could cause *all* the slowdowns you're describing. Probably the spyware/adware/etc. that turned up in your scans is the primary cause of the Control Panel slowdown and other such things--though the Prime95 slowdown is quite believably a result of thermal spec stuff as described above.

Hope this helps! :smile:

[QUOTE=mdettweiler;148583]Whether or not that is "too hot" depends on the CPU. First of all, what CPU do you have? If it's an Intel, you can probably look up the "Thermal Spec" rating online; AMD probably has a similar thing on their website. The "Thermal Spec" is the temperature at which the computer begins automatically slowing down the CPU in an attempt to stave off overhigh temperatures[/QUOTE]

AMD Duron PIII 1.300 Ghz.

Thanks ... I checked [url]www.amd.com[/url] and found a paper called: [QUOTE]Thermal and Electrical Specifications of 7th Generation AMD Processors[/QUOTE] from 1994. My particular PC is listed in the chart as having a max "Die Temperature" of 90 C. If that is what MBM is measuring then I have 15 degrees to spare.

Durons are newer than 1994, so I would look for a more recent publication.

[QUOTE=jrk;148588]Durons are newer than 1994, so I would look for a more recent publication.[/QUOTE]

Interesting because I think my PC is listed there. In fact the paper has PCs right up to over 2Ghz which I too thought were newer than 1994.

Also every single PC listed there has a Die Temperature of 85 to 95 C.

I am assuming "Die" is a noun and a synonym for core or chip and NOT a very meaning literally it will die at that temp.

And I found this is a 1992 report:

[url]http://www.vanshardware.com/reviews/2002/01/020123_Duron_13/020123_Duron_13.htm[/url]

Technical Specifications

The Duron 1300 is based on the Morgan core rather than the older Spitfire core that powered the chip from 600 MHz to 1 GHz. Morgan adds the same hardware data prefetch, increased Translation Look-Aside Buffers, and SSE support to the Duron that the Athlon XP gained from the Palomino core. Other technical specifications include:

Cache Size
192K

Nominal Voltage
1.75v (up from 1.65 in Spitfire)

Transistor Count
22.5 million

Max Die Temp
90° Celsius

Max Thermal Power
60W

Typical Thermal Power
55.2W

[quote=petrw1;148589]Interesting because I think my PC is listed there. In fact the paper has PCs right up to over 2Ghz which I too thought were newer than 1994.

Also every single PC listed there has a Die Temperature of 85 to 95 C.

I am assuming "Die" is a noun and a synonym for core or chip and NOT a very meaning literally it will die at that temp.

And I found this is a 1992 report:

[URL]http://www.vanshardware.com/reviews/2002/01/020123_Duron_13/020123_Duron_13.htm[/URL]

Technical Specifications

The Duron 1300 is based on the Morgan core rather than the older Spitfire core that powered the chip from 600 MHz to 1 GHz. Morgan adds the same hardware data prefetch, increased Translation Look-Aside Buffers, and SSE support to the Duron that the Athlon XP gained from the Palomino core. Other technical specifications include:

Cache Size
192K

Nominal Voltage
1.75v (up from 1.65 in Spitfire)

Transistor Count
22.5 million

Max Die Temp
90° Celsius

Max Thermal Power
60W

Typical Thermal Power
55.2W[/quote]
Hmm...I don't think the "die temperature" is the same thing as "thermal spec", though it would seem likely that it is the same as the "critical" temperature I described in my earlier post. However, as you speculated, I doubt that the "die" part means that your CPU will die at that temperature; probably instead it has something to do with the manufacturing definition of "die". :smile:

Of course, your temperatures are nowhere near the 90 degree "die temperature", so you shouldn't need to worry about that. The "thermal spec" rating is the only thing that would make a difference in this case.

Just curious, how old is your CPU? It's quite possible that if it's somewhat old, AMD may not have even bothered to post the thermal spec information on their website.

[QUOTE=mdettweiler;148593]Just curious, how old is your CPU? It's quite possible that if it's somewhat old, AMD may not have even bothered to post the thermal spec information on their website.[/QUOTE]

Not sure, she got it used. I'll have to look for a model number

[url]http://www.cpuscorecard.com/cpuprices/ad.htm[/url]

Matches what was already posted, but with realistic dates.

i'm throttling prime95 at 80% partly due to high-ish temperatures
anyways, the questions:
at 80%, prime95 runs with the cpu between 57 and 60 degrees celsius. is this normal for a pentium 4 prescott (3.00 GHz, but i'm overclocking to about 3.5 GHz)
though its 60 degrees, the cpu fan is still only spinning at 2460 RPM according to speedfan, is this true? and if it is, why isn't it spinning any faster? is it because i'm overclocking and the power supply unit needs to give more power to the cpu and therefore less to the fan? (it used to spin at at least 3000 RPM when the cpu warmed up to over 58 degrees)
last: any general suggestions to cool the case?

Just by way of comparison my Acer laptop runs at 90°C just before automatic thermal shutdown. And during idle mode it runs at 72°C. Yes, I know, the Acer is just plain awful at cooling but it seems not to be suffering any ill effects after running at >=72°C for the last ~2 years.

question: what is the "1.5V", "3V", "5V" that appears in the voltages section of speedfan ? (it can be adjusted, but i don't know what it is/what it does)

[quote=petrw1;148582]My daughters PC is running VERY SLOWLY lately. Even opening the Control Panel takes a minute but once I am in it the performance is acceptable.

< snip >

2. Spam scan found 201 critical modules including 6 at rank 10 (so says Ad-Aware from Lavasoft) ... BAD[/quote]I know that Ad-Aware flags cookies as "critical". How many non-cookies (i.e., executable stuff) are in that 201 total? _That_'s where _I_'d look for the slowdown cause!

[quote]however trying to delete them causes Ad-Aware to crash ... very BAD.[/quote]Try deleting only the flagged cookies, and see what's left.

[quote]I will get a friends boot CD with resident Spyware and Virus cleaners for that. Until then I won't know how much this impacts the PC.[/quote]I'm usually pretty careful, and rarely get malware infection, but recently during a short goofup while trying to install a new version of (a major brand name) malware/firewall protection, I saw unusually-busy connection activity whenever I was logged on. Once I had the new version properly running, it quickly found three separate infections. When I turn on all alarms, it notifies me about every 10-15 minutes that it has blocked a port scan from the outside (its log says about every 1-2 minutes!).

... which is all to say: Run that spyware/virus cleaner ASAP when you get it, and set up some continuous protection.

I had some pretty nasty, almost-impossible-to-eliminate spyware that I finally managed to get rid of, using an application called ComboFix (just Google it). It's apparently pretty decent at really getting down into the registry and cleaning junk out key-by-key. You might try that, as between the slowdown and the high temperatures, your system is likely struggling under a crapload of malware. Prime95 is actually a very good indicator of how healthy your system is; I knew I had a severe virus/malware problem one time only because Prime95 was taking 30x longer than normal per iteration!

I don't understand why someone, somewhere hasn't really put the legal hammer down on these spyware and adware purveyors. If these people caused malfunction and failure of any other device of a similar cost to a computer, they'd almost certainly be in jail. So why is it OK to screw someone's computer?

[quote=NBtarheel_33;148719]ComboFix (just Google it). It's apparently pretty decent at really getting down into the registry and cleaning junk out key-by-key.[/quote]I MetaCrawlered :-) it, and found several caution warnings about using ComboFix's full power. I suggest consulting such warnings before use.

[quote]It's apparently pretty decent at really getting down into the registry and cleaning junk out key-by-key. You might try that,[/quote]No one should lightly embark upon messing with the Windows Registry. A novice may easily render his/her system unusable.

Edit: Here's an example warning. [U]Read all of it.[/U]:

[quote]There are several excellent reasons for this Disclaimer shown when you start the program:

[IMG]http://img.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/en/disclaimer.jpg[/IMG]

Some that I have observed:

• About 1 in 100 times the computer will not longer be able to boot after running Combofix. This requires experienced hands to restore the system to bootability.

• There are several malware infections that "target" Combofix. Experienced Helpers are aware of these infections, and take steps to remove them prior to the use of Combofix. If you do not, various things can happen depending on the infection -- from Combofix being unable to run, to the deletion of the folder C:\Windows\System32, requiring a clean install to repair.

• Combofix makes some rather significant changes to the internals of XP and Vista in order to work. It has to be removed with special instructions to fully and safely revert these changes. Experienced Helpers are aware of how to accomplish the uninstallation of Combofix.

• The real power of Combofix comes not as a general purposed malware remover. It is rather modest in that capacity. Combofix is powerful because it provides to the experienced Helper a convenient and powerful front-end to Scripts. It is because of its scripting strengths, and its unique reporting capabilities, that you see Combofix often recommended. But not because of its abilities as a general malware scanner.

• Many malware removal experts will not respond to a request for help if they see that Combofix was run by the end-user without supervision. You might find after running Combofix that your system problems are worse, and nobody is willing to help you.

There are several general purpose anti-malware utilities where the Author(s) intended the application for general use by end-users without Supervision. Combofix is not one of them, and you would be advised to honor that position taken by its Author.[/quote]

Elsewhere, I found a warning that if the proper preliminary steps are not followed before using ComboFix, one result could be the erasure of your hard disk. (How? There is malware that specifically targets ComboFix. If such malware is not removed first, it can hijack ComboFix to do ... dastardly things.)

- - - - -

[quote]I don't understand why someone, somewhere hasn't really put the legal hammer down on these spyware and adware purveyors.[/quote]There have been cases - fines and jail. But most spammers take care to operate from outside the jurisdiction of the U.S.

[quote]If these people caused malfunction and failure of any other device of a similar cost to a computer, they'd almost certainly be in jail. So why is it OK to screw someone's computer?[/quote]It's not OK. But you have to find them first, and then try them within the applicable jurisdiction, some of which are _very_ lenient.