cpu too hot
 

My intel prescott 3.4 Ghz is getting too hot when I run prime95 or anything that continously use all the cpu power. It's close to 1 year old and back in the beginning I had no problems with it, but I haven't checked the temperature in a while so it might have been running hot for awhile.

Warning zone in by BIOS and in my monitor program is between 75 and 85°C (167 to 185 F) and my CPU was at up to 80° C (176 F). After I found this problem I just went out and bought a much much bigger cpu cooler which should be really powerful but the temperature is still up around 78°C (168.8 F).

Anyone have similiar experience with P4 prescott?

Check airflow within the case. You bought a new coller so heatsink dust is probably not a reason. What are the rest temps and what is the mobo temp?

I have a 3.4Ghz Pentium 4 but it only has 512Kb cache. I guess it's a "Northwood".

I bought and fitted the CPU myself. I used thermal paste to ensure a good contact between the processor and heatsink. I set the bios to "failsafe". However, when I booted up the operating system and looked at the timings for "LLR", I saw that the computer was slowing down due to overheating. I took the case side off. I blew at the CPU and the iteration rate would increase. So I put a case fan close by to get rid of the heat around the CPU. The position of the case was crucial to iteration times. I then taped the case fan on top of the heatsink fan. This caused problems with dust building up in the fans and so I had to clean them out every couple of weeks. During the summer it was neccessary to have a 15 inch room fan blowing at the open side to keep the temperature down. Recently, I bought a "Gigabyte 3D Galaxy" CPU water cooling kit. Fitting this was fairly straight forward -- I followed the instruction very carefully. When I switched on the computer for the first time, with the newly fitted cooling system, the CPU temperature was 23C. Now, the only maintenance is occasionally topping up the reservoir :cool:

ATH when you installed the cooling on the cpu did you use THERMAL TRANSFER MATERIAL OF SOME SORT eg special paste etc.

if you omitted this then the effect of the cooling will be greatly reduced and may explain your high temperatures. If this is the case, remove the cooler and reapply it properly.

Also different stuff is better than others eg From Akasa or Arctic Silver are quite good better than unbranded stuff.

If its a problem, learn how to enable the "throttle" function in prime95 which can reduce the amount of work it does and will make your cpu proportionally cooler.

Yes, I did apply a thin layer of the thermal paste. The idle temperature is around 45-50° C (113-122 F). What is normal idle temperate and normal max temperature for P4 prescott?

I was also wondering if something could cause the temperature measurement to be wrong?

Reseat the cpu cooler clean off heatsink of cpu cooler and find a flat surface lay a piece of peper down on it and set cooler flat make sure it doesnt rock. Also could you post some pictures.

ATH,

For comparison, my P4 Northwood details are as follows:

Northwood @ 3Ghz running at 3GHz
on Intel branded 865G motherboard (with a 9600XT card too).

IDLE CPU 34C
IDLE other sensors 30C and 32C

WORKING (LL testing) 50C
WORKING (LL testing) other sensors 33C and 40C

I would expect YOUR temps to be a little higher than this because you are running 3.4 versus my 3.0 Ghz processor speed.

CPU fan is Intel supplied stock cooling fan. Running at 2770 rpm
There is one additional rear fan, and the Ezcool psu also has a fan too.

These figures were obtained in Windows XP using a free utility called SPEEDFAN which I highly recommend you download.

It reports your temps and fan rpms. Also if you choose it can reduce your fan speed depending on temps or a target speed you configure.

I double checked these readings by looking in the bios setup screens for temps and rpm.

Get speedfan you will be glad you did.

Possibly you have a lowrpm fan config when you actually need the fan at full speed. If so this may be a bios or other software setting.

You can verify your temps are being measured in the right ballpark by using another/additional thermometer sensor like the cheap ones supplied with fan controllers etc.

Some fans produce a different number of signals PER rotation (1,2,4) so this divider needs applying depending on the particular fan you use if you want the true figure.

Also the chip on board to monitor temps and fans can vary between manufacturer, AND standards of protocol to talk to them.

In linux there is a technique called sensors or ksensors which takes a little longer to setup but works well too (except on IBM thinkpad).

Possibly your fan may be dying.

Try to blow it with an aerosol air duster. If that doesn't work try swapping the cpu fan for another one.

What is NORMAL for a 3.4 Ghz prescott?
 

Then again, one review HERE

[url]http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?page=2&articleid=201&cid=1[/url]

tests two 3.4Ghz P4 against each other (case open to air).

IDLE TEMPS are

Northwood 24C
Prescott 44.5C !!!!!!
:furious:

WOW I knew the prescotts were hotter but wasn't expecting that big a difference.

So your idle temp of 45-50C actually seems almost on a par with theirs considering you probably put the lid on your case and maybe live in a warmer climate?

Some good coolers are able to bring your cpu temp down many (double digits) degrees below the stock cooler would. eg Vapochill Micro or others.

The same reviewers tried "under load" tests (using Folding at home) also at stock speeds and found 67.5C was their result on the 3.4 Prescott.

Priming MIGHT push the cpu a little harder than folding.

And again remember they had their lid off the case.

So the likelihood is that although it is quite a bit hotter than Northwood you do not seem totally abnormal for a Prescott (maybe up to 10C over?) but would benefit from a better cooler. See reviews for relative advantage of different models.

Those reviewers write of Prescott:

"Again, [B]what we saw for readings in Hardware Doctor, were a bit unsettling.[/B]

[B]We confirmed with Intel directly regarding these reported temperatures and they responded that what we were seeing was typical of the new Prescott core [/B] under these conditions. The temperature reported was pegged at 67.5C and this supposedly was within expectations.

At this point we're really beginning to believe that Prescott desperately needs its upcoming new platform architecture in place, to properly operate within what we feel are reasonable conditions."

AND conclude:

These new design enhancements are obviously where Prescott needs to move to, because in its current setup,

[B]the chip is quite frankly an "Easy Bake Oven", no doubt about it.[/B]

ENDQUOTE

ROFL

ATH you have yourself an Easy Bake Oven!

Yeah... I have several Prescotts in my machines. The newer steppings are slightly cooler, but they still run very hot... it's unavoidable.

Make sure you've got a casing fan to improve the airflow. Also, after running for some time, dust might build up around the fans and heatsinks. This could be the reason why it's running hotter then when it was new. Just use a vaccum cleaner... carefully.

db597 VACUUM CLEANERS CAN OFTEN GENERATE LARGE AMOUNTS OF STATIC ELECTRICITY THAT CAN BLOW YOUR CHIPS!!!!! Ouch!

That is why I suggested using an aerosol spray can of air to blast away dust.