55-58celcius idle CPU... is it safe to run prime on it?

[graysky]

install lm_sensors and you can read all that under *NIX

[E_tron]

going above 60c can be harmful to the t-bred processor. the old thunderbird Athlons of 2001 can run much warmer.

[optim]

Originally Posted by E_tron

going above 60c can be harmful to the t-bred processor.

oh really? should I turn off the machine and find a better cpu-cooler for it?

[aaronl]

I have a similar problem. Here's a post I wrote for another forum where no one really helped me.

I have an Athlon XP 1700+ (Palamino) in an Enermax CS-3071 case with a Thermaltake Volcano 5 cooler. My system hasn't been perfectly stable for awhile. Last winter I ran GIMPS on my machine but decided to stop when I experienced some random freezes. Around the spring I started doing distributed computing again, but again I had a few random crashes and stopped eventually. A few days ago I decided that I should try again, and this time the poor machine didn't even survive a day. I knew something was very wrong, and I suspected cooling. I installed lm-sensors so I could check the CPU's core temperature. I found that it was 71C when idling and 78C-79C after about 10 minutes of Folding@Home. With GIMPS, the temperature hit 81C quickly at which point the computer froze.

I did a little research and concluded that the most likely problem was that the thermal pad on my heatsink had worn out. I bought a tube of Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste to replace it with. Sure enough, the pad was in terrible condition. I cleaned the residue off the CPU core and heatsink with very pure isopropanol and applied the Arctic Silver. The instructions keep going on about how foreign objects as thin as fingerprints could have major thermal impacts, so I was careful to do the best I could. The quality of my work might not have been ultimate - I've never done this before - but I got the surfaces as clean as I could, used only lint-free cloth for the cleaning, etc. When I put everything back together I also put a copper shim between the CPU and heatsink thinking it might help a bit. I booted and found that idle temperatures had dropped to 63 degrees. It seemed like a big victory. But then I started a mprime torture test and watched the temperature creep up until it stabalized at about 78 degrees. I'm pretty sure that's still way too hot. On a hot day the CPU would probably cross the 81C threshold I observed earlier, and even if it wouldn't, 78 degrees doesn't leave much breathing room. By the way, Folding@Home is only able to heat the core up to 74C.

I have no idea what's wrong here. The Volcano 5 seems like a good cooler (it certainly cost more than the OEM solution) and there are no visible problems with its operation. It blows air down onto the CPU. A fan in the side of the case also blows air in this direction. The power supply fan blows air out of the case. It seems to me that the air circulation should be decent. I've got 5 drives in there, but I don't think they should have that big an impact. Taking the side of the case (and therefore the fan) off has no significant effect on the temperature. The only possibility I can think of right now is that perhaps I used too much of the Arctic Silver. I started with a small bead and found it difficult to spread it across the core without making it very uneven, so I added a little more. I don't know how I could really quantify this, though.

Where would you go from here? I'm not excited about sinking cash into a new high-performance heat sink when I don't know if it will help and I'll be upgrading my system before long which may require another new cooler. Also keep in mind that every time I touch something on my motherboard there's a huge risk of me breaking something since I'm clumsy and have bad luck with computer hardware. Thus I'm more inclined to try the things that are most likely to help first.

BTW, the idle temperature is more like 67 after almost a week (weather fluctuations?)

[garo]

Try removing the copper shim. The problem does not seem to be related to airflow. Most likely has to do with the heatsink.

[lycorn]

Originally Posted by garo

Try removing the copper shim. The problem does not seem to be related to airflow. Most likely has to do with the heatsink.

Yes, that should help. And don´t forget that the quantity of thermal paste must be really small. Also make sure that the cooler fan is rotating at the correct speed. I had a problem sometime ago with a 7K rpm Dragon Orb that was defective and was rotating at less than half the rated speed. As a result, my poor XP 1800 (Palomino) was getting frightningly hot. I had to scrap the cooler (warranty had already finished, in accordance with Murphy´s Laws) and get a new one .
One last point: some Socket A heatsinks can be mounted the wrong way (180 degree shift), and that is not noticed while you are mounting them. But, as a result, the contact between the CPU surface and the base of the HS is reduced to just a small fraction of what it is intended to be. That happened to me once while mounting a Tbred and the CPU was overheating without any apparent cause.
HTH, good luck

Just got an Athlon 64, and like Aaron went for the OEM processor to buy a separate ThermalTake K8 heatsink. At first the machine ran at around 70c, and it went well into the warning zone (75+) if I tried to run anything processor-heavy. Naturally I turned it off.

Someone suggested that too much paste could cause this, so I removed the heatsink, spread the paste as a -very- thin and even layer (you could just read the print on the CPU), started up again and it was even worse - 78 right away, even when in the BIOS.

So I got hold of some more paste and tried the other option - applied more than I had originally. Now it's stable, but running at 62c idle, so I daren't try anything processor-heavy.

What's a copper shim? Do some ThermalTake heatsinks just suck?

Incidentally, the fan on the ThermalTake cooler is running to spec, and I have a case fan right next to it too.

[graysky]

TT makes good heatsinks dude: just don't use their lower line stuff... and be sure you're using good thermal paste (like as5). I have a 3200+ cooled with a tt volcano 12 with the variable speed fan (set for 3100 RPM) and I have great idle/load temps. Idle is around 37-38C and full load is around 54C. You might want to invest in a variable speed fan (comes with a nice rheostat that mounts in the front in a 3-1/2" bay, or in the back in a PCI slot so you can control the RPMS from 2800-5500).

Let us know what you do.

[Tihy]

I am running an overclocked Barton and the temp is between 70-75 C. No problems yet.