How hot is too hot?

[ipalindromei]

Hi there,

I have an old slot-1 Athlon 850 running on a Asus K7V board with 768 megs of RAM. I've got a Seagate 80 gig hd and a second Western Digital 30 gig drive (slaved), plus a Samsung CD-burner and a Lite-on DVD-rom.

Any reboots after an hour of use (or so) usually result in an error message on boot-up. It indicates that the temperature on the motherboard is getting high. It has been as high as 131 degrees Fahrenheit (about 55 degrees Celsius). The problem's persisted for about 3 days now, but the comp seems to still run okay (just an error message at boot).

130 F / 55 C.....is this too hot?

The CPU fan, case fan, and ps fan are all running fine. The case is relatively free of dust. It sits atop my desk, about 2 inches away from my monitor. Nothing else around the computer to block vents or generate extra heat. There _is_ the weather, though - we've had highs in the low 90's at 30-50% relative humidity here for the past couple of days.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Ipalindromei

 

[JBT]

That is perfectly fine I belive the chip dies at 85C. 55C is fine for older Athlons if it starts going above or near 65 C is when you should worry.

 

[Pauli]

He's referring to the system temperature, not the processor temperature. 55C is too hot for the system temp. Sounds like you need some better airflow in your case -- an additional exhaust fan perhaps?

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Pauli
He's referring to the system temperature, not the processor temperature. 55C is too hot for the system temp. Sounds like you need some better airflow in your case -- an additional exhaust fan perhaps?

Isn't going to help if his room temp is 90 degrees. Computers and AC go hand in hand. Without AC or climate control, expect to run a hot computer unless water cooled.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: JBT
That is perfectly fine I belive the chip dies at 85C. 55C is fine for older Athlons if it starts going above or near 65 C is when you should worry.

His is a Slot-A Athlon, an older one. I don't believe that those had onboard thermal diodes, like the newer TBreds do. In that case, the reading is from some sort of sensor on the mobo, and is generally, depending on placement, usually a bit low in terms of readings. If that sensor is reading 55C, then the actual CPU temps are likely much higher. If the recent rebooting problems coincide with the increased ambient temps, then cooling (or lack thereof) could well be the problem.

If those were on-die thermal sensor temps, then I would agree with you. 55C is a little bit on the high side, but still in the nominal operating range. My TbredA @ X2000 speeds / 1.52v, is at 43C, case temp 34C. My CPU temps used to be nearly 51-52C, until I cleaned the fan out and re-applied thermal grease recently.

 

[ipalindromei]

Virtual Larry, thanks for your suggestions. You mentioned having a problem with a dusty heatsink/cpu fan. I didn't think of dusting it off, so I'll try that. You also mentioned reapplying thermal grease, which also seems like a good idea. Is this something that should be done periodically? If so, what protocol should I follow in reapplying it? Presumably, I will somehow need to clean off what remains of the old grease.

Regs and Pauli, I'm currently running one case fan. I'll try adding another. One question (which is a newbie question, I admit) - should the airflow go out of the case or into it? I thought you'd get the same effect either way, so I never bothered to research it.

Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about the ambient temperature of my apartment. I don't have the time or money to put in an AC unit. And the insulation in my building is pretty poor. Fortunately, I live in West Los Angeles, and it only gets really hot maybe 2 weeks out of the year.

Thanks, everyone, for your advice. These forums are great.

- Ipalindromei

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Generally, the fans in the front are used for intake and the rear/side/top fans are used for exhaust. It generally doesn't really matter, but it's not as good to have two fans working against each other and front to back circulation is a bit nicer.

 

[ipalindromei]

It makes sense to have the airflow going from front to back because having hot air blowing in your direction wouldn't be very pleasant.

Thanks.