Sometimes the simplest trick seems to do wonders

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September 22nd, 2003, 03:08 PM
cisco2

Sometimes the simplest trick seems to do wonders

I had a PC overheating. Fans all working, blowing in the right direction. PSU fan output feels a bit weak but it's working. 933mhz pentium, running at about 75 to 85 degrees centigrade. I was all ready to conclude that some low level components had gone out and I was looking at mainboard and possibly CPU replacement.

Just to be sure I pulled the heatsink. Looked ok, was a smear of heatsink compund present. I thought I might as well give it a try so I recoated the CPU and heatsink with a light, even coat of new compound and resecured the heatsink. I did not reseat the CPU.

Now it's running at 29 to 32 degrees centigrade. I never would have suspected such a simple fix might result in a 50 degree difference in operating temperature. I did reseat the RAM, only because removing it made accessing the heatsink clasp much easier.

Thats all I did. The results are much greater than I would ever have suspected. Has anyone else seen this dramatic a difference in similar circumstances?
September 22nd, 2003, 04:15 PM
Ya_know

If the heat sink wasn't evenly planted on top of the CPU it won't conduct the heat. Simply cleaning off the old compound and reseating the sink correctly may very well have done the job, without any new compound. Also, is it possible that the compound that was there before was not the correct substance? If it was not, and didn't conduct heat, it may have even been insulating the heat in the chip by providing a barrier between it and the sink. I agree 50 degrees is a lot, but it really sounds like it was because something was wrong with the initial installation of the sink...
September 22nd, 2003, 05:03 PM
BIGGS

i believe it, a guy i use to work with purchaced a celeron 600 off a website that gaurenteed a stable overclocking to 950mhz, (this was when PIII 1ghz was la creme de la creme) and sure enough after he got his stuff in the mail put the new cpu in his machine and ..... nothing. so after he spend countless hours trying to get it to work he finally put his old cpu in got the company's contact info and then called them, their staff asked if has used the special heatsink compound that they shipped with the cpu, he didnt so they asked him to try it with them on the phone and sure enough it worked, it went from being so far out of temp. range that it wouldnt turn on and post to running at a cool thirty something degreese.and it was all made possible because of a super think layer of heatsink paste
September 23rd, 2003, 04:59 PM
constructor

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ya_know

If the heat sink wasn't evenly planted on top of the CPU it won't conduct the heat. Simply cleaning off the old compound and reseating the sink correctly may very well have done the job, without any new compound. Also, is it possible that the compound that was there before was not the correct substance? If it was not, and didn't conduct heat, it may have even been insulating the heat in the chip by providing a barrier between it and the sink. I agree 50 degrees is a lot, but it really sounds like it was because something was wrong with the initial installation of the sink...

Ya Know thats true. :flames:
September 25th, 2003, 03:04 PM
gazzak

AMD processors come with a sticky pad type of contact where you have to unpeel the paper before placing the heatsink onto the CPU. My temp was too hot, 60-70 degrees. I read that the pad caused the problems, removed it and put some paste on instead and it dropped to 45-50 degrees. Not as good as Ciscos saving but worth a few minutes of my time.

I think AMD put the heat pad thing on to idiot proof the process, because I can imagine some people putting the paste in totally the wrong place! :eek2: