Is my CPU in danger?

General Forums Off-topic Chat
#1

I’m a little worried that I’m going to fry my cpu (PentiumD 3ghz). It runs at around 82 degrees C, or 180 F when rendering with multi-threading (both cpus working at 100%).

According to this table, http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm#intel my cpu is running quite hot :eek:. Also my intel monitoring software says it is running above the recommended temperature.

I am using the standard cooling that was provided with my system. Is it possible my PC was sold with inadequate cooling :confused: ? Has anyone ever bought a PC with cooling hardware that couldn’t cope with rendering demands?

#2

82 degrees is quite hot. I don’t know what the max temperature is for you cpu, bubt usually it is around 95 degrees. I would consider a better cooling solution, if I was you. Usually, the standard cooling solutions provided is adequate for noraml use, but rendering is very taxing on a cpu.

I had a similar situation a few years ago with an AMD XP 1500 with standard heatsink and fan. I bought a copper heatsink and that brought the temperature down considerably. There are many different cooling solutions availably, though.

An important thing to remember when changing the heatsink is to always use new heat transfer compound between heatsink and cpu. Usually that is supplied with the heatsink.

#3

Looks like I’ll have to upgrade my cooling. Hopefully my processor will forgive past abuse. Thanks for that.

#4

Sometimes just putting another fan in the case can improve this quite a bit.
Try and get the air actually moving through the case instead of just circulating around inside it.

#5

I beg to differ here. Another fan in the case only helps for system temperature, not cpu temp. I’m speaking from experience here. However good system ventilation is also important. Usually a brandname pc will have one system fan plus the fan in the power supply. I usually add another fan at the back, just to help. Too many fans don’t actually bring the system temperature down, it only helps to suck in more dust and make more noise.

Seabee, your cpu will easily forgive you. If it was damaged at all, it won’t work at all anymore.

#6

Some nitrogen might help :wink:
Seriously, nitrogen has been used as cooling before, but I don’t think rendering is THAT intense.

#7

Acctualy ebow3d, he is kinda right, a friend of mine did just that and it help a bit, not that he solved the problem but when doing something demanding it helps. But that is not what I would recomend anyway. It just makes more terrible noise.
Seabee, try taking your cooler off, clean the touching surfaces and try putting some fresh paste and if that don’t work you have no other option except to buy a new cooling fan.
And do it as soon as posible cause high temperature can burn surrounding elements on your motherboard and you don’t want that.
Hope this helps, good luck!

#8

Thanks everyone for the advice. While you’re all here, can anyone recommend a good heat-sink and/or fan combination? What specs should I go for?

#9

Here where I leve temperatures can get very often, in the summer, to 35, 36 celcius.

If your computer was designed to be used on a colder part of the planet:D it will have problems with temperature.

What I do is this. I remove the plastic things that fill the gaps where you would insert Drives or HDs (I don’t know the name in English :smiley: ) and I put a fan, like the ones you might have on your bedroom, in front of the pc.

The only thing is that you have to clean your computer more often because of the dust, but it helps A LOT, sometimes 15, 20 degrees.

#10

As far as I know Intel processors sometimes heat due to the unadequate memory.You should at last have a 1gb memory to run your pc.If you have, maybe u should add another.
But I am no expert on it whether it solve the problem,but buying a new,efficient cooling component will definitly work.

#11

It depends on what you are rendering. If, like in my case, you render big scenes, with lots of detail at high resolutions (4000 x 2250) then you cpu is sure to run at 100% capacity. Even at much lower resolutions, it should always run at 100% if your renderer’s coding is eficient. On my machines, rendering is by far the most intensive thing I do.
Seabee, you definetaley need a cpu cooling solution. The cheapest and simplest would be something like a copper heatsink, however, there are many different products available. Ask your friendly local hardware dealer.
Here’s one good manufacturer

#12

IIRC, around 60 degrees is when the CPUs start to have errors. And then around 80 is when they fail. I’m surprised that your CPU has lasted this long.

But, when you get a better cooling system, you should experience more stability (fewer crashes, and the like).

#13

80 degrees is not good. It will definitely shorten your processor’s useful lifespan and could quite possibly nuke it totally. Seems the builder of your system didn’t provide adequate cooling. This happens surprisingly often with OEM kit as the builders tend to assume that the buyers aren’t going to really push the system to the limit and that they can get away with a weak cooling solution.

Things to check that might shave a degree or two off your temps while waiting for any new cooling equipment you need to arrive (These are NOT long term solutions):

Check all the fans are running, including your intake and exhaust fans, as well as all heatsink fans.

Check that the airflow through the case is correct. If one or more case fans have been mounted back to front then this will definitely not help. the fan(s) at the front of the case should be sucking air into the case and the ones at the back should be pushing it out, creating a front to back airflow.

If your case has fan filters, check they’re clean.

If you can change fan settings in the BIOS then turn all your fans up to max. Your machine will make quite a racket like this but it should drag temps down a bit.

None of this is a permanant solution and I’d advise you invest in a new CPU cooler, preferably an all-copper one and some new case fans.

If your case has only one exhaust fan at the back then get another fan for sucking air in at the front and maybe a second exhaust fan.

If the fans in use in your system are 80mm but the case can take 120 mm fans then go fot the 120s. They can shift more air at a given RPM than the smaller fans and can therefore run safely at lower RPM and will be quieter.

the Intel stock cooler is obviously struggling. Replace it with a better model. Also, get some Arctic Silver thermal transfer compound and some CPU/Heatsink cleaner. Remove every last trace of the old thermal compound and properly apply some Arctic Silver to the surfaces to be mated before fitting your new heatsink.

If heating is still a problem after all that then you might need to look into water cooling.

#14

holy shit yes. I got a custom quad opteron with about three fans too few - the first few times I did quad rendering it got so hot that it had to do the emergency shutdown to stop from melting. I would HIGHLY recommend either replacing your fans with stronger (but probably noisier) custom fans, or adding in a few extras. if that doesn’t work I’d check the thermal paste application to make sure it was done right, and get some high grade stuff and do it yourself - a lot of times they use too much or too little and that has a huge effect

#15

Less Fans can be better than more. Generally speaking, 2 fans on the top of the case actually works better than 4 fans placed somewhere else i.e. 2 back 1 side, 1 front.

#16

water cooling seems very effective and they are selling some prebuilt kits no that expensive. Check out Tomshardware great reviews and testing on overclocking.

#17

You should definately keep it under 100 C. Is your cpu overclocked? How long ago was it since you applied thermal paste or did you put any at all? Was it artic silver, generic, etc.?

#18

Good news, I have just installed another heat-sink/fan. It’s called “ice cube”. I don’t think it’s a famous brand, but anyway, my cpu is running at around 68/69 degrees C with both cores running at a steady 100%.

That’s pretty reasonable I think, considering it was running at 82/83 degrees C with the standard (albeit a little dusty) set-up.

Here’s to many happy (and safe) rendering hours ahead …
Thanks everyone!
:D:D:D

If anyone is interested in the specs:
System:
PentiumD 3ghz
1Gb ram

Heatsink/fan:
copper base, copper fins/aluminum fins
6mm pipes x 2
1000-4200 RPM fan
15-37.5 dBA noise level
70x70x25mm fan dimension

#19

That’s cool. However, 69/69 degrees is still pretty hot. What temp is it at when in idle?

#20

As a rule of thumb, never never NEVER use the fan/heatsink combination that comes pre-packaged with a cpu, buy a better one, there are plenty and most are invariably better than OEMs, you can’t buy anything as cheap and nasty as an OEM fan.

Buy some decent thermal bonding compound, a silver based one.

Check the fans in the front of the case are moving air the same way as the ones at the rear, i.e. not both into the case, one to exhaust hot air, one to bring in cool.
The p4 prescotts expect a duct to bring cool air directly from the outside of the case

Always build in/install the right drivers for you bios/cpu, then the ‘thermal throttling interupt’ will try to stop any damage to your cpu.

Setup ‘powernow’ for k8 systems and ‘speedstep’ for intel, save energy and money at the same time.

Setup software to alarm at 76 degrees, and shutdown at 80. Silicon, in testing, is thermal cycled between 10 and 80 degrees, though the ‘operating’ temperature will be quoted as lower than this, it’ll work at 75 degrees, just not for so long as at 55.