CPU Temperature

MasterMind · 05-21-2002, 03:00 PM

For those of you who can monitor your CPU's temp, I was just wondering what temperatures do you guys hover around. And also what cooling method you use. I want to see the difference in temperatures with other peoples computers.

Mine is always around 55 C - 57 C average. I used Artic Silver 3 thermal paste, and I have a couple of case fans too.

sdtPikachu · 05-21-2002, 07:47 PM

Blimey... 55 deg?! Bet you you're using an Athlon XP, right? Athlons always run damned hot... you're not OCing, no?

Mine has never gone above 42 deg with a GHz P3. The heat sink on it isn't bad, and it's got a quite substantial fan on the top and two case fans with in-case ducting over the CPU, RAM and PCI/AGP slots. And the case is metal, natch.

55 deg seems a bit high to me, but I've not had much experience of this kinda thing... all I know is my own processor. Once I build my own comp, we shall see... I imagine I'll need to keep it inside the freezer.

Cyrax9 · 05-21-2002, 09:25 PM

I've never mesred the Case temp, but I can tel you this, My PC can heat the room in the winter if the furnace ever brakes. I have a 1.7GHz P4 that I bought last year from Alienware and it has 5 fans plus room fr a Sixth, which I'll need to install soon.

The Koolmaxx Video coling system on the side helps, but I'm running a hot rig here. Even the mouse is hot after the PC's on for about half an hour.

I've never mesured the temp, but if I knew how I would.

GameMaster · 05-21-2002, 09:42 PM

gekko, what utility would give us the temperature of our computers?

MasterMind · 05-22-2002, 02:49 AM

I'm not overclocking my CPU, but it is an Athlon 1.4. Maybe thats why it runs that hot? Or maybe I didn't do a good job of applying the Artic Silver. Plus I think I could use a better heatsink than this generic coolermaster. My mobo temperature reads at around
40 C

Hey Cyrax9, I think my PC could do the exact thing. My room is always the warmest room in the house because of the PC.

And GameMaster, I used the Asus program that came with the mobo to monitor the temp.

Mushlafa · 05-22-2002, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MasterMind

My room is always the warmest room in the house because of the PC.

:eek: :eek: Maybe thats why my room is always like 15C hotter than all the other rooms.... that explains it. My comp must run REALLY hot it eaven has the fan on when all i got running is a screen saver and that damn fan is loud...

How do i check the temp of my cpu?

Im on a pentium 2 398 Mhz

sdtPikachu · 05-22-2002, 09:07 PM

Hmm, how to measure CPU temp... unfortuately, this depends very much on your computer.

Firstly you'll need a mobo/CPU that has a temperature sensor. Many generic craputers don't have anything like this (it costs money!), although with temperature becoming more and more of an issue it's becoming more standard.

Personally, I measure my CPU temp in BIOS (I'm running the nVidia BIOS), which has a little utility for that kinda thing (it cranks the CPU to maximum cycles and then gives you the temp readout). It might be worth having a root about to see if you have a similar feature.

The better mobos (primarily those designed for OCing) however will also come with a software utility for Windoze that'll let you monitor your core temperature whilst running your OS as well. My friend Bumfluff bought a mobo (can't remember the type, sorry!) with this particular utility. Check it out - you might have one too.

Mushlafa, if you're running a P2 you have no worries of overheating or anything so long as you don't do anything stupid...! That just isn't fast enough to overheat unless you lose the thermal grease/heat sink or something. As far as heat is concerned, it all comes down to clock cycles (in general); if you have a fast CPU (above 1 GHz say) then overheating is a danger... this is why PowerPC chips are great, cos they give equivalent performance to x86's runnig at twice their clock speed (and hence they also use less power).

The new-gen P4's and Athlons are getting to the point that they need refrigeration; in fact Intel predicted that by the time they reached 2 GHz refrigeration would be essential. Then some weird things happened and they found that their chips didn't quite need chilling just yet. But that point is very, very close. If you ask me, ther next big thing will be dual processor systems, cos refrigeration is a huge expense/reliabilty problem and it'd just be easier to get the extra power by using two or more hot CPU's than one frickin' boiling one.

I remember reading a story on /. about some people who accidentally OCed a 486 to 500 MHz or something just as stupid. They knew their processor was going to get fried, so can you guess what they did?

Installed Half Life and played it for 20 mins until the processor crapped out. Class.

Cyrax9 · 05-26-2002, 12:03 AM

well, at leas Half-life is a god way to kill your PC right before you hook-up your new one

sdtPikachu · 05-30-2002, 09:56 AM

Right - on the computer my flatmate has just built:

Athlon XP 1800 (1.53 GHz)
Thermaltake Mini Super Orb heatsink (with two contra-rotating fans)
Attached by arctic silver 3
Lian-Li luminium case with 2 80mm intake fans and 3 outtakes (including a blowhole)

This runs at ~50 degrees with the system running at about 36-40 depending on ambient temperature. However, there has been a slight issue wth the heatsink. My flatmate originally planned to buy a 1.1 GHz Athlon and bought the Thermaltake to go with it. However, in the end he bought the XP 1800 on the cheap. But the thermaltake is only rated up to 1.5 GHz, so technically we're running it too hot, although we're well within performance tolerance. He's considering buying a better heatsink (such as the Thermaltake Volcano series), although they don't look as sexy as the Orbs.

If anyone wants to upgrade a heat sink, I'd suggest going for the Thermaltakes. Not only are they bloody god heat sinks, they're also really pretty. If you've got a window mod with lighting, you will want a thermaltake.

You know you want one