Heat Sink Problem: P4 530 LGA775 running at 73C--- ~7 dergrees over maximum

[bdwoolman]

Greets from Norge,

Just finished this build (see sig). Found e-book and feedback from this site's forums invaluable. Booted fine first time. Thanks guys.

Now: BIOS reports a CPU temperture of 73 degrees C at idle. Needless to say I have not pushed the system at all. This is six degrees over the maximum temp spec for the CPU (Intel data sheet REF: P4 530 3GB LGA775.) However, I was able to complete the install of the OS (XP) before I powered down. System seemed to be performing normally. CPU will not thermtrip until it reaches 86 degrees C. However, I am sure that running it at that temp for long will shorten the life of the chip. Providing the BIOS reading is accurate. ASUS mobos have been wrong before, but I suspect this data is okay.

I also suspect I know the cause, but am asking for advice as to the cure.

Let me give a little background, which, by the way, might be useful for anyone contemplating an LGA775 build. The bundled heatsink is universal to this family. He or she can learn from my mistakes.

Install of heat sink did not go very smoothly. This HS and fan unit came boxed with the chip and by all accounts, and to my eye, seemed up to the job.. The heat sink is installed with pressure clips that harpoon through a set of four prepared holes in the mobo. It should be simple, but the clips, which rotate, need to be oriented properly before the unit is laid on the mobo or they won't pop through. Unfortunately the Intel instructions ignore this critical point. There is an elegant and very detailed description of this nifty install process here. This well done hardware zone DIY guide covers the stuff Intel neglects to say. Too bad I didn't see it before I did the install. And I didn't ask since the intructions seemed clear and the process straightforward

In any case, when the misoriented clips did not penetrate I had to remove the partially seated heatsink, fiddle and (finally) suss out the mounting clips, and then reseat it properly. I noticed there was (of course) a small amount of damage to the square of thermal paste on the base plate. I would say there was a little more than one square millimeter stuck to the chip near one corner. So there was a corresponding gap on the baseplate of the HS. I suspect this is the root of my heat problem, but it is hard to believe. I did orient the unit so the goop on the chip would refill the gap. HS Fan now seems harpooned very tight to the board.

Now, What do you guys sugggest?

Should I remove the sink and replace the thermal paste? If so please suggest a product. Could I subsitute one of the thermal compunds that get spread on thinly? Arctic Silver seems to get recommended a lot. The Intel stuff was spread on half a mil thick by the way. My preference would be to use the hardware I have and replace the gunk. But with what? Can I buy a little square of this stuff to stick on?

Should I get an aftermarket heatsink and fan. Thermaltake makes a reasonably priced LGA775-ready unit that got good marks from at least one reviewer.

Then there i$ the Thermalright unit.

The aftermarket stuff does not install all that neatly, however.

Anyway it's late. I am tired. Look forward to your informed and patient replies.

I know I'll be helped.

Regards,

Bruce

[flanzig1]

Try the Artic Silver first before getting a new HSU. First thing to do is clean the old thermal pad off the heatsink and CPU. Then apply a dab of AS the size of a rice grain and use a credit card(or some other piece of plastic with a straight edge) to spread the thermal compound evenly over the CPU face. You have enough on the CPU if it looks like just a silver haze left on.

[Yuanji]

actually, you should just spread it out by taking the heatsink, and rotating it slightly a little if you can on the chip since it comes with a heatspreader.

[bdwoolman]

Temp problem down to improper seating of HSF. Worth talking about, though, since it was not simple stupidity on my part. Stupidity maybe, but not simple.

The unit seemed snug, but a check of the reverse side of the mobo showed that two of the locks were only partially engaged. This P5GD2 mobo has a big passive heat sink on the board's backside under the CPU. And though a very nice feature, it interfered with the smooth installation of the HSF when the board was in the case..

When I took the board out I was able to get the HSF down tightly the way it is supposed to be. This actually caused the board to bow significantly. Whoa.

Here's the problem. When board was screwed to the case there was no flex so the HSF would not pop in as designed. Taking it out did the trick. The bow actually made the board a little difficult to reinstall as the screw holes were now not perfectly aligned, but it was not a big problem. Tells you how much it is curved, though. Seems to be running fine.

My opinion. Best to install this boxed LGA775 HSF with this Asus P5GD2 mobo on the bench. That way you can see if the plastic barbs are fullly engaged. A little black lock peeps right out to the bottom of the clip if this is the case. Takes some serious pressure to get it there.

Intel instructions STRESSED doing HSF install with board in case, so I did, but this was problematic because the board needed to flex a lot to allow HSF to seat. When I did the first bad install on the case it was tricky because the HSF seemed to be well fastened down, but wasn't. Lucky I didn't fry my chip, but it was down enough to cool somewhat. And I bet the passive heat sink helped.

Now that the unit is down snug my CPU temp is a cool 30 C. Slightly damaged thermal pad was not the problem after all.

Now formatting monster sata drive.

Cheers,

b

[MrAustin]

That sounds like a terrible design if you ask me. Glad you got it solved though

[bdwoolman]

I'm glad too. Thanks. Actually not bad when it works. Has won praise from many corners. (Which is why I didn't trash it in my post.) No need to pull board to install HSF. Sweet. However, ASUS and Intel clearly missed tolerances by a few hundred micrometers with this board. Have seen references to bowed boards elsewhere. Too bad it turned out mine was one the list :-|

But in principle I do sort of hate plastic car upholstery type fasteners. Very unforgiving when they fail to work right. And they only stay primed for a couple of inserts before the plastic wears. Give me a nut a bolt and a lock washer any day. And of course a place to put it.

Anyway, the board is flying along in burn in. Processor is idling at close to room temperature and I have turned on the board’s cool dynamic overclocking feature. Gives you more when you need it. Less when you don’t.

This is a terrific enthusiast board. ANd not a terrible buy when you consider the on board wireless lan, which I needed, and the passable hi def on-board sound card, which I also find adequate. Hey, I live in an apartment. Wouldn't shake the walls if I could....much.

Cheers,

B

[jragonstudios]

Just wanted to let you know just how much i appreciate your post with your overheating prob with our new 3.0 ghz p4 530 and the Asus P5GD2 Deluxe motherboard. I had the exact same problem you did and with your help I am no longer pulling my hair out and wishing I hadn't gone with a processor that was notorious for running hot. When they said hot I didn't think 92C is what they were talking about and it turnes out it wasn't. Luckily at that temp nothing happened but it scared me enough to investigate into a solution and that solution came in the form of your post. Talking the board to the bench to install the heatsink and fan was the trick I could see the bowing that is the issue with this board and the pins not all the way through the PC board. Anyway I am now running a 3.4ghz, 900 FSB and 600 DDR2 at a cool 35-40C so me and my new comp thank you for everything!

[zokson]

I am so thankful I came across this post. My MOBO is Asus P5AD2 Premium but it seems to suffer from the same symptoms you guys experienced. As recently as last night I was pulling my hair out, too. My $2k system is so loud and I was running out of options. Even when I put MCE 2K5 in standby, CPU temperature would be around 73C, causing Thermaltake Silent LGA775 to run at 2000+RPM - the system then becomes so LOUD it CAN NOT be classified as HTPC by any stretch of imagination. Are you guys using the stock HSF that came with the CPU? Am I reading this right - you are able to run it at 30-40C? Oh, boy, I gotta give this a try!

[bdwoolman]

in answer to your question. Yes, I used stock heatsink and fan . By all reports the stock HSF was well up to the job. My thermal problem stemmed from the fact that the fan was not properly seated. I had to take the board out and squeeze the heatsink fan to the motherboard. This caused the motherboard to bend, but it also placed the heatsink firmly on to the core of the processor. I suspect the same thing has happened to you. Check out this fantastic guide to see how to install your heatsink.the guide also covers a lot more, but I have sent you to the heat sink installation.


install guide

Also I just finished a long slightly humorous account of my LGA775 build pointing out some of the problems that I had. Many of them of my own making. The article can be found

here

[jhaywood]

Hey guys,

I am running into a similar problem but with a different board. I have a 3.4 processor with the D915PBL board. I have read the suggestions here and performed a removal of the motherboard to re-seat the HS and that has not helped.

Upon installing the CPU and HS for the first time, loading the pc up showed a temp in the bios ranging 63-66C. I felt that was pretty hot and started researching...now, I know this chip is notorious for running hot, but still..

So, I ended up buying some grease. It is Antec's brand, but it is silver.
Anyhow, among laying the grease down 3 different times now, constantly checking the HS pins for secureness, I am not showing temp of 58c on IDCC(Intel Desktop Control Center) and still around 63-66c in the bios at idle.

Brand new system, so I kept the comuter up to install all critical updates and such and even downloaded the latest bios (which there was one for 2/11) - did not help.

I have ran some of the IDCC and Sandra benchmark / stability tests and it passed and did not shutdown or backoff. But under these tests and when playing Everquest 2, with IDCC open, it shows temps up to 86-87 degrees, which is obviously toooo hot!!

So, I guess my questions are - What else could I try currently (not having to go buy any different just yet) and Is it a possibility that the bios and software driven temp readouts are wrong.. Again, because I do not seem to notice any performace creeps or do I smell anything or feel a ridiculous amount of heat by the HS...
Is there a break-in period with putting grease on?

But, on the flipside to this, shouldnt the HS be rather hot to the touch if it is disputing heat correctly..??

Please let me know with any ideas or questions you may have to help aid the cause hehe..

Thanks

[jhaywood]

Okay, too add to my previous post... I have taken the HS and CPU out again and re-applied grease... This time, upon firing up PC..in the bios was showing 50c which is much better, but still seems hot compared to some people's. But on the flipside, this is a Prescott and not the Northword..so, I know it is supposed to run hot but not sure how hot.

I did see a post regarding this chip on another site and the person writing the post was seeing up to 72-74c temps under load..He stated he called Intel and the tech said that was withing operating range, and not to be concerned unless it hit around 78c.

So, with that said...My IDCC is reading about 50 - 52c at idle and up to 71-72c under heavy load at most.....and this would be playing Everquest 2...and right now I running 2 software's stress tests....Sandra 2004 as a 100% background process and IDCC )which runs 9 tests simultaneously for 15 minutes) and the temp is currently 68-69c with all the tests running, musicmatch playing music, and me writing this with no hiccups in performance or music....It is the best it has been so far, but still wondering if I should be concerned enough to try to get the temp lower.

Any opinions?

[bdwoolman]

I cannot say what your operating temperature should be.

I did find charts for my CPU on the Intel web site and they were difficult to read. But after struggling with them for a while it was clear that the maximum temperature for my particular 3 GHz processor is 67° centigrade. The thermal trip is 20° above that... about 87°. This is when the processor shuts down due to catastrophic failure to protect itself from destruction... Hopefully.

Sorry I cannot direct you to the page where I found those thermal specifications. it has been awhile. But if you search Intel's site carefullyyou should come up with the numbers for your processor. As I recall it can run hotter than mine -- the faster the chip the hotter the spec.

Intel has designed a special kind of thermally advantaged case case for these processors. Click the link to take a look at the specifications. the idea is that these cases suck air directly from the outside through a duct that terminates in a flange that covers the fan intake of the CPU. There does not appear to be many of these on the market yet. A company called Evercase makes one, but I don't know where to buy.

It does sound like pretty good news though. Between the grease and the re-seating you got the temperature down.

if you haven't done so, you might want to start a new thread. Seems to me like you're okay for now, but I am the farthest thing from an expert you could find.

[jhaywood]

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment though..

[jimw]

It appears I'm having the same troubles as everyone else in this thread. First time I installed the heatsink/fan onto the processor, no clicks and one of the sides looked like it wasn't all the way down, so I took it off, noticed that part of the heat conductor came off onto the processor, then putting it on the same way it came off, I tried agian and heard distinct clicks each time, like the instructions say I'm supposed to. Well when I check my cpu temp, it's around 70-75 celcius on idle. Not good. So I started looking around, eventually came here and read this thread. So I took off the heatsink, read exactly the install guide link you provided, only this time I installed, no clicks, and it was rough putting it in and taking it back out when I figured it must have messed up. I was hoping not to have to take out my mobo, but I guess that is the next step. Did you have clicks when you put yours in?

Also, here is a site that lists nearly every processors max temp and other stats. http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm

Intel P4 3.2ghz Prescott (540)
ASUS P5AD2-E Premium
1GB DDR2 Ram
ATI Radeon x850 XT
Antec True430 PSU

[bdwoolman]

Jimw, I had to take out my mobo because it required flex to seat. When screwed in the case the HSF would not seat. Go here for a very clear pictorial guide. Board needed to flex, as i said.

I got the click, but when I checked from reverse side I could see that the small black 'locks' were not fully engaged. You have to look at the pictures to know what I am talking about. The board had to be out of the case. And it bowed a lot when the fan was firmly in. Yikes. Seems okay though.

I wrote an article about problems with my build. Since your board is similar you might want to check it out. Hope it helps.

If you have damaged the thermal pad you might need remove old and to apply some new material. Arctic Silver gets recommended a lot. Lots of info on applying this gunk is to be found on other threads. I never used it. So I am not qualified to share any experience with you on its application. Good luck in getting that temp down.

Good shout on the processor site. It had mine spot on.

[jimw]

Thank you for the info. I decided to bite the bullet and pull the mb out and make 100% sure the pins were going all the way. Running around 40c now (from 76c) . Thanks agian for this thread, exactly what I needed.

[lobsterboy]

I think I've got a similar problem to this, and was wondering if anyone had some advice. I've been running with my new machine for 2 weeks now:

Intel P4 3.2GHz 540
ASUS P5GDC-V Deluxe
512MB DDR 400

It's always had a bit of a "hot plastic" smell, which I was hoping would go away. I ran it with a pretty heavy load for the first time today (CPU running at about 55% for 3hrs), and noticed that it was heating up. Installed ASUS Probe to check the temp, and found I was running between 45-49c idle, and at 74-76c with the load (Intel's site lists the max for the 540 cpu at 67c).

So I've got 2 questions:
-Does it sound like this improperly seated HSF is likely my problem (I'm no hardware expert, and can't see the back of the motherboard where the clips would be without removing it)? If this is the problem, I'm probably going to take the machine back to the shop to have it checked out instead of pulling out the mobo myself...I'm ok with throwing in RAM & even CD drives, but this sounds like an outside job.
-How much damage have I possibly caused the processor running it at 7-9 degrees over the max for 3 hours? And is there any way to test the damage, or is it likely a life-span shortening type of damage? If damage is likely, and if I have to take it into the shop, maybe I should be asking for a new processor?

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated...

[Cricket]

lobsterboy: Please start your own thread.

Cricket