CPU fan overworking after cleaning/new paste/new hardware

[Camulus9]

I have been working on a friend's HP p6101f desktop pc that's been out of commission for a bit. When I first opened the case to inspect it was extremely dirty. The reason it was in a non-working state was a failed chip on the motherboard but I have since remedied that issue with a PCIe card. I cleaned everything as best i could (like shiny, new) and added new thermal paste (arctic silver 5). The PC is running fine but I notice now that about every 5 minutes the CPU fan kicks into overdrive. This is occurring really any time that the computer is simply on. I've been transferring files over from an external HDD -- not even running video or multiple programs, etc. I also upgraded the RAM to 8 GB so I'm at a loss for why this is occurring. Is this an indication that the CPU or CPU fan might be starting to fail?

 

[dwatterworth]

You should load up a good application called 'Core Temp'.

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

The application will record the min and max temperatures on each core during any given On cycle. It also updates in realtime, you can adjust the sensor read intervals for faster updates as well. You could just monitor that and see if the application registered a temperature increase whenever the fan kicks on.

Maybe the heatsink isn't sitting completely flush on the chip or there is too much/too little thermal material?

I would start with the application to watch what the temperatures are actually doing and go from there.

That wouldn't really be an indication that the CPU or CPU heatsink/fan is failing. CPU failure isn't usually an incremental thing, it's either working or dead.

 

[Camulus9]

You should load up a good application called 'Core Temp'.

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

The application will record the min and max temperatures on each core during any given On cycle. It also updates in realtime, you can adjust the sensor read intervals for faster updates as well. You could just monitor that and see if the application registered a temperature increase whenever the fan kicks on.

Maybe the heatsink isn't sitting completely flush on the chip or there is too much/too little thermal material?

I would start with the application to watch what the temperatures are actually doing and go from there.

That wouldn't really be an indication that the CPU or CPU heatsink/fan is failing. CPU failure isn't usually an incremental thing, it's either working or dead.

Thanks. I downloaded the program and monitored for about 20 minutes. The CPU fan kicked into high gear twice during this time. The min and max temp range reported during this time was only 30 and 38 degrees Celsius. The AMD Athlon X2 7550 supports a max temp of at least 75 degrees C. The fan seemed to kick in when the temp reached around 34C. I went into BIOS and this is when it got weirder. Twice when I was mulling around in the settings checking for any incorrect settings the PC powered itself down. When I rebooted it stated the computer was shut down to prevent damage from overheating! I am pretty sure I applied the thermal paste correctly (I've done it several times with no issue). I do have a similar fan from an older HP tower that I could mount and try. Would that be the issue? Wouldn't the fan just not work at all if it was bad?

 

[dwatterworth]

The chip and motherboard are what report the temperature, not the heatsink and fan, so it might be a bugged temperature sensor. If that application is reporting 38 degrees, that is totally normal and not something you did regarding thermal paste or heatsink installation.

I'm not 100% sure where to go from there with a pre-built system since they usually don't have bios options for changing fan profiles and stuff. In the bios is there a section that has hardware monitors that report temperatures? Most systems will have it with varying levels of detail, definitely should include a cpu readout. If the bios is reading the same temperatures that the application was reporting in windows, I would first see if there is a bios update for the motherboard. If there is, apply that.

I've seen a good amount of software packages such as Asus's AI Suite interfere with temp readings and bug out, but seems like the temperature sensors are reporting properly, just at some point, probably a split second, there is something reporting a out of limit reading on the CPU. Something to try on a very short time period in which you watch the coretemp readings, if the bios has the options for it, you could try selecting to ignore the CPU temperatures and see if that has any effect? Before running the computer like that, make sure the CPU fan is still spinning at a regular speed.

 

[Camulus9]

I wanted to post an update on this in case it helps anyone reading this. I tried changing different settings, cleared the CMOS, etc. but what eventually fixed the problem was just swapping the CPU fan with a working one from another tower I had. I've had the computer running all day and it hasn't once kicked into overdrive, so even though the existing CPU fan was running normal and high speed clearly something was wrong with it. Changing the actual fan did the trick.

 

[swearonbank4]

I have a similar case.. I have a liquid cooled.. h100i liquid cooler and what happened is that i got a new motherboard and when i swapped out the chip and motherboard, the chip had little thermal paste and the next day (today) and i reapplied the thermal paste. the thermal paste i know is not an issue but when i read the temps, it goes to 30 to around 60 and when i check EVERYTHING.. there is no issues with the wires.. or well i dont think so..