ICH/MCH Over-heating; and possibly a dying motherboard?

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dotice

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Feb 2, 2011
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Before questions arise about my /Specs/, here they are:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
nVidia GeForce GTS 450 (EVGA, Super-clocked.)
4 GB of DDR2, By G-Skill.
Intel DP43TF Motherboard.

My Motherboard is roughly a year old, or so.
My problem in detail:

Recently, I've had really bad performance in PC games (Modern Warfare 2 was recording 40 or so FPS while in a battle, before the random performance drop it was running at 80-100 FPS; same settings. I can supply more information on what games, if need be.) ; then came bad performance period. I turned on Speedfan (4.42) to see what my temperatures were, YESTERDAY. My CPU was running at 99C, both cores. I quickly turned my PC off, un-plugged everything and turned of the PSU. (500 Watts) I pulled my motherboard out, slid the heatsink off. I removed the last layer of thermal compound and applied new. Re-seated the fan after doing so. I then placed my motherboard back into the case. After plugging up everything as it had been before removing the motherboard, I turned it on. I pulled Speedfan back up from my desktop and it recorded:
ICH: 69 C MCH: 59C. My CPU was idling at 34C, both cores. I had applied/plugged in everything correctly. It's recorded the same numbers, right now.
I'm using an Intel motherboard. I have never OVERCLOCKED this CPU, ever. Could it possibly be that Motherboard is in fact, dying? Do I need to replace the battery found on the motherboard? It has seen over a year of use. I can't think of a possible answer to this slow-down in performance. I've done multiple malware scans, virus scans, and even defragmented all of my hard-drives.

Another detail, I'm using the stock heatsink. It had never let me down before. A large fan in the back of my case, along with a smaller, but faster fan on the side of my case.

I will supply more information if needed. Thanks.
 
Solution
chances are your processor, when it overheated while gaming, reduced its core clock to prevent cpu death. its a common feature on the Core series processor, and explains the performance decrease.
if youre using the pushpin style cpu cooler, then one of the pushpins probably came unwedged a bit, causing the cpu overheat. reapplying thermal compount fixed this and all other issues.

im sure your cpu is fine
Your board is probably fine. If anything is overheating, it's probably the video card or power supply. I would run your system for awhile, and monitor the temps. Trust me, if your cpu had actually reached 99c, your system would have had bluescreens or froze up. It's probably a glitch with speedfan.
 


Exactly what I was thinking; But I still can't think of the possible loss in performance in games? Hm.

Thanks for the reply.
 
chances are your processor, when it overheated while gaming, reduced its core clock to prevent cpu death. its a common feature on the Core series processor, and explains the performance decrease.
if youre using the pushpin style cpu cooler, then one of the pushpins probably came unwedged a bit, causing the cpu overheat. reapplying thermal compount fixed this and all other issues.

im sure your cpu is fine
 
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