Overheating problem

[fevkalbeser]

I have a Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 motherboard which I think holds the world record in overheating Both in bios and pc status monitoring softwares (i.e. everest) the minimum temperature of the motherboard is 60 °C (at the moment 64 °C for example, even though only internet explorer is working) That seems to be a big problem, but I couldn't manage to overcome it. I have 2 case fans operating at 2700rpm (which I couldn't change). I also tried to make the airflow better, but that seems to have no effect. By the way currently my CPU is at 49°C and the GPU at 61°C. What should I do? I am using this computer about 10 months and I just realized this problem. Interestingly no problems occurred until yesterday I used a software to convert a divx file to dvd, which used CPU power for a long period of time. I tried using Intel QST option in the bios in order to increase the fan speed when the computer overheats but it just did the opposite and minimized fan speeds no matter how hot it is. Thanks in advance...

 

[cosmicc]

Wow, that sounds tough,
If you've already tried extra cooling, I guess your only option would be to replace the motherboard with something a little better. You might wanna look into getting one of the new P35 boards, I have an Asus P5K-SE, it serves me well. I also haven't heard too many good things about Gigabyte motherboards...

 

[cyberjock]

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm

Follow that guide. If it still overheats at stock voltage and freqency then there's something wrong.

 

[fevkalbeser]

Actually I haven't tried placing extra fans, I just took out one of the rear fans and placed it to the front and moved the cables so that the air inside would move more freely. I can't afford a new motherboard right now, but what bothers me is this board was supposed to be good at cooling ("quad cooling" they call it), instead it is hot as hell. Do you think adding some extra cooling equipments can solve the problem?

 

[fevkalbeser]

@cyberjock
That guide only leads to a documentation which gives instructions on how to apply some kind of thermal compound on the cpu. Are you sure that link is correct?

 

[cyberjock]

Yep. That was the link I meant to provide. The heat transfer from heat generation to leaving the case is actually very simple.

Steps:

1. Heat generation inside CPU
2. Heat transferred to heat spreader(if CPU has one)
3. Heat transferred from heat spreader to heatsink. This is improved using CPU thermal paste to improve the transfer surface area.
4. Fan blows heat over the heatsink fins transferring the heat from the heatsink to the air.
5. Case fan blows hot air out of the case of the computer.

There's alot to this series of steps. Generally if any of these things goes wrong(except one) you'll know damn well what's wrong. CPU fan stops spinning, case fan fails, heatsink fins bent to heck and you'll KNOW what to fix. On the other hand heatsink thermal paste is one of those things you can't check to see if you did it right. If you do it wrong your punishment is high CPU temperatures. Everything will 'appear' right, but something will definitely be wrong. You can't check if you did it right, because if you remove the heatsink and say 'yeah.. the thermal paste was applied correctly' you now have to clean the surface and reapply new defeating the reason to find out.

Fortunately for heat transfer, the design of all of the components used are effective at transferring heat. The only variable that can't be accounted for is human error. There is the likelihood of poor design to be human error, but this is quite unlikely considering the millions of products that are in use currently proving this system works. The VAST majority of human error will be done by the system builder. Why? Because there's no school to install this stuff correctly. Few people have the knowledge to be able to explain the entire heat transfer process in mathematical detail and why we use so little AS5 and how the heck AS5 works and why. Pretty much everyone that 'knows' how to install CPU/heat sink/thermal paste knows because they've done it 'that way before' so they just keep doing it that way. Others use the manual. Me, I ALWAYS look over the manual while building the system. Sure I've built more machines than I can count, but I still do it. Why? Because I want to see what the manual recommends for installation to see what's different from what i'd 'normally do' just in case there's something I need to know. It sucks building a system completely to have it not POST and the resolution is to take it out, tear it completely apart and start over.

So I'd bet that this problem is human error. Your 2 most likely culprits are the thermal paste wasn't applied correctly or your heat sink isn't mounted to the motherboard correctly. I despise the Core 2 Duo retail box heatsinks. When I installed the first one I had to check VERY carefully to see if it was installed correctly. In fact, it wasn't and I had to pull it off to reinstall it because of the screwed up tabs used. Lucky for me I am familiar with heat transfer physics, so it was easy for me to understand that it wouldn't work as I had it installed and fixed it. But I don't know if I had shown it to some stranger(especially someone building their machine for the first time) would understand the tabs and what is and isn't right.

 

[Guest]

I agree with the above post. Reseat your heatsink on your CPU. And do it with AS-5. No reason your CPU should be idling that hot, and its not the boards fault.

 

[fevkalbeser]

Thanks for your recommendations, I'll try them as soon as possible and inform you about the results. However it has been about 7-8 years since I installed a cpu and a heatsink, so I'll probably find someone to do it for me, which surely will take some time.

 

[Guest]

Don't be afraid of it. Its really very easy. Very easy.

Print the Arctic Silver 5 instructions from their website for your CPU type, they tell you exactly how to apply the grease. Remember, not too much grease!! Then just slap it on your CPU and put the screws through your heatsink and into the mobo.


One other thing, are you using the stock heat sink fan or an aftermarket? If you're really concerned with temps, aftermarket heatsink fans are usually better than the ones that come with your cpu. But the stock hsf should cool yoru cpu fine w/out any OCing.

 

[fevkalbeser]

That really sounds easy, I'll give it a try then I'm using a stock heat sink and not thinking of overclocking for a while. By the way, I wonder how much can this thermal paste reduce the temperatue of the cpu? and how much will this affect the mobo temp.? Because especially the mobo heat seems too high.

 

[fevkalbeser]

That's what the bios says, mobo 67°C and cpu 48°C right now. I know that's weird.

 

[fevkalbeser]

I already tried the "legacy" mode, however that didn't make a difference either.

 

[notherdude]

Well idling at 49c is not that bad, what do you mean no way it should be that high?? I idle at 48c using AS ceramique and a Arctic freezer 7 pro, 4 120mm fans, 1 is 95cfm. Of course Im in a 80f room but idling at 49c isnt necessarilly a problem. Now I have to suspect your mobo temp (60c) is incorrect. It cant be hotter than the cpu.
I used the stuff that came on the hsf, and when I switched up to AS ceramique, my temps actually went up, not down, so I wouldnt be so fast to spend the money on AS5. If its been running for a year, Id jsut leave it alone.

Another thing, I had to set my cpu fan in bios to "legacy" to make it spin full speed all the time in my gigabyte 965P S3.

Agree. Your temps are within normal range. The GPU temp is par for the course and the CPU doesn't sound so bad either. Not for a stock cooler! Most of these guys are prolly using aftermarket coolers. The MOBO temp may be wrong ior else some kind of anomaly. There might be a temp issue here, or maybe not, look into this futher before you tear that build down!!!

1. What is your room temp? A high ambient temp will definitely heat up your system
2. What effect does taking the side panel have on the temps?
3. Did you test temps at an earlier time as a bench for comparison?
4. Is your system crashing because of this? Run Orthos to test this. You may have had a random crash and assumed heat was the problem.
5. Temp hysteria is a fairly common thing on these boards. LOL Modern systems run hot.

 

[fevkalbeser]

1. 22°C right now, generally about 25°C
2. It increases the temp. by 1 or 2 degrees, I guess the airflow is fine.
3. Unfortunately I just realized this problem, and have no idea what it was like in the past.
4. I don't remember any crashes in the past, just the one occurred 2 days ago that made me think that theere is an overheating problem (I was converting a divx file do dvd as I mentioned in the first post). I'm running Orthos now for 5 minutes, mobo is still at 67°C and the cpu changes between 57 and 60°C. How long should I run it?
5. I'm sure mine is the hottest

 

[andybird123]

yeah, is this problem actually causing your PC to hang / crash etc.

if no, I'd say it's just a bad sensor

have you tried talking to Gigabyte tech support?

 

[fevkalbeser]

I hope it is just a bad sensor. Is there a way to find out if it is a sensor problem?
No I haven't tried to get a tech support, but think I will.

 

[RetiredChief]

The sytem temp does seem high. Using easytune 5, my sytem temp is 50C, cpu temp is 36. Have DQ6 also w/6400 running at 3.2 GHz.

I know I have a case cooling problem. I have a thermistor, a regular indoor/outdoor temp display that I picked up at walmart for $10. Mounted the "outdoor" thermistor in the CPU air path. For a room temp of 24 C, the air blowing accros the cpu is 30 C.

At the above ambient/case temps. TAT has my core temps at 43 C idle
and Easytune shows system temp @ 50 C. Noramal readins are System - 45 C, Cores at 40 C. Quess I need to Blow dust out.

1) use easytune for system temp, TAT for Idle/Load temps (For Load as you did) run Orthos - Usually will max out after 5 to 10 Min.

2) A number of people have problems with stock intel HSF. You should verify mounting. To do this I would remove mother board and verify the little pins are visible and the same hieght. These are on back side of MB. There are several temp threads on C2D's See SupremeLaw's comments. See Thread CPU's - "Intel Fan Installation Help"

 

[RetiredChief]

Below is an extract from his Link. Not sure how to extract his link and paste it

Quote
However ...

the 4 pronged fasteners are not gripping properly,
and this results in less downward pressure on the
top of the CPU chip: less downward pressure
translates directly into higher CPU temps.

Also, the fasteners are made of a material
that appears to be "creeping" after many cycles
of heat and cold, which further reduces the
downward pressure on the top of the CPU chip.

End Quote

 

[RetiredChief]

MrsB
I beleive the mobo temp is a sensor near/for the north brigde.
Mine normally reads higher (50C) than CPU temp (36C) - Using EasyTune5 which corrolates very well with bios readings.

 

[fevkalbeser]

When idle, TAT shows my core temps as 56-57, and the load temps change between 69 and 71. And below is the report of Everest after I ran Orthos for 5 minutes:

Temperatures:
Motherboard................67 °C (153 °F)
CPU...........................59 °C (138 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1.........63 °C (145 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2.........62 °C (144 °F)
GPU............................62 °C (144 °F)
GPU Ambient................56 °C (133 °F)
GPU VRM.....................68 °C (154 °F)
SAMSUNG SP1614C.......45 °C (113 °F)
Seagate ST3120026AS..49 °C (120 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU............................2491 RPM
System........................2885 RPM
Power Supply................3054 RPM

 

[Guest]

Load temps over 71C are pushing it. You may want to try to reseat your heatsink or buy an aftermarket one. I wouldn't feel comfortable with those temps.

 

[turtle1]

I agree, try an after market hsf. Are your voltages correct to the mobo?

 

[fevkalbeser]

Don't know if the voltages are correct or not. How can I learn the correct values?

 

[notherdude]

Those temps look right to me, in a normal looking range at least, perhaps at the high end of that range, but I'd say stand pat. TAT pushes the CPU more than anything and often yield really high CPU temps. I don't know what to say about the MOBO temp, as long as your system is running OK and the other temps are normal I wouldn't sweat it.

A better cooler that the stock is always nice, but I don't think you HAVE to get one.

 

[fevkalbeser]

I managed to reduce mobo temp by 20 degrees just by changing the place of one of the HDD's But now the CPU and core temperatures seem too high compared to that (about 43 and 60 respectively). I think that shows that my stock heat sink is ineffective, considering the better airflow inside the computer. What do you think?