CPU Cooling Problems

AbyssKnight

Alright, so I bought a new case, motherboard, and case fans, and planned on moving my old memory and CPU into it. Memory was fine, of course, and the CPU went in no problems (socket 939, AMD X2 4200+, by the way), but my old heatsink (from a BTX computer) wouldn't fit. Went out and bought a Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu, it fit great (except the backplate that's supposed to go on the back of the motherboard for added support, there was already one there, it looked like). I used thermal paste, spread it rather evenly, etc, did everything right...and my CPU temperatures are still insane. When it's under heavy load (like a game), it's not uncommon for the computer to shut down, and I'm assuming it's because the CPU got too hot. The thing is, the CPU and the area around it don't feel that hot to the touch, so I was thinking that it could possibly have been bad temperature sensors on the motherboard or something like that. I have a really strong 80mm fan on the side of the case opposite the CPU as an exhaust, a 120mm exhaust in the back, and a 120mm intake in the bottom front. The Zalman CPU fan blows downwards, towards the CPU, just in case you didn't know :P The CPU idles at about 50 Celsius, and it's not uncommon for it to go up to 75+ when it's under load. Any suggestions? I hate gaming in fear of it shutting down constantly...

Incidentally, it runs games terrific (X2 4200+, 1GB memory, EVGA Geforce 8800 GTS ()). G.R.A.W. at full settings runs smooth as glass. Hehe.

EDIT: My power supply is an Apevia Beast Power 680W (http://www.apevia.com/product.php?pid=184&xcSID=af0f2afaf724ed6e77eb07ede767ce16)

gpett

Could be a couple of things:

Is your CPU heatsink snug on the processor?  You sure it is installed correctly?

How much thermal compound did you use? Too much thermal compound is bad.

You might consider taking off the heatsink washing the heatspreader of the cpu and the surface of the heatsink off with alcohol and inspecting the two surfaces to see if there are any concave or convex issues that might cause a heat transfer issue.  Some people have had to lap their heatsinks to get a flat surface. 

 

BTW, I loathe apeiva.  Here is a review of powersupplies that includes an apeiva PSU.  Give it a read.

Good luck troubleshooting your problem.

xxthecorexx

are you overclocked ?

do you have the fan on your heatsink spinning at full rotation ? case fans full speed ?

is the overheat temperature sensor shutdown in your bios set correctly ?

do a little research and see what the average temperatures these puppies run at is, my most recent build i switched to an intel cpu because the heat from my last amd processor was becoming almost unmanageable.

try turning the case fan opposite the cpu into an intake rather than exhaust and see if helps drop it a few degrees, and maybe put a blowhole exhaust on the top of the case. (<3 my dremel)

*edit*..

also do you have the most current bios for your new motherboard ? is your processor identified correctly in the bios and is it set up correctly ? maybe manually adjust the bios setting for the processor to make sure, and check that it's not getting too much juice or clock it down a little and see if that helps, i'm not telling you to leave it that way, but it'll help diagnosis what the issue might be.