Heatsink issues - Page 2

LeapFrog · #11 10-20-2007, 03:56 PM

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OK. How should I go about cleaning whats left of the old dried up stuff from heatsink and processor?

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Rubbing alcohol + q-tip. You will be amazed.

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Certainly the way to go for removal, I can testify it works great.

OP, I am guessing that this is some issue with contact from the heatsink. I would give it one more shot. Use the Q-tip, rubbing alcohol method to clean both the CPU and heatsink. Make sure they are both completely cleaned.

Take a plastic bag and put a tiny bit of artic silver on it, then rub the bag over the bottom of the heatsink (ie where it mates with the proc). Rub very vigoriously -- basicaly you are not looking to leave much if any AS on the heat sink, you are just trying to fill in some of 'crevasses' in the metal.

Ok, next take a credit card and begin applying AS to the processor. You are looking for total coverage as shown in the pic below. Yes, it is a gpu and yes it looks like the guy probably used a bit too much, but it gives you an idea of what you are shooting for -- a thin layer covering the top of the cpu.

Read again the instructions for properly seating the heatsink and lock it down and pray [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] If you are still having trouble I might try a better heat sink, such as a thermaltake. Dunno, this problem could be indicative of some processor/board issue as the stock heat sink should work fine for standard voltage. Speaking of which, you might want to make sure that the proc is running at standard voltage (if your bios even allows you to change this). Something like sisoft sandra will display voltage.

Mr_Pathetic · #12 10-20-2007, 06:03 PM

When I took the heatsink back off it had enough stuff on it so I put it back on and made double sure things clamped and it was tight. I have had it running cover off on its side for over twenty minutes and it seems to be holding 48.5-51C on CPU and around 40C on the MB. This is about normal for me. Maybe I did not have the heatsink properly secured or tight enough. I know I had it secured on there but maybe I just didnt press down enough or something. Either way it seems to be holding at a normal temp for now. Going to put cover back on and stand it up and hope it doesn't jump to 57C again. Normally runs cooler with cover on since it has so many case fans. I can manipulate the volts and clock speeds if I want but I never did. I got QFan off as well. Board is Asus P4P800SE.

Edit: Popped cover on and it jumps to 52C. Will see what happens. Otherwise its back to cleaning off what I applied and really smearing some on there.

also when i took it off earlier all of the copper is not covered so maybe I should get all of it covered which what you just posted will certainly do. Could very well be it.

LeapFrog · #13 10-20-2007, 06:19 PM

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also when i took it off earlier all of the copper is not covered so maybe I should get all of it covered which what you just posted will certainly do. Could very well be it.

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Yeah go for total coverage -- but remember to go with a thin layer, a bit less then what is in the pic. Too much will not make for optimum heat x-fer.

As for your temps, are these under load or idle? You should be testing your max temps with some benchmarking/stress testing utility. I personally like prime95.

Mr_Pathetic · #14 10-20-2007, 06:24 PM

Just Idle. I think I may not have enough on there so I am Going to redo it. Here are some pics of what things looks like. Guessing this is not enough.

LeapFrog · #15 10-20-2007, 06:38 PM

ug, not good man. Who knows what your temps are like under load. To give you a baseline I am running COH in the background, and ran prime95 torture test on 1 core -- my temps are ~52C. I am overclocking (overvolting) and the proc I am running I think runs hotter then yours by default. Now granted I have a thermaltake heatsink/fan but the point is you are way too hot for idle.

Your application of AS while not perfect looks 'good enough for government work'... I am not really sure what the problem is here. Assuming it is something with the heat sink/and or fan, I would consider getting a good say ~$40 HS/Fan combo. You might as well try overclocking a bit then too [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Mr_Pathetic · #16 10-20-2007, 06:44 PM

well before it powered off and i found the heatsink loose last night, it was normally idling at 48C and when using 100% CPU around 55-60C. It is an intel 3ghz prescott which are known to be hot so nothing out of ordinary. loads of ppl on newegg who bought same one talked of putting a lot of as5 on there and reported idle temps of 42-55C. No cover it idles at 48-51C which is fine, covered it hits 54-56C. So I am hoping that the unevenness of my application might have a little to do with it as in the middle it was not as good as the outer edges. I guess it is possible that it done damage when the heatsink got loose.

LeapFrog · #17 10-20-2007, 06:50 PM

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well before it powered off and i found the heatsink loose last night, it was normally idling at 48C and when using 100% CPU around 55-60C. It is an intel 3ghz prescott which are known to be hot so nothing out of ordinary. loads of ppl on newegg who bought same one talked of putting a lot of as5 on there and reported idle temps of 42-55C. No cover it idles at 48-51C which is fine, covered it hits 54-56C. So I am hoping that the unevenness of my application might have a little to do with it as in the middle it was not as good as the outer edges. I guess it is possible that it done damage when the heatsink got loose.

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hmm well I guess it runs hot... the key is, is it prime95 (or whatever method you prefer) stable for say at least an hour or two at those temps? If not I wouldn't be running it that hot. If so I wouldn't worry then.

edit: something else to consider, AS has a 'burn in period' before maximum effectiveness. You could drop a C or two after say 24 hours.

Mr_Pathetic · #18 10-20-2007, 07:04 PM

I have had it as hot as 73C and was still stable so it will be stable in the 50s easily even the 60s. I just cleaned it all out and got all the fans clean and got it back in the 40s at idle and 50s under a load instead of 50s at idle and 65-75 under load so I would like to get back to that. Going to redo it and use the card to get good coverage. It is splotchy coverage right now and I would think that cannot help. I don't really do much gaming and mainly use it for poker so not like it will be pushed for long periods of time. I'll report back my findings after I try to perfect the as5 application.

LeapFrog · #19 10-20-2007, 07:26 PM

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I have had it as hot as 73C and was still stable so it will be stable in the 50s easily even the 60s.

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Did you run a utility to determine stability? Even if a comp is not crashing/rebooting it may not be stable and increase the chance of corruption. Speaking of which you may want to give that a shot if you are concerned about possible damage due to the seating of the sink.

Anyways, good luck, hopefully a more even coating will get things back to normal.

Mr_Pathetic · #20 10-20-2007, 07:31 PM

What utility do you suggest? I say stable as in all my programs still opened like normal and nothing slowed down like it would if my old p4 1.6ghz was running 70C+.

Just got it set back up and locked down and about to turn it on. Hopefully this will do it.

Edit: My poor GFX card fan going to die soon. It sounds so horrible when booting but then shuts up. Guess time to dig up a heatsink and fan for XFX 6600GT