Pentium D processor temprature and fan installaton help.

[AtulKulkarni]

Hello Everyone,
I have anIntel pentium D processor 3.0 ghz and it runs at a temprature of about 60-64 C at idle and goes upto 67 C in load conditions. Is this a Normal temprature range for the processor.
(since its summer , the room temprature is around 32-35 C)
I have read elsewhere that the pentium d processor does get hot.
Is that true. If not, what is the ideal temprature and what are the measures that i should take to ensure that the processor is in that range.
Note: Currently i have a single fan installed in the cpu(besides the heatsink fan that comes with the cpu). I am plannng to install one more
soon, will that help. And also one more thing genrally the fans are installed in such a way that they pull the heat out of the cpu,
shhould i install the second fan in such a way that it actually pulls air from the surrounding and pumps it in the cpu.

Thanks for taking the effort to read this,
and any kind of help will be greatly appericiated.

Thanks in advance,
Atul

[jbennet]

Thats a bit high but not unusual

with water cooling expect about 35c - 45c. With air cooling expect 50 - 70c temps

Above 70 is bad as you can potentially melt your CPU.

In my pc my 3ghz Pentium 4 HT runs at 52c. I have it set up as follows:

air IN at front to disks etc....
air IN at sides to cpu/ram

air OUT at back via a PCI-slot cooler
air OUT at the back via an 80mm fan

[AtulKulkarni]

"air IN at front to disks etc....
air IN at sides to cpu/ram

air OUT at back via a PCI-slot cooler
air OUT at the back via an 80mm fan "

Correct me if i am wrong but from that i infer that you have three 80 mm fans and an PCI- slot cooler.
Can the power supply support these many number of fans?
If so will it be a good idea for me to buy 2 80mm fans and use one as an intake in front of motherboard and one as an exaust in front of processor in addition to the one i already have at the back of the cabinet that acts as an exaust.
Also how much does an 80 mm fan cost approximately.

thanks a lot,
Atul

[jbennet]

a cheap 80mm fan is not a lot (like $10) but a good one is more.

80mm fans dont need a lot of power.

There are 2 types. Ball bearing = noisy but last longer then Sleeve Bearing which are quiter but dont last as long by a long stretch.

Start off first by getting a PCI cooler (like $20) and see if it helps. The optimim temp you should aim for is 55-60 when idle and 60- 65 when under heavy load.

[AtulKulkarni]

installed a spare 80 mm fan from an old computer in the Air Intake mode. Still no drastic decrease in temprature. It still is 61-65 C in low load conditions and hovers dangerously around 70 C under heavy load.

The ideal max allowable according to Intel is 62.1 C

Will be purcasing another 80 mm fan soon and probably a pci slot cooler too.

However does a pci slot cooler help in reducing the Processor temprature? or just the temp of cards installed on the motherboard?

I also think i may have finally figured out what the problem is.
A month or two ago, while cleaning the CPU for dust , i had removed the processor fan and heat sink. and the thermal material which was attached to the heat sink kind of got ruptured.
although i did put it back in its place, i think it may have affected its performance.
Now i am also contemplating the option of cleaning of the old material and adding a new one in its place. Although this is what intel recomends :

"Thermal Interface Material Attached to the Heatsink

Intel does not recommend the removal of the thermal interface material located on the bottom of the boxed processor fan heatsink. Removal of this material may cause damage to the processor and will void the boxed processor warranty. If you must remove and re-use the fan heatsink, it will require replacement. Also, if the thermal interface material is at all damaged, you must also replace the fan heatsink. Contact Intel Customer Support to receive a replacement fan heatsink. "

Do i really have to replace the fan heatsink also?
I am not sure what to do.

Does anyone know of a good replacement material that can fit in place of the original one?

I am currently researching all the possible options on the internet.
If anyone has faced or has experience with a similar problem, you advice will be highly appericiated.

Also thanks jbennet for your help, highly appericiate it.

regards,
Atul

[jbennet]

61-65 is good. 70 is bad. A pci coler aught to help somewhat. And yes, the pci cooler cools the cards but that in turn will cool the cpu. Let me explain

Cases are badly designed. Frankly the ATX standard is crap. When it was designed it was intended that the CPU (before pentiums were even invented) would have no fan and that the whole pc be cooled by one fan, the one on the PSU.

Nowadays that just doesnt work as the PSU blows hot air and isnt enough. This makes your cards and CPU hot.

The purposuse of a PCI cooler is to take out the bad hot PSU air and cool your cards at the same time.

Try the PCI cooler first.

If the PCI cooler doesnt help bring it to acceptable levels (under load say, 65) change the thermal paste. Most stuff that comes with heatsinks and fans is crappy. Try something like arctic silver (expensive but good). You will need to clean the old stuff off first without killing your CPU. It is a BAD IDEA to try this yourself. Get your local PC guru to do it for you.

[AtulKulkarni]

Ok now this may sound stupid but since i have no idea about PCI coolers, when i buy one, do i have to check it for comapatibility with my motherboard (Intel D945 GNT ) or is it universally compatible.
Should it be inserted in a PCI slot or at the back of the CPU
from what i understand from this image:
"http://www.wolfmanzbytes.com/pc/antecvcool/sideclipslg.jpg"
it comes with the same power cable as a 80 mm fan. is that correct?

Regards,
Atul

[jbennet]

yeah it doesnt actually go into the PCI slot it just uses the PCI slots hole as an exhaust. You just connect it using the same power connector as most 80mm fans

[AtulKulkarni]

definitely a CPU issue.
I bought two 80 mm fans yesterday(the store did not have the pci slot fans in stock.)
and installed one in Air in and one in air out mode.
Does not seem to help at all.
whereas the internal chasis temprature did record a drop,
the cpu temprature remains the same. in fact when stating the pc, in the bios the temprature of the processor is 77 C
when the os loads and the computer starts, the processor temp hover around 61-71 C depending on load .
here are the results of a 1 min stress test results.
Test Duration: 000h 01m 01s
Temperature Processor Zone Temperature (Min / Current / Max): 62.0 / 75.0 / 75.0
Temperature System Zone 1 Temperature (Min / Current / Max): 43.0 / 43.0 / 44.0
Temperature System Zone 2 Temperature (Min / Current / Max): 40.0 / 40.0 / 41.0

Test Name Cycles Operations Result Errors Last Error
CPU 14 4322014980 PASS 0 No errors
MMX 15 6199780740 PASS 0 No errors
RAM 0 64081920 PASS 0 No errors
2D Graphics 0 1169 PASS 0 No errors
Disk (C:) 0 114245632 PASS 0 No errors
Network 1 1 12720 PASS 0 No errors
Sound 0 1223775 PASS 0 No errors

I also enquired about thermal paste in the store, they said they had the Thermal Interface Material
Dow corning tc 1996 compound for intel pentium processors.

I am considering going for that option since
1. the processor fan is working fine
2. i had recently cleanded the dust in the heat sink
3.the heat sink is properly installed(i rechexked it several times)

I think it must be the TIM.

I however also wonder how the processor doesnot shut down automatically when it reaches 77 C and how come the bios temp is so high whereas the temprature with the os running is around 65 C (+-5C )

do you think my processor could be faulty, althought it passes all the stress tests effectively?

regards,
Atul

[jbennet]

Thermal paste, Thermal interface and thermal grease are all the same.

[AtulKulkarni]

Finally bought and applied the thernmal interface material dow corning tc 1996 for intel pentium processors.
tempratures now stabilize at about 56-59 C under normal and light loads.Havent really run any stress tests yet.Might not do them for a couple of days since they say that the TIM needs a set in period of a couple of days.
the temprature the bios shows still sometimes goes up to 55-64 C, but i think thats fine since it earlier showed temps of 66-75 C earlier.
but once the os is loaded, they go down to about 56-58 C in idle. The important thing is that the processor remains cool at lower fan RPM speeds than it earlier used to.

Do you think its ok now or should i look out for something more.
and should i wait for some specific period(what people say is the set in period for certain materials 72-200 hr) before carrying out stress tests.Although the product i bought mentions no specific set in period.

Well anyways thanks a lot for your help.
Regards,
Atul

[jbennet]

that temp is fairly acceptable and yes. Most thermal paste needs time to cake, about month of use before you can get accurate tests