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Is my PC going to blow up on me (aka CPU temp question)
TheSonicRetard
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
My media computer is powered by an AMD duron 880 mhz - old stuff. I normally cool the CPU with a small heat sink and tiny fan - around the size of a fan used to cool it's ATI 9800 pro. Well, lately my media PC has been crashing, so I opened it up and took a look at it.
It turns out that the 9800 pro's fan had died, and the graphics card was over heating. Long story short - the fan on it had rusted. So I removed the fan and attached the small fan I had on my CPU to the 9800. Problem solved.
However, now I'm worried about the CPU. My case is a media PC case - a micro ATX, very small and sort of cramped. I have 2 fans in the back sucking air in located right next to the power supply. Near the front, I have a fan blowing air out right next to the hard drives. Directly above the CPU, I have 2 fans mounted one on top of each other blowing air out. There's about a 1 inch gap between the heat sink and the bottom of these two fans.
I have a heat monitor sitting on the CPU to see how hot it gets. Before, when it had a fan and my 9800's fan was working properly, it was reading around 87 degrees F. Now it's reading 104-105 degrees F upon start up. I didn't let it run for long, but 105 was the highest it hit.
It's a pretty old CPU, so I'm thinking it might be ok, but I don't want to take a chance. Is my CPU going to be fine? Is it safe to run without a fan directly attached to it, or will it burn up?
It turns out that the 9800 pro's fan had died, and the graphics card was over heating. Long story short - the fan on it had rusted. So I removed the fan and attached the small fan I had on my CPU to the 9800. Problem solved.
However, now I'm worried about the CPU. My case is a media PC case - a micro ATX, very small and sort of cramped. I have 2 fans in the back sucking air in located right next to the power supply. Near the front, I have a fan blowing air out right next to the hard drives. Directly above the CPU, I have 2 fans mounted one on top of each other blowing air out. There's about a 1 inch gap between the heat sink and the bottom of these two fans.
I have a heat monitor sitting on the CPU to see how hot it gets. Before, when it had a fan and my 9800's fan was working properly, it was reading around 87 degrees F. Now it's reading 104-105 degrees F upon start up. I didn't let it run for long, but 105 was the highest it hit.
It's a pretty old CPU, so I'm thinking it might be ok, but I don't want to take a chance. Is my CPU going to be fine? Is it safe to run without a fan directly attached to it, or will it burn up?
TheSonicRetard on
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EDIT: I'm letting VLC run for a while now, and it's up to 120 degrees F.
I'm also unsure if I'm using the heat sensor correctly. It's a little thin wire with a little metal contact on the end, and what I did was take it and tuck it into the base of the heat sink, right above where it presses onto the CPU. does that sound like it'll give me accurate readings?
Edit: Though if it doesn't crash under load, I guess you'd be fine. I suspect it will, though. Fans are cheap.
so there won't really be a point where the temperature stops rising? It's at 122 right now.
Alternatively, could I just disconnect one of the dual fans on the top of the PC case and attach it to the heat sink? Would that work?
Using one of the case fans would be fine, if you can get it to mount to the heatsink.
Do you know if the slightly-newer AMDs have any hardware overheat protection? I have an Athlon XP that runs at about 52C/125F normally. I assume that I need to re-mount the heat-sink because I must've done it wrong but I don't want to risk screwing it up more if the system is going to be okay.
52C sounds about right. I think ~55 - 60 is where you want to start worrying. I can't remeber the temperatures exactly I'm sure someone else here can help you out. In response to your question about overheat protection you can check your bios. If your processor supports it your bios should have an option to set a temperature to shut your CPU down at.
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
I used to occasionally run mine at around 60 or a little hotter knowing that I might be pushing the limit, just because it was such a cheap processor. Shit, there are five lots of 4 listed on eBay right now for under fifteen bucks per lot.
I feel old.
Yeah, you're fine. I don't know the exact point they added it but it was somewhere along the lifetime of Socket A.
I ran my Duron at 85C ... 'cause I just didn't know any better ...
Well, anyway, my bios is set to shut off at 60C so I guess I'm not going to worry. I also increased my default fan speeds to get the temp down to 50C instead of 52C so I feel a little better about that.