CPU Temperature

[Colonel J Lee]

My AMD Athlon G7 1 GHZ processor is running at 40 degrees C. Is that too high? Should I be concerned? :confused:

If an upgrade would help, I would appreciate a recommendation.

I also just read something about CpuIdle - a program that reduces CPU temperature. The web site had a lot of positive testimonials. Maybe I could save money and just pick up this software instead of installing a new CPU?

Here's my specs

AMD Athlon G7 (761) processor, 1 GHZ

512 MEGS of DDR RAM

Ge Force FX 5900 video card

[Hpt. Lisse]

40C is nothing, my friend. I thought you had said 55C, which is still not going to cook your CPU, but is starting to get up toward warm. Your 1 Ghz Athlon lists a maximum temp. of 85C before thermal failure.

Pro jocks look to keep it running under 40, while most home builders deem anything between 40 and 50 as acceptable.

Measure the temp after playing CM for an hour and see what it says...

Hpt. Lisse

PS. Oh, and any software that will reduce the heat of a CPU is doing so by reducing the instuction load - so it's going to slow down your CM experience significantly.

[Colonel J Lee]

DANG IT, CARL!!!!! I meant to say 55 degree C. :mad: I misspoke (mis-posted). The farenheit reading was 132 degrees. That equates to 55 degrees C.

So, I guess I'm getting toward "warm", huh? I'll run CM tonight and see how much further the temp rises....THANKS.

[Jack Carr]

I just upgraded some of the cooling elements in my machine. I recently upgraded the motherboard and the new board came with a temperature display box that slips into a 5 1/4" bay. The CPU was running at 70C and the max is 85C. I threw in a better CPU fan and a few more case fans and used arctic silver 5 on it. It dropped it down to a range of 50C to 55C when all of the fans are cranked and about 60C to 63C when all of the fans are set to their minimum speed.

I would have to say the CPU fan and the arctic silver paste dropped it appreciably. The only problem is when all of the fans are cranked my PC sounds like a vacuum.

[Colonel J Lee]

Jack,

I'd rather upgrade then go to fans and paste, etc. etc. Thanks for the idea. I didn't know that was available. Maybe Schrullenhaft, the tech genius, will weigh in???............

[Schrullenhaft]

As Hpt. Lisse pointed out, 55C is probably fine for your 1GHz Athlon. The older Athlons generated quite a bit of heat (more than the newer Athlon XPs). I assume that you have the stock cooling heatsink/fan combo, which should generally work fine.

Some things to mention about CPU temperatures - there's an 'idle' temp and a 'load' temp. If you're measuring your CPU temp from the BIOS setup screens, then you're getting an 'idle' temp. If you're measuring with some software while running some 'intensive' programs in the background then you're getting an approximate 'load' temp. There's also the caveat that the temps you're seeing may not be very exact in the case of the older Athlons since they don't have an on-board thermal monitoring setup. However the margin of error is probably less than 5C. What are you using to measure the CPU temps, the BIOS or a piece of software ?

Ambient case temperature can play a small part when it comes to CPU temps too. If the case air is warm, then the CPU fan is pushing warm air over the heatsink fins. This results in less heat being dissipated (a lower temperature delta between the air and the heatsink surfaces). A case fan can help lower the case temps or just taking off the case's cover (providing a lot more cool air and a generally lower ambient temperature).

An AthlonXP would probably be a bit cooler using the stock 'retail' heatsink/fan - but not by a whole lot (5C at the most I would guess). Your AMD761 based motherboard could probably run one, though you'll want to double-check the manufacturer's website (and your motherboard revision) to make sure.

Depending on what the backplane of your case can support, you could mount a 80mm or 92mm fan (the 92mm may be a bit more quiet for the same amout of cooling) to either suck out the warm case air or 'blow in' some cooler air. Most people have the rear fans acting as 'exhausts', pulling warm air out the back while mildly drawing in cooler air from the front.

[Colonel J Lee]

Thanks for the excellent response. I'm using SiSoftware Sandra program's CPU and BIOS info to measure the temperature. I guess I'm okay then at 55 degree C. I would like to know what to look for though in terms of mounting a fan on the back plate. Hmmmm. Would that be something the SiSoftware program could tell me?

[Colonel J Lee]

One more question, Herr Schrullenhaft: if I do want to upgrade but not spend too much, wouldn't an Athlon XP2500 "Barton" be a significant improvement? Newegg has them for $75.00. What do you think? and would the more powerful chip be better handling the GeForce FX 5900 card, or is there no relation between the two? Thanks for your excellent help. And yours, too, Hpt. Lisse!!

[Schrullenhaft]

An Athlon XP 2500+ Barton would be a nice upgrade and would be a bit of a better match with the GeForce 5900. However your motherboard won't support this processor to my knowledge (assuming that you have one based on the AMD761 northbridge). The Barton 2500+ has a front-side bus of 333/166MHz and your motherboard most likely max's out at 266/133MHz (officially for the chipset).

If you want to do the CPU upgrade (and you still have money), I'd recommend getting the Abit NF7-S motherboard (on sale for a few more minutes at Newegg !). But be aware that you may need better (faster) memory to use the 333MHz FSB (PC2700 / DDR333 or better).

[Colonel J Lee]

Thanks for another very helpful post, Herr.

Does 333 DDR mean 2 RAM cards of 333 Megs each, for a total of 666 Megs RAM? You were speaking tech to me; I'm not very computer savvy.

[junk2drive]

no its the bus speed, the speed that data moves between stuff. ram speed and cpu speed is calculation speed. to put it simple.

a hard drive that is 133 is faster moving data than a 100. sorta like 3/4 inch pipe moves more water than 1/2 at the same pressure. ram and cpu is like how big a hole in the bucket. cache is how much the bucket will hold. the trick is to match the parts. if you buy a 266 motherboard, no sense buying a 400 cpu. it will only run at 266. but if you buy a 400 motherboard and 266 cpu, the cpu will run at 266 and later you can buy a 400 cpu for this mb. mbs are cheaper than cpus.

if i am wrong people will jump all over me, so watch this space.

[Hpt. Lisse]

This is similar to the "freeway" we discussed going into/out of your CPU. In order to have a 333 Mhz front side bus (or 166 x 2, Double Data Rate, DDR) CPU, you must have memory that supports that faster speed. Your memory/FSB maximum is 266 (or 133 x 2 DDR) - my recommendation is the XP2400+ processor, which can be easily overclocked to faster speeds (stock is 1.93 Ghz). Runs $72 including new heatsink/fan unit.

[Jack Carr]

Originally posted by Colonel J Lee:

Jack,

I'd rather upgrade then go to fans and paste, etc. etc. Thanks for the idea. I didn't know that was available. Maybe Schrullenhaft, the tech genius, will weigh in???............

I don't blame you one bit. I would rather spend the money on an upgrade as well. In my case, the machine was plenty fast for what I'm using it for. I just wanted to cool it off a bit. Just thought I would throw in what worked in that area for me. Good luck with your project.

[Colonel J Lee]

Hauptmann,

That's pretty cheap, especially when you consider that I'll be almost doubling my processor speed, eh? :eek:

What brand of XP2400?

Does Newegg carry it?

Will this help to reduce heat levels?

Is this a tough project to pull off? (read: can it be done over the phone?)

Thanks, my friend. And thanks Jack for your input.

[Schrullenhaft]

Newegg does carry the AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (retail) and OEM versions (retail includes the heatsink/fan and a 3 year warranty). People purchase the OEM CPUs for a few bucks less in order to put on their own heatsinks (without paying for the 'retail' one).

Double-check your motherboard manufacturer's site to see if your motherboard will actually support this CPU. You may need to find your motherboard 'revision' that's hopefully printed somewhere on your motherboard. The Athlon XP 2400+ is the fastest CPU that can be put into 266/133MHz FSB systems (like your AMD761-based motherboard). You may also have to update your motherboard BIOS (do this before changing out the CPUs).

You may see the manufacturer list on their website an Athlon XP 2600+ being the maximum that the motherboard can support. This is a 'Thoroughbred' core XP (266/133) running at 2.13GHz that debuted at the same time that the XP 2400+ did. However this particular CPU seems to have disappeared from circulation in favor of the 'Barton' (333/166) flavor of the 2600+.

Here's an interesting AMD FAQ (pdf) that has a few details on page six regarding heat and AMDs. I don't suspect that changin to an XP2400+ is going to lower your temperatures a whole lot (at least based on the CPU specs alone).

Changing CPUs shouldn't be too difficult. The one thing you need to do is be very careful - avoiding static electricity discharges and physical 'awkwardness'. I accidentally damaged a motherboard by letting a screw driver slip in an attempt to get a heatsink off of a CPU (a tiny, surface-mount resistor pack was damaged and the motherboard was completely hosed). Sometimes you can change out the CPU while leaving the motherboard in the case. However this may require removing all AGP and PCI cards. Depending on how crowded the case is and how much space there is around the CPU itself, it may be wiser to remove the motherboard completely to give you better access to the CPU.

[Hpt. Lisse]

Yeah.

Depending on your version, your GA-7DX will support the XP2400+, with the latest BIOS installed. The biggest phone support challenge is, the Athlons all have "exposed" CPU cores, and if you mount the heatsink incorrectly, it could either A)chip or crack the core itself, or B)rapidly overheat from an incorrect fit. And there goes $75 down the drain. And leaves you one more try to get your old 1 GHz on correctly, which leaves us SOL if something happens with that.

So here's what your going to do.

A) Run Sandra, select "CPU & BIOS information". Under this, change the dropdown device menu item from "processor 1" to "system BIOS". Write down the BIOS date (3rd or 4th line).

Physically open the box. Check your RAM sticks. I know the one I sent you is PC2100, but is the other labeled PC2100 or PC1600? It's important. Also, find the motherboard version number by looking here

C) You'll find the GA-7DX BIOS revision versions right here. The most important thing to note is that, the XP2400+ we want to install is only supported by motherboard version 3.0 or later. Compare the dates of the BIOS updates to the one Sandra reported to you. Above the listed BIOS revisions is a FAQ entitled, "How to reflash M/B BIOS?" Goto this and print it out for later reference.

D)If you meet the following criteria - 1)Both sticks of RAM are indeed PC2100, 2)your motherboard is version 3.0 or later, THEN we will order the XP2400+ (retail) from Newegg and have a local computer shop install it for a small fee AFTER you and I have updated the BIOS over the phone.

E) Have a nice day.

[Colonel J Lee]

Good plan, Carl. Thanks for the responses guys. Typical excellent communication and details....and graciousness. Thank you from a computer dolt.

Carl: it may be a few days before I get into the box, but I'll be in touch. Thanks again and let me know what scenario you've been wanting to play - I'll play ya.

[Colonel J Lee]

One more thing, Carl.

Herr Schrullenhaft's link to AMD FAQ, at FAQ 1.6 indicates that the operating system has to be re-installed to otpimize the AMD XP Athlon processors....will I need to do this? If so, will that entail reinstallation of everything else as well? good grief, I would like to avoid that at all costs!!!

[Hpt. Lisse]

Nah, not if you're running XP. The BIOS, on the other hand, may need some massaging...