[hirak99]

Hi,

I have an AMD Athlon X2 4000+ with Gigabyte motherboard.

I recently bought a game that utilizes the CPU to the full, and discovered that the machine heats up very fast, reaching temperatures well beyond 100C (I tried AMD, Speedfan, and Coretemp). At this moment, the ambient temperature where I stay is around 30C.

I have original AMD CPU Fan which runs at 3111 rpm when the temperature is high. I do not have any system fan - that is one option I am looking into. My cabinet has two slots for fan, one at the left side (opposite to the motheboard), the other at the back. Do you think that will help? After reading some posts in the forums I get a sense that my temperature is too high.

Also I have noticed that inserting an USB device immediately causes a rise in the CPU temperature, by 4-5 degrees. It could be any device - pendrive, bluetooth, WiFi adapter, or gamepad. It has puzzled me a lot... do you know why this might happen?

I have attached some charts after I ran Prime95 for a while and then closed it -

CPU-Z - http://imgur.com/oAMb4.png
Speedfan - http://imgur.com/757FQ.png
Coretemp - http://imgur.com/iSCBQ.png

Cabinet side picture - http://imgur.com/npyHI.jpg
Computer placement - http://imgur.com/g4yS5.jpg

Sorry for the long post...
Thanks!

[Daveskater]

Hello, hirak99, and welcome to TST

100C is way too hot and risks damage to your processor. I am very surprised that it didn't go into automatic shutdown with that temperature, which processors are designed to do to try and prevent damage to them.

Seeing as your case is a full ATX sized one, you should have a space for at least one fan at the front as well. Ideally what you want is to put a fan in the front and in the back of the same size (two of the same brand/model would be good as it means you aren't taking more out than you're putting in and vice versa) to get some air moving through the case. I personally highly recommend Sharkoon fans as they are virtually silent and move more air than a regular fan spinning at the same RPM.

Also I would recommend getting a Zalman fan for your processor and some Arctic Silver thermal paste to use with it. Zalman fans normally come with a manual speed adjuster so you can turn it up when you have your game open to cool it more. I have mine pretty much turned all the way down for normal use, and it stays around the mid 30's. As I type this my CPU is 34C, which is a perfectly fine temp at low usage. It also barely changes when I watch videos etc.

I hope this is of some help, please let me know if you would like any more information

[hirak99]

Thanks!

I have placed a thermal paste about 3-4 months ago, and changed the PSU to Cooler Master 390W - which did give some observable benifits back then.

Also the PC does shut off... but at about 125-130C in my reckoning.

Though when I opened the case it I couldn't see a front fan space, I will check once more if there is a fan slot in the front. Also I hope there would be enough power slots left for powering two fans! The back fan has the size of 80mm, I think front one should also be of that size if it exists. Hopefully that will solve the problem... I will report back!

[hirak99]

Hi Daveskater,
Thanks for your reply, it was most helpful. I did not know that there was even a front fan slot - I purchased two fans - one in front sucking air in and one at back throwing it out. It makes for an amazing ventilation and the change can be seen below in a re-run of Prime95:

Coretemp - http://imgur.com/tZPXm.png
Speedfan - http://imgur.com/jE20I.png

Though the puzzle of why temperature increases when I plug a USB device in still remains, now the idle temperature is around 42-43C, and the max is below 65C.

Thanks again!