Overheat questions....

SquareHead · Post by **SquareHead** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 6:27 am

Ok I think I partially solved my computer overheating problem. Keyword is think.

First of all, what would a normal system temp be?

Before I went about correcting things wrong with my stysem.

My temp readings for CPU GPU and MAINBOARD Were all above 80c at idle.

After fussing about with system fans and cleaning the computer and case out as well as rerouting power cables from the power supply, my system idle temps are 60c GPU and 56c CPU. Under load they done seem to go over 70.

My question is what should be a good baseline temp?

I'm running a stock Athlon 64X2 6000+ not over clocked.
My GPU is an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS, also not over clocked.

dfreer · Post by **dfreer** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 5:58 pm

IDK, but your avatar is fucking huge.

My Intel runs at about 35C idle, but from what I understand of it the latest Intel's run cooler than the AMD's on average. I used to see ~50C just at idle when I used the default thermal paste that came with my heatsink. A little trip to Radio Shack for some cheapo paste fixed that problem.

Post by **grinvader** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 7:07 pm

obligatory man, you're fat

aaanyway
I'm used to a solid 70 degrees at full load from my old suckamette, which isn't the hottest p4 design ever made (prescraps hit 80 easily).

SquareHead · Post by **SquareHead** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 7:52 pm

It seems to be doing just fine now. Shit sorry about the AV thought I had linked to my 128 by 128. The 8800 seems to hit about 76c under load but dont seem to crash anymore.

Also a little lesson to all who own hairy animals. No matter how little they enter your domain how good the air purification you have, computers are like magnets for the shit.

Post by **grinvader** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 10:05 pm

Basically you did the right thing - dusting critical elements and improving overall system airflow.

If the airflow still sucks and keeps clogging the wrong spots, consider injecting cash to improve it ? Or dust it every so often.

oh, or eat your pet.
i always forget the easy one

Rashidi · Post by **Rashidi** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:51 am

SquareHead wrote:No matter how little they enter your domain how good the air purification you have, computers are like magnets for the shit.

i also wonder why, it almost like ritual for me to clean that stuff ...

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:26 am

Because they have fans and shit.

Post by **grinvader** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 6:18 pm

I.S.T. wrote:Because they have fans and shit MAGNETS.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:20 pm

grinvader wrote:
I.S.T. wrote:Because they have fans and shit MAGNETS.

They shit magnets? I better clean mine before that piles up to the hard drive!

Squall_Leonhart · Post by **Squall_Leonhart** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:17 am

You want more cool air coming into the case, than hot air going out. Cool air is heavier then warmer air and helps to push hot air out of the case, fans positioned low should intake, fans positioned high should exhaust.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:16 pm

Squall_Leonhart wrote:You want more cool air coming into the case, than hot air going out.

You will always have equal amounts of air coming in and going out. Whether you have all intake fans or all exhaust fans or a perfectly-balanced mix of fans or a lopsided mish-mash of fans or just the one exhaust fan in your power supply.

An excess of intake fans does nothing more than generate excess noise and waste electricity. Likewise for excess exhaust fans.
Note that this does not mean fans need to be paired, as any vent will function as intake/exhaust.
It just means if you have more intake than exhaust, you'll be blowing air out every chink in the system(between front panel punch-outs, around the edges of the side panels, through the front USB ports, out the ATX header on the back, etc), and fucking your airflow plan to hell.

And since fans aren't effective compressors, most of the excess volume won't go in like you think it will. You'll get turbulence around the fan, but not much else.

Cool air is heavier then warmer air and helps to push hot air out of the case, fans positioned low should intake, fans positioned high should exhaust.

Faulty assumption: presumes there are no air currents or obstructions in the case and that natural convection is a significant factor.

The truth of the matter is that the air would flow exactly the same way if you turned all the fans on and left all the other components disabled. There's simply too much going on in the case for convection to be a significant factor at the relatively slight temperature delta present.

Of special note is the video card, as it is the hottest component in the case AND the most difficult to cool due to the location and construction. There is, typically, a big pocket of hot air at the bottom of the case generated and trapped by the space heater/video card.

Most cases DO assume airflow is from the bottom of the front panel to the top of the back panel. But that's not due to convection.
The primary goal is to get the air to cross most of your components while keeping the optical drives accessible.
It is, unfortunately, not very effective at clearing the card area heat pocket.

Post by **odditude** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:57 pm

Squall_Leonhart wrote:incorrect stuff

no.

Gil_Hamilton wrote:countering stuff

yes.
one thing you may want to consider...

if you have a significant hot-spot under the video card that's causing issues, AND your case has a low-mounted front fan (in line with the bottom part of the board), you can replace a few slot covers under the card with vented covers (or remove them completely, but I'm not a fan of that). this can (in many cases) induce airflow past the bottom of the video card.

you'll need to increase your intake slightly to offsent the new exhaust you just added (or cover another vent if it's in a retarded position), and you'll want to check what kind of airflow you're getting out your new exhaust vent and recheck your temps in system to make sure it's not causing a significant problem elsewhere.

Que · Post by **Que** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:32 pm

Might I suggest this simple 60$ upgrade.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811129042

For GREAT airflow.

Warning your PC may be better suited to being used as a space heater afterward though. When I first switched to this case I also bought an air conditioner a few days later because; It increased the temperature in the room the pc was in by at least 2-3 degrees C, under heavy load 5-6 degrees. I personally use that case, and for the price I've never found anything better, even has a washable reusable dust filter. only real downside is that the case does not come with a speaker (cannibalize your old one) and is made of out cheapish metal. The metal is still thick, and is painted a matte black, so it's not horrible. However inside the case there are many sharp edges so watch your fingers. It is my personal opinion that the design of that case not only efficiently cools the video card, but also hard disk drives, and the power supply itself. I use a passive CPU cooler, the scythe ninja and require no cpu fan with a quad core 9950 on an asus m2n-e board, 9800GTX+, 4gb of ram, and 3 hard drives. My system never reaches anything past 65C on the cpu and gpu even on the hottest days in Saskatchewan(35C). The motherboard never goes over 32C(unless the room temperature does). Good luck.

Post by **odditude** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:47 pm

Que wrote:Might I suggest this simple 60$ upgrade.

while i agree that the three hundred is a very nice little case, i don't think a total rebuild qualifies as a "simple upgrade."

Que · Post by **Que** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 4:47 am

odditude wrote:
Que wrote:Might I suggest this simple 60$ upgrade.
while i agree that the three hundred is a very nice little case, i don't think a total rebuild qualifies as a "simple upgrade."

I agree, the Antec 300 is the best case in it's price range, and it even beats some of it's more expensive contenders to a pulp. However I do not see how moving hardware from one case to another is a total rebuild. Sure you have to disassemble everything and move it.... But so what? It takes 30 mins TOPS if you know what you're doing. The time it takes to move the hardware case to case, and 60 dollars spent, is well worth while to ensure the long term reliability of that machine.

Post by **odditude** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 3:44 am

30 minutes? no chance in hell if you're as particular about cable management as i am, lol

SquareHead · Post by **SquareHead** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 7:10 am

Thats a damn nice case. And cheap too. I think I will have to go with that, and to clean up cable clutter and shit, a modular power supply.

I'm not too worried about it heating up my room, as this case already does so.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 8:51 am

Que wrote: Warning your PC may be better suited to being used as a space heater afterward though. When I first switched to this case I also bought an air conditioner a few days later because; It increased the temperature in the room the pc was in by at least 2-3 degrees C, under heavy load 5-6 degrees.

There is no logical reason whatsoever for a new case to change the air temperature in the room.

All your components are generating exactly the same amount of heat they generated before.

Possible exception: your old case had such utterly abysmal cooling that none of the heat generated was getting out. In which case, you should've cooked your components in short order.

Post by **grinvader** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 9:14 am

Gil_Hamilton wrote:Possible exception: your old case had such utterly abysmal cooling that none of the heat generated was getting out. In which case, you should've cooked your components in short order.

Unlikely, as the box itself would quickly become hot and radiate the heat all around.

Unless it's made of heat-insulant plastic or smth. But then you'd be up for a computer darwin award.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 9:56 am

grinvader wrote:
Gil_Hamilton wrote:Possible exception: your old case had such utterly abysmal cooling that none of the heat generated was getting out. In which case, you should've cooked your components in short order.
Unlikely, as the box itself would quickly become hot and radiate the heat all around.

I considered that. But it wouldn't be near as fast, and thus the temperature spike could be averted by spreading the heat dump out over a much longer time after the system locked up.

Que · Post by **Que** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 5:28 pm

Gil_Hamilton wrote: There is no logical reason whatsoever for a new case to change the air temperature in the room.

Sure there is. The case likely cycles through all the air in the room in a matter of hours at best; there is a lot of airflow. Better heat dissipation means that instead of having that heat energy stored in a hot heat sink on top of my CPU, it is dissipated to the air quickly by my scythe ninja. Therefore the resulting temperature in the room the machine is seated in, increases while the machine is in use. It is much worse when it is encoding video or playing a modern game. At idle it barely pushes any heat. However due to the increased airflow and heat dissipation, the room DOES increase in temperature. It IS a noticeable difference over my old case, wherein my PC would remain at higher temperatures, and that same heat energy would not be dissipated into the air of the room quickly.

Post by **grinvader** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 7:01 pm

time for science

for a given task, thermodynamically the { room + computer } system increases entropy by the exact same amount regardless of cooling

better cooling lowers the computer temperature - so to equilibrate that the average room air temperature is higher

qed

Post by **odditude** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 8:28 pm

you frenchmen and your damn logic

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 8:52 pm

Que wrote:
Gil_Hamilton wrote: There is no logical reason whatsoever for a new case to change the air temperature in the room.
Sure there is. The case likely cycles through all the air in the room in a matter of hours at best; there is a lot of airflow. Better heat dissipation means that instead of having that heat energy stored in a hot heat sink on top of my CPU, it is dissipated to the air quickly by my scythe ninja. Therefore the resulting temperature in the room the machine is seated in, increases while the machine is in use. It is much worse when it is encoding video or playing a modern game. At idle it barely pushes any heat. However due to the increased airflow and heat dissipation, the room DOES increase in temperature. It IS a noticeable difference over my old case, wherein my PC would remain at higher temperatures, and that same heat energy would not be dissipated into the air of the room quickly.

If this was not happening before, your system had utterly abysmal cooling and I'm quite surprised nothing melted down.

Post by **grinvader** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 11:39 pm

odditude wrote:you frenchmen and your damn logic

Nah, the fun part is enlarging the system so that in includes the plant powering the cooling system - a non-negligeable part of the entropy goes there, leaving your local room not-so-much-warmer and the computer itself cooler.