p4 overheating
 

so i run a p4 2.26 GHz with the 533 fsb. I bought it almost three years ago right when they came out and it's been an excellent cpu. about a week and a half ago, i get the warning under linux that the cpu is overheating and is speedclocking down. so immediately i reboot and go to the bios and look at the temp which is 69 celsius and falling. i.e., it's really hot. the truth is that from day one it's always run in the mid-50's at the lowest.

so i disassemble the entire machine cleaning bot by hand, with compressed air and even the vacuum cleaner. the case and heat-sink/fan are about as dust-free as i can get. further i went and bought some new thermal gel. i know too much is as bad as not having any and so i spread that stuff on very thinly as in the directions. boot it back up and it does okay again for about a day and a half. so i shut down and of course every time i run it for a few hours it starts to overheat again.

since i reassembled it, i've been running with the side of the case off, so airflow shouldn't be an issue. i have two fans in the case. the one on the heatsync and an auxilliary fan that i installed. however the second fan doesn't make a difference. i even unplugged it to make sure that it wasn't by some odd chance screwing up motherboard readings of temperature. i unplugged all the devices on the computer that aren't required. extra cd-rom drive....gone. modem (unused for a year)...gone, same as floppy and extra nic.

i have watched the fan (since the fans that intel ships with the p4 are variable speed dependent on temp of the processor) speed and it stays pretty consistent....over a range of 55 to 65 celsius. i would think at 65 it'd be humming at like 3500 rpm instead of the 2700 it only varies from by 50 or so rpm. perhaps this is part of my difficulty.

any suggestions?

Maybe get a new heatsink, fans are prone to die on you, and if it's three years old it sounds like a pretty good time to get a better heatsink. Try to get a copper one, since copper is a better thermal conductor, and if you're really up for it get liquid cooling, either making it yourself (time consuming and dangerous if you don't know what you're doing) or buy a kit, but just getting a better heatsink will probably do it, otherwise take the temperature diode off your current heatsink and put a jumper on it, so then it'll go at max all the time, or if hook up a variable resistor if you want to be able to modify, but if the fan is failing, that probably won't do anything. Good luck.

does the metal in the heat sink lose it's conductive properties after time and heat?

your heat sink should be fine as with your fan but if dust was an issue maybe the fan needs replacement

P4 usually run very hot even without overclocking so 50 to 60 should be ok but if after rebooting you see in the bios 69 then you definatly have a problem

It shouldn't, but fans on the other hand do die and get worse with time.

okay. i didn't expect that the metal should experience some kind of fatigue. but the fan losing it's competency is completely understandable. that's what i'll look for. in fact, i may look for a better heat sink.

so as a new word of advice, if anyone else experiences something of this nature, some more things happened than this.

the black plastic bracket which surrounds the pentium that is affixed to the mobo has connections to the mobo. these connections were part of the problem for me. they had all broken and one was just barely holding the assembly to the mobo. further, the black plastic piece itself had a crack along side one of its corners. so it was broken in 5 places.

that piece was part of the reason my cpu was overheating. with some creativity and some JB-Weld (as well as hanging wire) my wife and I (mainly her) affixed that piece to the motherboard. once the JB-Weld was affixed and cured it has held. i used an aftermarket heatsink/fan and it works perfectly now.

Mate, you really should spend a few dollars and get the proper
fan assembly and heat sink. Yeah, baling wire and JB Weld might
work temporarily -- but not long term...

I have mine rigged up to,I have plastic tie wraps around the bottom,a real mess on top,but I did get it pretty tight,that heak sink bracket is connected to the mobo with plastic push pins,and I was too lazy to take everything apart,also that bracket is a little hard to find.

Another issue could be the power supply is starting to go bad. If it under supplying voltage it can cause the cpu to draw more amp. which creates more heat. If you have installed faster hardrives or power up usb devices off the system then the power supply could be to small for peak loads.

Brian1
" Google the Linux way @ http://www.google.com/linux "

as an update, even the jbweld didn't hold. i just ended up buying a new motherboard. in the end, that was actually the easiest option. it runs at a meager 35-40 degrees celsius now.

JonEberger,

What did you do with the old motherboard?

Wanna donate it to a worthy cause? :-D