Have you checked the heatsink?

I am running an athlon 1800+ and for about a year and a half it has been going fine, but within the last few months the temperature warning has been going off and the computer restarts. i checked the cpu fan and it is running (fluctuating between 4687 rpm and 4821 rpm exactly). I added an extra fan for a total of three and that didnt help so i took off the side panel just to get it to run for an extended period of time. the temp went up to about 42-43 degreees C, with the case open, but when i put it on, the tem steadily increased to 62-63 when i had enough. is my cpu fan ok, if so what do i do?

This question was answered on April 19, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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To whom it may concern:

There are a few things to check here, first of all your fan fluncuating between 4687 and 4821 rpm sounds fine

-First sounds like there is too much heat being built up inside of your case, do you case fans? If so check and make sure that all are working, air needs to be circulated inside the case to keep it cool There should be atleast 1 fan in the front of the case blowing air inside the case and atleast 1 fan in the back of the case blowing air out of the case to circulate the air I would personally reccomend 2 case fans in the front and 2 in the back if the case has room for it.

-If the case fans are fine and circulating through the case, next thing would be to check if you have your computer near a heater, if so move your case away from any source of heat That is just adding to the already high temperature of the case/comptuer.

-If your computer is not near a source of heat, next thing you can try/check is if your CPU is overclocked I suggest putting it back to default so there wont be as much heat generated from the CPU.

-If you are not overclocked, I would take off the fan and heatsink from the CPU check if there is any silicone between the heatsink and CPU, if there is not that might be whats causing the excessive heat because silicone is needed to transfer the heat from the cpu to the heatsink The silicone eventually evaporates and you will have to put more, if you are looking to buy silicone i would suggest something called "Artic Silver" it is a almost metalic substance that is used to transfer heat from the CPU to the heatsink and is more effective then silicone and has a longer duration Once you have purchased this you must put a small dash of the substance on the CPU core then take some kind of card/paper and spread the substance over the core making a thing layer Once you have done this take your heatsink and wipe the surface of it with rubbing alcohol (put the alcohol on a piece of paper tower and wipe the heatsink) This takes off any of the previous substance left on the heatsink After this secure the heatsink back onto the CPU and connect the fan to the heatsink Once you have done this heat should be transfered from the CPU to the heatsink causing your CPU to cool down temperature wise.

Sincerely,

Dimitrios Theodorou

About the author

Posted by Dimitrios of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on April 19, 2004

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