AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition issues

[bedouinrising]

My x3 is overheating when xp pro is on the loading screen. my motherboard plays the warning sound, and at first i thought it was no big deal cause the alert temperature was set to 60 celsius, but when i set the alert temp to 70 celsius, it still played the sound. i am using a stock fan and havent even overclocked it yet. i have 2 80 mm case fans working fine. Should i buy a better heatsink to reduce the tempurature, or is it just a software problem?

 

[red1776]

Hi bedouinrising ,
i don't mean this to be insulting. did you forget the thermal paste by any chance? also check to make sure that your heatsink fan is plugged in and still turning. only two 80mm fans is not much in the way of airflow, but overheating that fast means something is wrong at a basic level.
the case alarm going off means that the bios is setting it off.

 

[bedouinrising]

the stock heatsink came with thermal paste pre-applied. My heasink fan is still turning and my system tempurature is always under 32 celsius.

 

[bedouinrising]

well at least it seemed like it was preapplied, there was a substance on the heatsink right out of the box

 

[red1776]

well that pre applied stuff is rubbish, so you can try using some AS5, but it sounds like something else is amiss. i would remove the HS and re seat it in case say the fastening assembly didn't pop loose or something. did you get a chance to touch the heatsink while it did this to see if it was hot?

 

[bedouinrising]

i'm going out tomorrow morning to buy some thermal paste, arctic silver 5 preferrably, like you said. I havent touched the hs to check temperature but i'm going to reseat it and get back to you

 

[bedouinrising]

the heatsink was seated properly, but it was hot, even 5 minutes after shutting down. I'll update again tomorrow after applying the thermal paste

 

[red1776]

oh one more thing, make sure you HS fan is turning at the RPM it is supposed to

 

[LinkedKube]

what kind of case do you have, is this a mid, or full tower? It can make the difference of about 15C with a case with proper airflow.

 

[Ritwik7]

I've also put the stock HSF with the pre-applied thermal paste. But there's been no question of overheating. I would suspect some other problem. I think you should reseat the heatsink. And maybe as supersmashbrada pointed out, it might be airflow issues.

 

[red1776]

all that is true Rit and super....but he is saying that it is hitting 70+ temps and overheating before the boot process is over, something else is wrong here.

 

[Ritwik7]

Could it not be because of the incorrect placing of the HSF. I had a similar problem on my P4 when one of the HSF pushpins broke.

@ bedouinrising: Stupid question on my part, but is the computer booting into the OS?

 

[klepto12]

just a thought but the thermal cutoff could be broken and just causing it to act like it is overheating.

 

[Ritwik7]

"Thermal cutoff"? Do you mean the contact between the HSF and CPU, klepto?

 

[bedouinrising]

ok i have a mid atx case with two 80 mm case fans. I applied thermal paste and reseated the heatsink with no luck, my BIOS is still going off. Do you think it could be a sensor problem?

 

[bedouinrising]

ok looks like the thermal paste did help a little bit, when i set the BIOS to alert at 70 celsius, it doesnt go off, but when its set to 60 celsius, it does. So the temp at bootup is between 60-70 celsius. Is that ok for the processor i am using?

 

[Ritwik7]

73C is max operating temp for the X3 720.

 

[bedouinrising]

its weird, while i'm in windows, my cpu never gets above 60 celsius, but when windows loads, it does.

 

[Ritwik7]

Ok, so you're able to boot. Strange situation though.

 

[bedouinrising]

is it normal for cpu's to heat up during bootup?

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Not really, since all the fans in the system, case fans and all, spin up to full speed. It's part of the POST routine. CPU temps should be lowest at this point.

I would check the HSF pushpins again. Did you clean off the old TIM properly? Also, how thick is the coat of TIM that you have applied?

 

[bedouinrising]

yeah i cleaned off the old paste and applied the new one. its a good coat, thicker than what was on there before. I'll check those pushpins.

 

[bedouinrising]

Everything is fine on the heatsink. I added more thermal paste and the temperature is getting lower at bootup (the alarm goes off in smaller bursts) but its still pretty high (in the 60s) in relation to the tempurature while using windows

 

[red1776]

so your saying that the temp is in the 60's during boot, and goes down from there?

 

[captaincranky]

all that is true Rit and super....but he is saying that it is hitting 70+ temps and overheating before the boot process is over, something else is wrong here.

Here's a question that just popped into my mind, so forgive me for it, and begging your pardon in advance. But, how exactly do you measure CPU temperature while the machine is booting? I ask this because the monitoring software doesn't load until after the OS does. I am braced and ready for whatever answer that you may choose to visit upon me.

is it normal for cpu's to heat up during bootup?

Since the percentage of CPU usage is high during the boot process, so it follows that the CPU temp would be above that of the desktop at idle. However, since the system elevates the RPMs of the fans during the boot process, that would tend to offset that a bit.

What is the "Vcore" voltage in BIOS. An elevated Vcore is the primary cause of CPU overheat. This of course assumes that the HSF has properly applied thermal compound, and it is seated properly. Of which I am a bit skeptical ATM, sorry.

yeah i cleaned off the old paste and applied the new one. its a good coat, thicker than what was on there before. I'll check those pushpins.

I've always understood that the thermal coating material should be thinly applied. or that it begins to act as an insulator