Overheating Issues

[ForeverSinX]

My comp with the case closed reaches around 100 degrees celcius on the cpu according to the bios. With the case open and a fan on it I can get it down to 70 degrees or so if I also keep my house cold. My computer has had many BSOD's with random failures and stop errors. When I keep the temp down it seems to never crash on things my comp would normally crash on while it's case is on.

A pic of the bios settings while the case is off and with a fan is on it at room temp:
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/3041/dsc01357bu5.jpg

An image of inside my comp and which way fans are blowing:
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/5968/dsc01358fh4.jpg

I have a AMD athlon 64 x2 Core Processor 6400+ going 3.21 Ghz

Any idea on what to do? I'm not so great at the whole keeping my computer cool thing. What fans should I buy? What should I change? Etc.

Any help is very appreciated.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

I'm far from an expert, really. This is a suggestion based purely on the observation of other machines (including my own) and a touch of common sense.

The average setup has a fan pulling air away from the heatsink, not blowing into it. To complicate that a bit more, your PSU blowing hot air directly into the path of your heatsink fan, which shouldn't be.

If I were you, I would do the following:

Buy a new PSU (ELT500AWT is solid) which has a rear exhaust fan (this is a large portion of your problem I'm sure). I would turn that side intake fan around so it was an exhaust fan and then install a front intake fan near the HDD cage if possible. If you're really feeling into it, replace the thermal compound you have on your heatsink with something such as Arctic Silver 5.

*Edit*

No idea if you can rotate the heatsink, but, it might also help if you could turn the heatsink a 1/4 turn clockwise so that the heatsink fan is blowing through the hetasink and into the rear exhaust fan (along with the suggestions above). That would dispose of the hot air .

 

[CMH]

The average setup has a fan pulling air away from the heatsink, not blowing into it. To complicate that a bit more, your PSU blowing hot air directly into the path of your heatsink fan, which shouldn't be.

I hate to keep threading on your toes, but most setups have fans blowing onto the heatsink. Case in mind (and with the setups most computers use): Intel/AMD stock heatsinks. Also, PSU fans generally blow outwards (out of the casing). It is noted that ForeverSinX labelled his PSU fan as blowing downward.

ForeverSinX, just wondering about your methods in determining which way the fan blows. If you just put your hand there, and felt a draft, it is hard to determine which direction the draft is headed towards. A quick and cheap way to determine which way ALL fans blow, is to cut a small strip of paper, and tape it where there is the most airflow, and watch which way the tape moves. Best to have the fan in a vertical position blowing horizontally for this, so gravity isn't an issue.

If it does blow downwards, it will be the first PSU I know of to have a fan blow in this direction. You have 2 options in this case:
1) replace the PSU outright as suggested.
2) open up the PSU (which voids the warranty), and turn the fan over.
That PSU doesn't look very cheap, not many modular PSUs are cheap. They generally perform quite solid as well, since they aren't built for the budget conscious. However, how you fix this problem will be up to you.

The main problem here I think is that the CPU fan is blowing downwards. We all know hot air rises, so if you rotate your CPU heatsink 90 degrees clockwise, you'd have the CPU fan blowing sideways, towards the rear fan (which is blowing hot air out of the case, I hope. Not too late to change it anyway).

When doing the above, please remember to apply thermalpaste. The absence of thermalpaste will increase temperatures dramatically.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

...I wasn't suggesting that PSU's don't usually blow air out of the rear, CMH, instead the opposite. PSU's with a vertical exhaust are not hard to come by, they commonly blow air out of the top of the case.

You aren't "threading" on my toes. You are repeating what I say except adding illogical concepts and dangerous suggestions. It's cute.

 

[CMH]

I agree opening the PSU is not a good thing to do, but I fail to see how its illogical. The CPU heatsink (unless I see wrongly) is one thats akin to the Zalman 9700 design, where its vertical, with heatpipes, and the fan doesn't blow onto the motherboard like a standard Intel heatsink.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Those temperatures sound so high that I don't think the problem are the fans. Check that the heatsink is properly attached to the CPU and there's thermal paste in between.

 

[ForeverSinX]

I can tell it's blowing downward by simply looking under it. That's where the fan and the fan vent are. It's true there is another vent also on the back of the compl also but the fan is on the bottom of the PSU blowing a fairly strong wind. Very little wind comes from the back. The air blowing from the PSU isn't even really hot anyways so I won't worry about that right now. What I will try is the rotating my heatsink 90 degrees clockwise to align it with my back fan blowing out. Also I'm going to by some thermal paste also from my heatsink. What's the best kind of thermal past I should by though? That seems like it would be the best culprit as my motherboard heat itself is extremely low and nothing even feels realy hot inside my comp so it must be something wrong with the cpu fan/heatsink/paste.

Edit: Actually my heatsink doesn't even really get that hot which means it's not conducting very well between the CPU and itself right? So all I really need then might be some good thermal paste?

 

[ForeverSinX]

Woo, all fixed now. I bought some thermal compound and when I took off the heatsink I noticed one of the cords to on of the fans was stuck smashed between the heatsink and the cpu itself. Not wanting to take any chances anyways I cleaned the cpu/heatsink and applied more silver thermal compound to it and now it runs at 50 degrees with the case closed and I have no problems at all now.