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Hi there

After attempting a small overclock (10%) on my AMD 64 3200 (2Ghz) I decided to run the prime95 torture test, using the temp. monitoring utility that came with my mobo, I ran it for abt 8 minutes, but then the utility flashed up telling me the cpu was at 68 degrees! I restarted the computer and went into the bios where the temperature had now fallen to 62. I then put everything back to default speeds thinking that I would try overclocking once I got a decent cooler. But as I had installed prime95 i signed up to primenet and started it running, but abt 15 minutes later my utility flashed up again telling me that the cpu was at 66 degrees.

Is there any way that I can limit the cpu usage of prime95 so it stays cool? My idle temp is abt 39.

The maximum temperature for this cpu according to AMD is 70 degrees.

Thanks
Phil

First you should disable the programme from running on startup.

You then need to find out why your cpu temp is so high.

Shutdown your computer and unplug it from the mains.

Open your case and carefully disconnect the cpu fan. Remove the heatsink and clean off the old thermal pad/paste from the heatsink and the cpu die, using a little isopropyl alcohol.

Apply some new thermal paste to the cpu die and reattach the heatsink and cpu fan.

Instructions for applying thermal paste can be found HERE.

Hopefully, your cpu temps will now be a lot lower.

Regards Howard

Are you using stock cooling?

If your CPU overheats running Prime 95, it'll probably overheat on any CPU-intensive application.

Given that you even bothered trying to OC, I'm surprised you only found out that your CPU is overheating.

I got the processor OEM, so I am using a budget cooler off Ebuyer.co.uk

Yeah, it has been crashing when I have tried to close AOE3 after more than half an hour of game play.

Thanks for that Howard, i'll try to get hold of some thermal paste, the cooler came with a little pad on the bottom but I remember it looked quite small.

If that doesn't work then i'll have to buy a new cooler from somewhere, I thought my current one was big enough! (the last pc i had was a 1Ghz Socket A)

Not sure which cooler you got now, but I think most non-stock coolers should work as well as, if not better, than the stock ones. Exceptions might be some passive coolers, but thats about it.

I'm betting its the thermal paste at the moment, its the cheapest thing to replace for now.

Arctic Silver 5 is the most worshipped product at the moment, nothing else comes close, so get your hands on some of those. I personally use it, and I say it works alot better than whatever comes stock.

You don't need alot of it, and there's instructions online on how to apply AS5.