LGA775 Celeron Processor reseated, stupid high temps

[DannyM]

Hey folks,

I've been trying to fix a system for some friends of the family.

Basically it was turning itself off for no reason, I managed to narrow the reason down to stupidly hight temps (speedfan reading got to 75+ degrees).

I've swapped everything into a new case it's dust free, I've cleaned the heatsink and CPU (although I couldn't get the CPU shiny) and reseated them. I'm now sitting in the BIOS and getting a proper reading of 78 degrees! It's idle!

The CPU fan is stock and it does make a rather loud racket, but it's still registering at spinning at 2200RPM+ So I'm not sure I should pursue replacing the cooler or not, all I can really think of is get some better cleaning materials for the CPU and see if that does the trick (I've been using nail varnish remover to wipe them both down) but I'm not sure that cleaning it properly would take the 20-30 degrees off I would prefer.

Any ideas?

[j.col]

it may be obvious, but did you use thermal paste?
if so what one and how much?

[Stephen C]

Edit: Same as above, too slow typing on my phone.

[GoNz0]

if the cpu still has an old thermal pad its now an insulator.

use a flat blade to scrape it clean then nail varnish off the residue.

same with the heatsink.

[DannyM]

Thermal paste was used and I used an appropriate amount not too much and not too little.

I'm not sure what was on it before but I was very awkward to remove I'll may be try cleaning the CPU again tomorrow, could I use a bit of sand paper to try remove it?

[GoNz0]

no m8, you will score the hell out of it.

a small flat blade, even a dinner knife with a rounded edge

if you can get it out a stanley blades the best bet.

its sounds like a thermal pad, very good at turning into a piece of insulation and causing the problem you have

[jim]

If not, it could perhaps be a dodgy temperature sensor, if the mobo is shutting down the PC down to protect the CPU from damage it is presuming to be imminent.

[watercooled]

Even if you used cheese as the TIM it shouldn't be raising the temps that much. Acetone should remove a thermal pad, assuming that's all that's in the nail varnish remover - perfumes/moisturisers could be part of the problem. It sounds like a bad mount to me, have you tried reseating it? Also what paste are you using and is it old?

Edit: to check for a bad sensor, compare the CPU and core temperatures. Not a sure way as there could be a problem affecting both of them.

[DannyM]

Even if you used cheese as the TIM it shouldn't be raising the temps that much. Acetone should remove a thermal pad, assuming that's all that's in the nail varnish remover - perfumes/moisturisers could be part of the problem. It sounds like a bad mount to me, have you tried reseating it? Also what paste are you using and is it old?

Edit: to check for a bad sensor, compare the CPU and core temperatures. Not a sure way as there could be a problem affecting both of them.

I'm going to reseat it in the next couple of hours. The system temp was around 35.

I am using Artic Silver 5 for the paste.

[peterb]

Personally, I wouldn't use naiol varnish remover - it may have acetone in it, but lots of other stuff which you don't really want on the surface. And it is a fairly aggressive plastic solvent, so you really don't want to risk getting it on any other components. The best solvent to use is iso-propyl alcohol (Maplin sell it) or ethanol (Vodka - but that seems a waste of vodka!). The other cause of your high temps - as has been said) is that the heat sink isseated down properly.

[DannyM]

Well this is resolved now at least fingers crossed it is. I took the heat sink off and examined it quite closely and it was blocked completely by dust. I didn't quite realise how bad it was last night as I was fairly tired and didn't even think that dust would cause such a problem but this was very bad.

I forgot to take a photo, but I took pictures of the process of applying the thermal paste, I would appreciate if people could tell me if I am doing this wrong, as I've never really mastered the art of applying paste.

I cleaned the CPU and heat sink:



I dabbed paste on the heat sink and then flattened it out with a plastic card:



Then same with the CPU (I did have to put a bit more on than shown in the image as there just wasnt enough to spread):



Both:



I then seated the CPU and sat the heat sink on top.

Temps at idle now are showing 39 degrees in speedfan but the BIOS shows around 44.

So lesson learned, get ze duster out first next time, although the only to fix this one was to actually take the fan off the heat sink and get the vac with brush on it!

Whilst I am here, the DVD drive on the tower is constantly open if I try to close it, it just opens again, it's an IDE connection. Any ideas?

Thanks for all the help by the way!

[GoNz0]

well you used twice as much paste as you needed to. you only apply to one surface.

[peterb]

I'd agree with GoNz0 on the amount, but I wouldn't worry about it. You may find that the temperatures drop a little over the next few days as the paste softens with heat and flows, but it all seems fine as it is.

[watercooled]

It's debatable (and depends on the paste used) but I wouldn't manually spread the paste - it leaves it uneven, created air bubbles and often causes you to use far too much. And certainly not on both surfaces.

[Sputnik]

I agree, I use the dot or line method. The info on what to do is on the Arctic Silver website, You only need a tiny dot about the size of a grain of rice.

[DannyM]

Again, thanks all I'll take note for next time.