P4 Overheating

[new-2-this]

Anyone know why a P4 30.ghz would be running at 85 degrees idle? Having applied new compound as the old stuff was no existant.

Its still running hot though. The temps are taken from bios on a foxconn board btw.

Its running the stock intel cooler. Any suggestions or would it just be worth getting a better heatsink fan combo?

[kmount]

I'd guess either poor airflow, or poor quality thermal compound or badly seated heatsink/fan.

This is assuming the 85 is celcius and not fahrenheit of course.

[Michael]

As kmount has already mentioned, check whether the temperature is 85F or 85C, there is a big difference!

If the computer is stable, then the other possibility is the board is reporting the temperature wrong. If that's the case you have two options. Either upgrade the BIOS and see if the problem improves, or disable temperature monitoring in the BIOS (not recommended).

[new-2-this]

I used the compound yesterday and it seemed to work fine. Yes it is celcius, had to check though!

[ChrisH]

Are you sure the temp is correct? Do you have anyother way of testing ti?

[PeterW]

What happens if you put it under load? if the temp gets any higher it will start to throttle.

[fmathieson]

Is Intel SpeedStep technology enabled in the BIOS?

Look for Intel Speedstep or EIST or Enhanced EIST in the BIOS and make sure it's enabled.

It is functionally identical to AMD's PowerNOW! technology in that it lowers the CPU's clock when it's not too busy.

If it is disabled, your CPU will be running at 3GHz even when idle instead of 2.4GHz (which I believe is the idle speed of a 3GHz P4)

Frank.

[Sirbendy]

Even so..my first port of attack would be to borrow a thermometer from somewhere and independently verify the temps..MB temp chips I always take with a pinch of salt.

I think I'm right in saying P4's throttle in an overheat condition..is it running slow? I know when I've pinged the fan off our Dell SFF P4s they tend to grind after a bit until I refit it..

I've got a p4/3Ghz running stock on an ASUS, running our CCTV and a VM..constantly thrashing 24/7..it's quite toasty in the case, but as it's running fine I don't worry.

[flyinghaggis]

Anyone know why a P4 30.ghz would be running at 85 degrees idle?

Are you sure it'd definitely a P4 3Ghz chip and not a slower model that's been overclocked! Is the fan running at the correct speeds?