Hellacious Heating and/or Hard Drive (cheesy?)

Hello all,

I have quite a perplexing problem (or two really) here with my would-be dream machine, and I was wondering if anyone could lend any assisstance to a wannabe techie.

First and foremost, a while back I noticed my chip was running hot (P4 LGA 775 w/ HT), which is I suppose not an unlikely thing for this chip from what I had read, but this was like really hot (we're talkin 60s-70s C...yea I know). Anyway, I realized that a new heatsink was in order, as well as some case fans to boot. A friend at the local computer shop turned me on to heatpipes, which I gladly went with and it cooled it down a bit (lower 50s C), but I'm under the impression that it's supposed to be a tad cooler. Thinking my case flow was the problem, and needing to upgrade anyway for other reasons....I recently purchased the Antec P180 Performance Case (which is sweeeet) and supposedly has great airflow.

Sad thing is...right now my case is at 30 C and chip is at 52 C (frowny)...I was hoping that a better increased case flow as well as the advertised efficiency of heatpipes would get my chip/case a little to a lot cooler than this...and I'm wondering if I'm doing anything wrong or if anyone has any suggestions.

Secondly: the case brought on another interesting problemo...

I moved all of my stuff to the new case (quite meticulously I might add...) and for some reason...my hard drive is acting up. Sometimes it detects it fine (i.e. now), and all of my info is here and dandy. Others, it detects the HD itself, but it doesn't detect that I have any data on it (no good)...and worst of all sometimes it doesn't even detect it! I have no idea what could be causing this...I have a Western Digital 120 GB one that's worked for at least a year+...though I'm still running IDE cables. Any ideas?

I appreciate all of you who survived this far in my post...thanks again for the help!

Mark

 

Okay with the HDD try removing the IDE plug and to replug it in the can be a tight fit and you might not have a snug fit, also the same on the mobo IDE socket.

As for your CPU temps is this a Prescott? If so they do run a bit hotter than most CPUs' and overclock.net will state 50C for idle and 60C load. An important thing is what is your ambient temp at the moment? I will assume it is high 20'sC as mobo is 30C, this is an important ques as CPU temp will be a product of ambient environment.

When you replaced the new HS was there a thermal pad or grease? Pads are crap imho and not very effective, so I would use a grease and everytime you remove the HS you should clean of the old grease and refresh it.

Post with some responses and I will offer what info I can.

 

Thanks for the HDD tips. I'll check er out.

I'm pretty sure it's a prescott, but my buddy has the identical chip and he had his running lower 40s and even 30s. Neither of my utilities list an ambient temp...just the mobo and the chip temps. I knew they ran hot but this doesn't seem right...I'm pretty positive it should be cooler.

I do have Arctic 5 on there...though I could try reapplying it. My biggest worry is that if you put fans on the ends of the heatsinks...it's supposed to make it cooler yet, but this doesn't do anything. I've tried with and without (right now i don't have one on), and the only difference is my mobo doesn't recognize a fan when it's off. Other than that, it's not making any difference whatsoever to how cool my chip is...with or without the fan. Puzzling.

I have an Asus P5P800 mobo and a Thermaltake Tower 112 heatsink. I also noticed my utilites won't let me set the threshold's for my mobo or cpu temp past 30 C (mobo) and 51 C (chip) respectively. Is this normal?

Thanks a lot for your help.

 

Sadly I have read this as well and it seems in general Prescotts will run hotter, many threads on this, but occasionally someone gets a good one. Just random variation during the production process.

Sorry should have been clearer I use my AC thermometer to obtain a coarse ambient room temp (C) you could use a daily weather report or a tounge thermometer to gauge the ambient temp.

I think this will be reflective of other intake into the case! If you don't have a good supply of cool outside air entering the case then the side mounted fan (should be directed to flow thru towards back of case extraction fan) will just circulate warmed case air and thus not very effective.

NO it should show temps mine has shown me 84C once (CPU) fan plug had become loss and temp went mental!