CPU Overheating

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Gervahlt

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Hmmm,

I'm at a loss. I recently moved from one state to another, so the computer did do a bit of a bouncing around in the back of a U-Haul recently.

I have a P4 2.8 GHz socket 478 processor. For the past 1 1/2 years it's run hot, but stable (around 75C with a room temp of about 25C). Over the past couple of months (before the move) it began to become sluggish under any kind of load (Battlefield 2 for instance). Still stable though. After the move, it ran for about 3 weeks, then suddenly began to spike the temperature and shut the computer off almost immediately turning it on. Bios showed it rapidly increasing temperature until it shut off at 110C.

I've switched out HSF and used Arctic Silver 5 as instructed. I've checked all the fans to verify they are working, not blocked by dust or anything else, and facing the correct way where applicable (2 front case, 2 back case, 1 PSU fan, 1 HSF, 1 FSB fan, and 1 GPU fan). I then took the side cover off the case and rigged a 20" box fan to blow directly onto the HSF. It STILL only ran for about a minute and a half before shutting off at 110C. It shut off almost immediately when I took the HSF off and just tried blowing the box fan directly at the processor.

Note: both HSF's that I've tried work to cool another P4 that I have. They aren't great, but they work at about 25C above ambient temp.

I'm open to suggestions here and I'm hoping that I don't have to buy a new motherboard or new processor at this point. Thanks in advance.
 
Are these fans plugged into the motherboard, or in molex? It could be not connected properly or getting enough power.

I would also suggest that you take note of your bios settings, and once you know what they are at, load up the default bios settings. This can be done with the cmos battery and a jumper for most boards. If the CPU is over heating then the voltage could be to high or the fsb, or multipliers. Putting the Bios settings to default will hopefully fix any of the problems.
 
Are these fans plugged into the motherboard, or in molex? It could be not connected properly or getting enough power.

The two back case fans are plugged into a molex connector. The two front ones and the HSF are plugged into 3-prong connectors directly into the motherboard. Again though, the fans are all turning and moving air. The three fans plugged into the motherboard were reading somewhere around 2200-2500 rpms each the last time I was able to monitor the bios page.

I would also suggest that you take note of your bios settings, and once you know what they are at, load up the default bios settings. This can be done with the cmos battery and a jumper for most boards. If the CPU is over heating then the voltage could be to high or the fsb, or multipliers. Putting the Bios settings to default will hopefully fix any of the problems.

I will reset the BIOS to default once I can get it to cool off enough that I can have it run for about a minute (there's a bios option to reset it from with the bios settings). I just left the computer plugged in but completely off for over an hour with the HSF off of the processor. When I put the HSF back on and turned on the box fan, it only ran long enough to get to the bios screen, but not long enough to navigate to the reset page (maybe 20 seconds from power on).

It's currently sitting unplugged with the HSF on and the box fan blowing on it on high.
 
Its really strange that it would be over heating in the bios, since there is very little CPU usage. If you continue to have problems with the CPU over heating I would suggest to under clock the CPU and drop the voltage, until you find something stable.

On my old Barton 3000+ when I would remove the HSF, and and pull the CPU out, and put it back in, and reboot. The BIOS would sense that the CPU has been removed and would clock the CPU down to 1GHz when the 3000+ is clocked at 2GHz. You could give this a try if you cant stay in the BIOS as long. I dont know if it will work with every MoBo and CPU, but its worth a try if you still have problems.
 
Found it. Apparently, when the computer bounced around in the U-Haul, the retaining clip on the motherboard broke. The HSF would clamp down as normal, but then the retaining clip would still be loose so it pulled away from the processor.

*smacks forehead for not seeing this earlier*

Thanks for the help.
 
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