CPU Temperature

[johnnymk]

I have a workhorse computer which has given me 6 great years. It's an ABIT IS7 which has used a P4 2.4 GHz 800 processor.

Since the price of these old 478 processors have come down dramatically, I decided to buy a 3.0 GHz and overclock it. After reading some old OC reviews, I attempted small increments to the FSB. I decided to stop at the point which gave me a 3.45 GHz processor. One website claims that 3.8 GHz is possible with no problems.

I have no bootup problems at all. However, while playing some songs from an external hard drive with firewire connection, the song stopped playing. I tried exiting from winamp and then got a screen which noted an error and it rebooted. It was too rapid to read. This was after an hour or two.

I decided to look at the temperature in the BIOS while it rebooted. It read 49 degrees C, but obviously that was with no load. Is that an acceptable temperature? The problem I am having may or may not be related to this at all.

[Jeffbx]

49 is not that bad. I wouldn't expect that you'd see a thermal shutdown until the temps were in the 90's. Maybe keep an eye on the temp when you start loading it up & see how high it gets.

If you go to Control Panel, System, Advanced, Startup and Recovery Settings, and then in the System Failure box, uncheck 'automatically restart' - then you'll be able to see the error message next time it pops up.

[johnnymk]

49 is not that bad. I wouldn't expect that you'd see a thermal shutdown until the temps were in the 90's. Maybe keep an eye on the temp when you start loading it up & see how high it gets.

If you go to Control Panel, System, Advanced, Startup and Recovery Settings, and then in the System Failure box, uncheck 'automatically restart' - then you'll be able to see the error message next time it pops up.

Thanks. How can I tell what the temperature is without going into the BIOS?

[Jeffbx]

Thanks. How can I tell what the temperature is without going into the BIOS?

I'd recommend MBM - MotherBoard Monitor (http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=311). As long as it supports your motherboard, you can see real time temps with it.

[johnnymk]

Thanks, jeff.

I disabled the restart function and I got "Driver IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL". It also mentioned something about turning off memory to restart. I Googled that error and got a ton of ailments and possible cures.

I then noticed that one of the memory modules wasn't fully seated. I must have banged the tab when I put the new processor in.

Ever since I put the new processor in, the volume from my onboard sound goes up and down and fairly dramatically.

I was looking at the OC feature in the BIOS. It has the FSB/AGP/PCI which can be modified. I have a SCSI card for my SCSI hard drive. Does the PCI slot also get overclocked when the FSB is upped? If so, would that mess up the SCSI card in the PCI slot?

[Jeffbx]

Nope - FSB is just that path between the memory & the CPU (detailed overview here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front-side_bus)). PCI slots are clock fixed.

However, looking at your CPU temp can tell you a lot - if you're hitting high temps under load, that can cause all sorts of weirdness.

[johnnymk]

105 degrees F. constant with the FSB back to the orginal setting. So far no reboots but that could have been the loose memory. But the sound now is normal.

I had also adjusted the virtual memory a few days ago from 1600-1800 mb to 1300-1500 mb when a diagnostics program that I ran last week stated it was too high. I have 512 mb physical memory. I set it back to 1600-1800 mb a few hours ago.

I am going to OC again and note the temperatures under a load.

[whitealexander]

thanks too jeff.. i needed to monitor mine too..

[nate el bueno]

I think 49 degrees is a tad bit high for a CPU that's not under heavy load. Although you may not get worried until it gets around 80 :), that is a bit warm.

[johnnymk]

Goosed the FSB 10%. Temperature remained constant and then up 2 degrees F. under a load. Sound doesn't fluctuate. Must have been the loose memory.