Intel Pentium D Cooling: Problem?

[thejoker4011]

Hi yes i have an Intel Pentium D 2.8GHz processor and i have 1 92mm case fan on the back pulling hot air out and another fan pulling aisr in and my CPU fan is pulling air into the heatsink and my computer runs at between 50c and 70c...i was wondering if i have a problem cause i put new thermal paste on about a week ago cause the other stuff was hard and cracking...any help is great thanks

 

[Routaran]

50 is not bad but if you're running at 70c then it is getting a bit hot and may potentially reduce the reliability of your system. too much thermal paste can actually be bad for the heat transfer. i would suggest thoroughly cleaning the contact surface between the CPU and the heat sink with Isopropyl alcohol and reapply the thinnest layer of thermal paste you can on the CPU. Then place the Heat-sink back on. then test and see how your CPU runs.

 

[thejoker4011]

Well only time it gets that high is when i am playing a game cause i don't have a good graphics card i am running off integrated right now..i am wondering when my new card gets here if that will help keep the cpu cooler

 

[phinds]

Well only time it gets that high is when i am playing a game cause i don't have a good graphics card i am running off integrated right now..i am wondering when my new card gets here if that will help keep the cpu cooler

I'd say it almost certainly will. The only time I have any heat issues in my laptop is when I'm running heavy graphics apps. Moving a lot of that off of the CPU should definitely ease its burden and reduce the heat.

 

[Routaran]

if you always had this problem then getting a new card may help reduce the temperature. but i don't think that's the reason you are having heat issues. on average, with heatsink that's properly bleeding off heat the way its supposed to, the idle temps on a pentium D should be around 40C and full load should be around 55-60C (with stock cooling)
70 is high but still within limits
seems to me that inefficient heat transfer is the problem.

my suggestion is that you should go get a thermal paste called Arctic Silver. Clean and reapply the paste and reseat the heat sink (use the smallest amount u can to cover the processor)
then test to see if your temperatures come down

if they dont,
download a program called Prime95, its a stress testing tool that tries to calculate the largest prime number. it places your processor under the max possible load and verifies stability.

run it over night and see if the system is stable at 70C. if it is then don't worry about the temps and just use the system as normal

if you get errors in the calculations (it will tell you) then your system is too hot and something needs to be done. You can invest in a better heatsink to bleed heat or get a new video card.
under normal circumstances, i wouldn't disagree with Phinds but i would recommend a new heatsink. its better for dealing with heat and in almost all cases cheaper.

but really, if you have a Pentium D processor, you should really be looking at a new computer not a new heatsink or graphics card, especially since you are gaming.

 

[KrisOhn]

Make sure you don't use too much thermal paste in your application as well, a small pea sized drop is enough. To me, this sounds like a heatsink seating problem, where your CPU's heatsink is not seated properly on the motherboard, if you haven't done it already, before you reapply your thermal paste, make sure it is seated properly, don't be afraid to push firmly, a lot of heatsinks require a decent force to be locked into place.