Overheating problems with Zalman-7000AlCu and P4 2.4Ghz

anthonysimilion · Post by **anthonysimilion** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:41 pm

When CPU usage is idle, the CPU temperature is ~25-30 degrees (celcius) with the fan at ~1400rpm.

However, when the CPU usage reaches near 100% (for example, when encoding video) - the temperature can shoot up to near 60 degrees, when which the motherboard emits a loud tone (as the temperature warning is set to 60 degrees).

With the stock Intel heatsink it has never reached 60 degrees. In the SPCR review it showed the Pentium 4 2.53 reaching only 44 degrees, even when running CPU Burn!

This heatsink has been in the computer since the beginning of the year, although I haven't really run stressful activities until recently.

Any ideas?

Edit: The processor is a Pentium 4 'C' 2.4Ghz, Northwood 800Mhz FSB.

ckolivas · Post by **ckolivas** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 8:45 pm

Check for dust. I had this problem with a 7000 cooler and found a very furry heatsink. A hairdryer on cold fixed it. This made me start a positive pressure filtered-only air silent case project.

anthonysimilion · Post by **anthonysimilion** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 8:59 pm

Thanks for the tip. Did you do it with the heatsink still in the case, or out?

ckolivas · Post by **ckolivas** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 9:11 pm

I was lazy and left it in place.

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 12:02 am

Dust weakens the Zalman 7000's efficiency by quite a lot. My brother had one for 6 months and it was caked with dust and overheating. I give mine a squirt of compressed air every couple of weeks. I suggest you take it out and dust it out. Remove the fan mechanism too as there's probably build up under there as well.

I have a 2.4C @ 3.1Ghz and my Zalman 7000CU keeps it around 30C idle @ 50% speed and no more than 45C load @ 100% speed.

anthonysimilion · Post by **anthonysimilion** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 2:29 am

Thanks for the info. I'll definitely get around to cleaning the dust out, when I get some spare time.

At the moment I've experimented with undervolting and am running the processor at 1.475V - it's idling nicely at ~22 degrees celcius and after three hours burn in (100% CPU usage), it does not exceed 45 degrees celcius.

anthonysimilion · Post by **anthonysimilion** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:54 pm

I've undervolted the 2.4Ghz Pentium 4C to 1.3V, and now my full load temperature when running the Zalman fan at 1250RPM is only 37 degrees celcius! It appears to be stable too, after a couple of hours using 2 instances of CPU Burn (for load on both virtual processors, totalling 100% CPU usage overall).

Undervolting is amazing.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 5:26 am

anthonysimilion wrote:
Undervolting is amazing.

Yes it is, isn't it!

What board are you using?

anthonysimilion · Post by **anthonysimilion** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 1:35 am

I'm using a Gigabyte 8IPE1000 Pro2.

It's a funny one though - I have to set the voltage after resetting the CMOS (by removing backup battery). If I want to change it again, I have to reset the CMOS again.

If I don't reset the CMOS before making a change, it just doesn't apply the change, even though I've set it in the BIOS.

But once it's set, it works perfectly.

Overheating problems with Zalman-7000AlCu and P4 2.4Ghz

Overheating problems with Zalman-7000AlCu and P4 2.4Ghz

Undervolting success!

Re: Undervolting success!