AMD Standard operating temps

Hey I was just hoping that somebody could give me an estimate of a decent AMD operating temp, I'm running an Athlon XP 2400+, it's overclocked and I know that brings a lot more heat but I just want to know about what it should run at stock so I can get an idea if I need better cooling or not. Also the room temp is kept at 71 F which is a bit warm so this probably also contributes to the heat. It still has the stock heat sink with Arctic Silver thermal compound. I have 3 80mm case fans, 1 blowing in 2 blowing out, and the PSU fan blowing out, I'm running it on a MSI KT6 Delta-LSR motherboard with 512MB PC3200 (DDR400), I'd also like to know if anyone has this same board what temperature their NorthBridge runs at...

Hi,

I personally would not like to see it running at more than about 45c, which I guess is around 115F.

You are right about ambient (room) temperature...it will baseline to that, but 71F is not really hot, so should not be a problem.

Get an exhaust fan to shift air out of the case. They cost about 5-10$ and take up a PCI slot (or ISA if you remember those :D )

You can do clever things with old plastic bottles/piping to direct air onto the processor. That is the "incoming" bit.

I would suggest that you get one of those HDD cooling bays..............heat and vibration kill HDDs like there is no tomorrow :(

I can personally run a 2200+ at 37c (98F) with a room temp of about 20c (68F)

Hope that this helps

Merry Christmas

LoL, yes I know/remember ISA slots were, in fact I have a 450mhz system sitting next to me that has a few of em :P Anyway I was wondering what you would suggest if I made a home made exhaust tube like you said, i have 2 empty slots, however they're right below my video card and above my sound card so nothing too big will fit. I think that if i take the two slot covers out and cut the bar in between, then also cut part of each cover out and put a small fan off an older heatsink in there and then put a tube of some sort leading to up by the heatsink it should pull much of the hot air away? I'm also considering drilling some holes and putting a big 120mm fan in the top between my DVD drive and my PSU. Also I will soon be getting a Thermaltake Volcano 11+ heatsink to put on there and maybe some better thermal compound, and that should certainly help a lot.

Merry Christmas!


You should be able to get an exhaust fan straight "off the shelf"............just screw it into a PCI/ISA slot in your machine? The gismo will fit, well mine do :)

"below the video card"...........sounds nice, if the bits face down? otherwise take the higher slot. My reason is your sound card is pretty irrelevant as far as heat goes, but the vid card does generate a fair bit...........you might think about changing slots?

You can also get copper heatsink/fan units for videocards..........remember to use silver thermal paste ;)

Cheers

hey my software which moniters the temp routinely shows it around 49c .i have amd 1800+

Thank you adityaa1, this makes me feel a little more comfortable with the temps it runs at.

hey i have an athlon xp 2800+ and it runs on average at 42 C.

ok well i put mine back to original clock speed of 2000mhz exactly and it runs at around 51c just doing nothing in windows, which i dont think is too high since an 1800 which is the same core runs at 49c, and mine is the top speed of the thoroughbred core running 2c higher...i assume since the 2800 is barton and is at the lower end of that core's capabilities it would run cooler...

I seem to recall that AMDs are designed to handle 80,85 or 90c? depending on the model, so I wouldn't worry too much.

Remember that the room temperature is what it will balance to, and the airflow around the outside of the case is important. I have seen quite a few fancy workstations that allow very little airflow around the base unit :(

When you get a retail boxed AMD it will have a heatsink and some thermal compound. I don't use these..........Cooler Master make some nice heatsinks (there are other good makes) and silver thermal compound is much more effective.............just check out that the fan/heatsink is approved for your processor...............I have seen a guy fry two 1.3Ghz Durons, using an inappropriate heatsink :rolleyes:

You might also replace the ribbon cables with the circular variety, and add fan cooled 5.25" HDD mounting bays. Modern 7200rpm drives can get very hot, and the objective is to create an airflow that moves heat out of the case. If you let stale air build up around the drives it will kill them.

Cable ties are very cheap and often ignored. Keep wiring out of the way so it doesn't impede airflow ;)

Cheers

Bah. Who needs all these fancy fans and heatsinks and stuff?

Just put some ice cubes in the case. It'll keep the air nice and chilly and it's cheap too. You just need to put in new ice and sponge up the bottom every couple of hours though. Bonus - keeps the case cool during a power outage, too.

i agree with striek on this one. lol. but anyhow if your looking for temp. then i have an athlon 2800+ (working at full speed thanks to striek by the way). on idle it run about 42 C.
running an athlon you will start running the risk of frying components at 55 C.
Also if your planning to overclock i agree with nihil on this one. the stock heat sink and fan for the CPU is pretty much useless.

Ice cubes? I dont see that as smart, but what ever floats your boat, or your processor... Any kind of liquid cooling is just asking to fry your system. Anyway, mine runs at about 85 degrees with about 8 fans in the case and a 5 inch bay fan housing...

well we were just kidding about the using ice to cool your system jhollings (well at least i was im hoping striek was too lol) but are you overclockinng jhollings and im hoping thats fahrenheit. if it is thats a little cool. 8 fans might be a little extensive unless you plan to overclock. although i guess it not a problem unless your proccessor gets around 5 C or below.

Very good point there fusiono71!

Not many people realise that you can have your case/processor too cold.

The secret lies in the ambient (room) temperature and the relative humidity. If you have a room temperature of say 20c(68f) and 80% RH and you chill your case down to 5c (40f) You run a severe risk of creating condensation inside the PC...............and they certainly don't like that!!!

Anyone who has messed with water cooled peltiers will know the issue well ;) You even have to watch out for icicles!!! :D

I usually work on a rough guide of about +15c if the room temp is at 20-25c

When it gets above that you need air conditioning in the room rather than coolers for the PC?

Cheers

Ok, well I know the heatsink is approved for the processor because it came in a sealed retail box and I have gotten some cheap ceramique based thermal compound in hopes that that would help but it appears I need a better compound. Today I will either get the Thermaltake Volcano 11+ Xaser edition, or I'll order it online and it'll be here soon. Whenever I get this if the compound I have now doesn't seem to yield the type of results that I'm looking for then I'll go out and buy some arctic silver. The room temp is usually right about 71 F which if I estimated right is about 24c-25c, my main HDD, a 60GB 7200RPM, ATA/133 drive which has the OS, all my games and other software runs about 55c on average, getting up to over 60c while playing some games, I just got a new one for christmas which is a 120GB, 7200RPM, 8MB cache, also ATA/133 and I've only used about 10 or 15 GB of it so far and it only runs in the 30's c, is this just because it doesn't have as much data to search through to find what it's looking for or because it's a better drive? I have 1 80mm case fan that blows about 42CFM blowing in right in front of my HDD's, one blowing out the side, with about the same rate of air flow, another 80mm case fan that blows about 35CFM blowing out the back as well as the PSU fan blowing out, is this too much out compared to the in or is this acceptable? I have tied up all my power cables and have 2 rounded IDE cables mainly because I have a window and then it came to my attention that this helps the cooling too.