Cool computer and a pretty good day

[Stevo]

The '84 Olympics were here in Southern California in midsummer--hilarious to hear about that being too cool for the team. Currently outside temps are about normal for this time of year--63 F and sunny, to rub salt in some wounds.

[duane]

We have been snowed in here this week. Although if I could get out of my driveway and out to main street I could probably get round.
Here in the Willamette valley this is the coldest February on record ever.
Some people are still without power. Luckily ours was only out 3 or 4 hours Monday morning.
I should clean out my computers too. If I get enough ambition.

[JayM]

The '84 Olympics were here in Southern California in midsummer--hilarious to hear about that being too cool for the team. Currently outside temps are about normal for this time of year--63 F and sunny, to rub salt in some wounds.

Filipinos are used to upper 80s F temperatures every day so I can understand why they'd freeze on an airplane. I always felt chilly whenever I flew even when I lived in Washington State. I'd always make sure to wear layers, like a flannel shirt over a T-shirt plus maybe a windbreaker, on flights. Wearing shorts with a warm coat actually makes sense too: the coat keeps their core temperature warm. You don't lose that much heat from your legs which are mostly bone (see kilts vs. Scotland's climate.)

[JayM]

BTW, while doing several reboots when getting Cool 'n' Quiet to work properly I happened to notice that my BIOS reports that I have 800MHz RAM, not 233MHz like I thought it was. That's probably good enough: if I install an AM3 socket CPU like a Phenom I could use 1066MHz DDR2 RAM, but I doubt if 266MHz faster memory speed would have as much of an impact on performance as having another two CPU cores and a faster processor would so it's probably not worth the money to buy slightly faster memory. At some point it's more cost-effective to just cut your losses and get a newer PC or at least a newer motherboard that supports DDR3 RAM.

The only times I notice major performance bottlenecks are when trying to play higher that 720p resolution videos which would be helped by installing my video card, and when re-scaling 4K videos and movies to a smaller scale which would be helped by having more processors. (Probably also by more RAM, but unfortunately my mobo's chipset can only address a maximum of 8GB. As the Cajun raconteur, funnyman and cook Justin Wilson says, "There ain't nothin' I can did about that.")

[JayM]

As for your computer, with all that clean up and the evidence it gives to the amount of time that passed since the last clean up - I'm thinking that you might be well served with replacing the thermo paste between your CPU and your cooling solution. I'm thinking that it might (or soon will be) all dried up. But, then again, CPU temperatures just a couple degrees above ambient is not doing too bad at all either.

Talk about necroposting! But I was finally able to locate some thermal grease yesterday, YNJ brand silver grease, and got around to doing what you suggested. I also gave the heat sink a very thorough cleaning as it was filthy and black in spots from accumulated grime. The fan blades were caked with dust bunnies so those got cleaned as well. Before I started the HW Monitor screen in my BIOS showed an idle CPU temp of around 51-52 degrees. Afterward it's reporting 46-48. The fan's running a lot quieter too. Mind you, this is at noon on a warm, sunny day in the tropics in a non-air-conditioned house.

The funny thing is, per Tom's Hardware Forum single horizontal CPU fans are supposed to act as exhaust fans, blowing the hot air away from the heat sink, but the only way my fan will screw down to the heat sink is in intake position, blowing air from inside the computer case onto the heat sink. Weird.

[Gordon Cooper]

JayM wrote " but the only way my fan will screw down to the heat sink is in intake position, blowing air from inside the computer case onto the heat sink. Weird."

Same setup here except that the case has a funnel shaped ducting from the outside to about half an inch above the fan/heatsink assembly.

[JayM]

JayM wrote " but the only way my fan will screw down to the heat sink is in intake position, blowing air from inside the computer case onto the heat sink. Weird."

Same setup here except that the case has a funnel shaped ducting from the outside to about half an inch above the fan/heatsink assembly.

So does mine, come to remember, so it's sucking in room-temperature air not case air. My case also has a large vent grille below that which I've added an additional intake case fan to as well. I forgot because during the local summer months (March, April and May) I'd removed the side of the case to allow extra air flow and heat dissipation. I've only put it back on and installed that extra fan a couple of days ago. (Besides, the old saying goes that a true computer geek doesn't even remember where his computer's case is, because he's tinkering with it and upgrading it so often that he just leaves the case off.)

[JayM]

I've been montoring my conky, and since re-thermal greasing the CPU, cleaning the heatsink and cleaning the fan, activities that used to max out the CPU freq at 2.6GHz are running at 2.0 to 2.2GHz with occasional spikes up to 2.4GHz, temperatures are cooler, and the fan's running slower and quieter. 50% to 65% CPU load where it would have been 70% to 85% before. I think it's needed this servicing for a long time.

[Eadwine Rose]

Good to see!

Over here.. we are having temps going to 36°C today, and in the house it's 32 at the moment. Oh yeah I can see higher temps alright when the system is under load (like using DVD Styler at times is quite the strain). Highest I have seen is 73.5°C so far.

I am not playing games in Windows with this heat.. and I think on insanely hot days like today that is a good thing

Next year I just might replace that cooler for a bulkier one than the wraith Max that came with the CPU.

[srq2625]

I've been montoring my conky, and since re-thermal greasing the CPU, cleaning the heatsink and cleaning the fan, activities that used to max out the CPU freq at 2.6GHz are running at 2.0 to 2.2GHz with occasional spikes up to 2.4GHz, temperatures are cooler, and the fan's running slower and quieter. 50% to 65% CPU load where it would have been 70% to 85% before. I think it's needed this servicing for a long time.

It's obvious there's lots about computers I don't understand and this is just one thing - how can a "known" load max out a CPU one day and not the next? I was/am under the impression that the CPU speed is driven by the load placed upon it and the cooling is a different "system" that reacts to the amount of heat needed to be dissipated. Help understanding this would be greatly appreciated.

The slower fan I completely understand and that that's cool (yes, pun intended :) )