i ordered a barebones computer around 4 months ago and i notice that when i play a game now, after a few minutes the frame rate drags to a crawl. i eventually linked the problem to heat. it was the last thing i thought of because its a full tower, not crowded and it has 3 fans. for some reason my processor is just baking. i am currently running it at stock frequency. i'm not sure what the problem is as all the fans seem to be working fine. i was thinking maybe they didn't put the thermal compound or the after-market cooling i ordered is worse than stock.


Q6600 2.4ghz processor
MSI p6n platinum motherboard
2 x 2GB mushkin DDR2-800
8800GT 512mb



using pc wizard 2008 here's what im getting

Idle temps:
cpu: 45
core1: 57
core2: 56
core3: 51
core4: 51
GFX card: 49

Under Load temps:
cpu: ~74
core1: ~83
core2: ~81
core3: ~79
core4: ~79
GFX card: ~53


i researched online and i see people claiming to get under 50C under load while overclocking. my load numbers seem to be insanely high for stock frequency.

Reseat your cpu heatsink and apply fresh thermal paste such as arCtic silver or ocz freeze. Make sure the pushpins click! You have to apply enough pressure, just don't break the motherboard. Better yet, get an aftermarket heatsink without pushpins.
Good luck
EDIT: arctic silver or AS5

AS-5 with stock Intel HSF should be cool with no OC. Graphics card has very good temps. My 8800GT hits 80C during gaming and it's fine.

Arctic Cooling MX-2 works well too.

thanks guys i'll try to get some thermal compound later on in the day. i'm somewhat of a novice but i will give it a go. i'll let you know how it turned out

im thinking my gfx card temps much higher under load, it just cools off so fast when i switch back to windows because the card is pretty isolated and directly in front of an intake fan.

It really does look like your heatsink-fan is not seated properly. The push-pins can be a challenge to get seated properly. Try reseating it with fresh good thermal paste, as others have said (OCZ Freeze, Artic Silver MX-2, Artic Silver 5, etc.) Use just a little bit (instructions are on OCZ's and ArticSilver's websites). Also, you may want to remove the motherboard from the case when you re-seat the heatsink, so that you can see that the push-pins are seated properly.

GPU temps are always higher than cpu temps. You should be fine since you have the additional fan on it.

Double check to see if you really have thermal paste on. Then remount, making sure each side is secured.

If you can't get the POS stock push pin mountings to work, then get a good aftermarket HS with a back plate. It's not worth the aggravation and it's really hard on your CPU. Get RivaTuner or ATITool to check your in game graphics temps. They can both log temps and also raise the fan speed.

If you do get an aftermarket HS, make sure you have a case fan of some sort to offset the lack of secondary cooling on most tower coolers.

I don't believe that secondary cooling idea, I know I'm probably alone. I don't see how pumping hot air from the CPU onto the other components is going to cool them down. Just make sure that there is good flow through the case and you shouldn't have any problems.

That's true, but in order to have good air flow, you'll need several case fans.

I've got a POS Antec with one fan in front and one in the rear and it has good flow.

Then that satisfies my suggestion of having a case fan to offset the lack of secondary cooling.

Perhaps I should of said "Make sure you have a case fan" instead?

Remove the cover of the expansion slot directly under the gpu (or two if you can spare them), this will allow trapped hot air (caused by having an intake but not enough outtake) to find it's way out of the case and not get sucked back into the gpu. This is just a temp solution and if your temps are reduced by 4-5c then you know you'll need to rethink your case's airflow.

Oh I though you were talking about having an additional fan pointed at the northbridge, RAM etc.

By all means, make sure your case has good air flow whether you are using an aftermarket or stock HS.

so i went and checked to see if it had thermal compound. it did but it seemed to be really dry, maybe this is normal but i could of sworn it wasn't supposed to get completely dry. i took the heat sink off and put it back, made sure it was nice and snug. still no change in temps. should i scrape this thermal compound off and apply a new one? maybe my heat sink/fan sucks i dunno


here's pics of my set up

Every time you remove the HS you are supposed to clean both mating surfaces and reapply the TIM. I suspect that with those temps your HS is not mounted properly, even though you think it is. Something must be in the way, like the capacitors or the HS is resting on the CPU retention clip and not getting the pressure on the IHS that it needs.

The temps you are reaching are causing the CPU to invoke throttling to protect itself. It is way too hot and you need to fix it. I would suggest fixing it before you run it any more.

i reapplied the thermal compound still no dice. still get the same idle temps and load temps still reach low 80s i'm starting to think its just the HS/fan thats not doing its job.

Have you tried what Zorg said above?

Cleaning the surfaces of all old paste is very important. Your CPU surface and heatsink surface both look pretty horrible at the moment.. please tell you got it completely off.

AC even sells something to get off that material.. there is no way you can get such high T without having messed up the mounting.

If the fan is working, you must be installing the heatsink wrong. Do the pushpins click into place? All the way in?

There are 100s of horror stories about these push pins on this forum. If you find it so easy to take it off and put it back on, you might be doing something wrong.