how hot is too hot?

regoldman · Post by **regoldman** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 8:53 am

Greetings.

Meant to put a new cooler on a 1 GHz Athlon last nite.
Snapped the A7V-133's single brittle plastic pin on the Socket A that holds the cooler.

Merde. Plan B.

Threw in a Gigabyte GA-7N400S-L & an Athlon 2700+, as well as a Nexus AXP3200 cooler & a hint of AS5. Seasonic 300w super silencer PSU.

Didn't have screws for the case fan, so left it off.

It hasn't melted. Yet.

But the BIOS & Gigabyte diagnostics show the system & cpu at around 60 degrees celcius.

A cause for concern? Must I take off the heatsink & lap the beast?

Thoughts welcome.

Thanks.

- Richard

vine-au · Post by **vine-au** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 5:53 pm

id get some screws for the case fan pronto. 60 isnt too hot, but you're shortening the lifespan of your system dramatically. you need some serious airflow in there without a secure HS.

regoldman · Post by **regoldman** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:24 pm

Done. The case fan helped drop the system temp by 10 degrees, and the CPU by 5. Still too hot, I think, but I don't know that there's much else to be done.

Other than reseating the heatsink. Carefully.

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 9:28 pm

Isn't the A7V-133 one of the Socket A motherboards which has the four holes around the CPU socket? If so, you could replace the CPU cooler with one that mounts using those holes, not the broken clip.

You should check them out, but examples include the Zalman CNPS7000B and the Vortex TX from Cooler Master.

mrochester · Post by **mrochester** » Sun Sep 11, 2005 10:04 am

Too hot is when you start to experience system instability.

vertigo · Post by **vertigo** » Sun Sep 11, 2005 11:55 am

Too hot is when you start to experience system instability.

I would say too hot is before that, at the level which shortens the life of your components. Obviously you'd only know what levels are safe by asking people. SPCR folks are pretty well qualified to answer such questions.

In my opinion, 60C is fine for a CPU, but not much more than that. So 60C on a 35C day is fine, but 60C on a 20C day is not fine.

mrochester · Post by **mrochester** » Sun Sep 11, 2005 12:15 pm

I would say too hot is before that, at the level which shortens the life of your components.

This is really a moot point though, as the average life of the components running very hot is still far longer than you'd ever keep the PC. I think I read somewhere that PC components within limits would run for about 10 years, with you shaving off 3 or 4 years running them very hot. That's still 6 or 7 years of life. It's not really a concern at all.