2 q's - freeware temp monitor? thermal grease?

[housepig]

okay, I'm sure some overclocker here will point me in the right direction.

I just put a new mobo & processor in my studio computer. mobo is a Biostar M7VIP, processor is an Athlon 2400XP. so far everything is running pretty well.

question #1 - is there a freeware app out there somewhere that will display the temperature readout from the BIOS in a Win98 or WinXP environment? basically I'd just like something that sits next to the clock in the taskbar and gives me an updated temp from the BIOS function.

question #2 - last time I put a processor on a motherboard, I had to put thermal grease on the top of the chip, in between the chip & the heatsink. this 2400XP processor has four little rubber standoffs on the top of the chip, and the chip is not flat. so I'm assuming that the tech has moved on, and that the grease is not necessary. do I still need to put it on, and if so, where?

I got this processor used, with the heatsink & fan, and none of it seemed to have any grease residue on it.

any info appreciated. I might just be paranoid, but I want to make sure I don't roach this rig from overheating. I've had it running for about 3 hours at a stretch with no problems, and the temp doesn't seem to get above 38 C during that time.

[indolikaa]

question #2 - last time I put a processor on a motherboard, I had to put thermal grease on the top of the chip, in between the chip & the heatsink. this 2400XP processor has four little rubber standoffs on the top of the chip, and the chip is not flat. so I'm assuming that the tech has moved on, and that the grease is not necessary. do I still need to put it on, and if so, where?

Yes.

You need to put a dab of thermal grease on top of the processor chip itself, and then set the heatsink on top and clamp it down. The four rubber standoffs are to level the heatsink and keep it from smashing the chip when the clamps go down.

[Ripper2860]

Question #1 -- Motherboared Monitor.

http://mbm.livewiredev.com/

[holistic]

Question #1 -- Motherboared Monitor.
http://mbm.livewiredev.com/

Concure with this choice of software - excellent .
CAUTION Temperature may be a little low when using the thermal diode under then CPU as opposed to a temp probe sandwiched between CPU & heatsink.

Note : Load (stress test - prime95 works well for this) your machine up then do a reboot . [del] into the BIOS and check what it has for a reference temperature.

][

[gmatov]

Pig,

I strongly reccommend you do not fire it up until you DO put a heat transfer material under the heatsink and on the central die, the little rectangle in the middle of the package. A little dab'll do ya, but do use it

People have been ridiculed on Tech Support sites for putting transfer compound, carefully, on the 4 little rubber levelers.

Check on your install disk. You may already have a form of Mother Board Monitor, if not search for that very name application. Whether it is going to work with your board, we don't know. It is board specific, but has data for many boards in the package, just never any of mine.

Cheers,

George

Edit: You say you have been running this thing for 3 hours at a stretch, 38 C. Does it by chance have a little piece of what loohed like rubber tape on it prior to installation? If it is a boxed AMD CPU, it normaly comes that way, on first fireup, the thermal tape melts to fill in the gaps, extruding the excess out from under. AMD puts it on their boxed fans, it is, to them, approved, fully covered under the 3 year boxed warranty.

[Cobra]

putting transfer compound, carefully, on the 4 little rubber levelers.

Why would you put thermal compound on these posts? They don't produce any heat, they're just there to support the heatsink and fan assembly aren't they?

Cobra

[rallynavvie]

Motherboard Monitor is a good one. Make sure it supports your board first. My Tyan uses proprietary monitoring software that I download at the Tyan website. I'd check your board manufacturer's website first and see if they have software specific to your board, otherwise get MBM and load that up. I believe it also monitors hard drive temps for HDDs properly equipped. I'll be using MBM on my new machine as soon as it has support for the DH800.

Make sure to grease that AMD chip. Arctic Silver was always the standard for thermal compound, but Arctic Alumina is becoming more widespread as it is almost the same heat transfer characteristics but with none of the conductivity (it's a ceramic compound). It makes things a little safer for those of us who sometimes get sloppy with the thermal compound

[housepig]

thanks for the responses, people.

@ripper - I'll check that out when I get home.

@gmatov - the board and processor both came used from eBay - no install discs, no instructions, no original packaging, no nuttin'. I happen to have the same mobo that I bought for another machine, so I had the original manual, but it said nothing about the grease.

looks like I'm pulling it out of the rack and taking it apart again... balls!

thanks again!

[housepig]

update...

okay, pulled the box, cracked it open, undid everything, put in my thermal grease on the chip. put the heatsink back on. put it back together, fired it up.

wouldn't boot. not even to the bios. let out two quick beeps and powered down.

pulled everything back apart, popped off the heat sink, the connection between the chip and the heatsink is so tight that it squeezed out every bit of that grease, all over the rest of the chip, apparently shorting something.

pulled the chip, cleaned off every speck of the grease I could see, put it all back together, it booted fine.

haven't put the monitor software on it yet, will do that later - it seems to support most Biostar mobos, but not mine, but we'll see. also have to check Biostar's site and see if they have their own monitor software.

this is a silicone-base thermal grease - would the ceramic-base be a better choice? (ie not short shit out if it gets on the chip where it oughtn't?)

I'm going to be curious to see what kind of readings I get when I get some monitoring software in there... from the AMD website, looks like 90C is the maximum...

more updates to follow, more info / tips always appreciated.

[Piccoro]

Ceramic-based thermal paste is safest for that reason, yes.

Arctic Alumina
Or
Arctic Ceramique
Both are Ceramic-based.

Link

The disadvantage of ceramic vs silver based thermal paste is that it isn't as easy to work with.
But I'd still recommend the ceramic stuff.

[gmatov]

Housepig,

If you actually had compound all over the place, you used WAY too much. The norm is less than a grain of rice, kind of press the sink down, twist to spread and thin out, clamp. If you used a small enough amt, you should have no more than a small lip of it around the die itself.

Something must be very right with the flatness/smoothness of your combination, CPU/Sink, to have low temps with no thermal transfer paste.

Cobra,

Seems noone is reading complete sentences, where I post. Will miquoted me in one, you quoted the last half of another.

I said that people have been ridiculed on tech support "Funnies" sites, showed pictures and all, that had people who needed tech support to solve an overheat. The pics showed a CPU with 4 little rubber baby buggy bumpers with past on them, but none on the die. Kapisch?

Anyhow, keep the paste to a minimum. It's supposed to squeeze out all the excess. The die is superflat, the gaps most often will be in the surface of the sink, the paste just fills those in, and too much is actually an insulator.

And anywhere the sink doesn't contact the die is a "hotspot", as long as it's small enough, the heat will be carried to the adjacent area which DOES have enough,or more than enough heat transfetto keep the die from self destructing.

Cheers,

George

[housepig]

@gmatov -

thanks - confirmed what someone else I asked said - sounds like I used too much. it wasn't everywhere, it was just everywhere but on top of the chip!

still going to try to monitor for a few hours first - it's been running okay for a few days now, I don't think another few hours while I monitor will hurt anything.

any other suggestions for monitor software? it looks like my motherboard isn't supported by the linked software, and there doesn't seem to be any from Biostar's support center either. I can do it the old school method, just reboot every 20 minutes and check the temp in the BIOS....

[gmatov]

Yeah, ain't that a bitch, some boards don't have any aftermarket support, and not just cheap ones.

MoBoMonitor won't work with my Gigabyte, Genensys won't, don't know what the hell will, hope the Asus CD has a utility, or an aftermarket that will work.

After a reboot, you get a spurious reading., either it takes so long, it's cooled, or it boots so quick it is an actual heatsink, meaning it holds the heat and the sensor reads too high, as you watch it will come down.

Ah, well, I'll keep looking for one for each of my own.

Cheers,

George

[Cobra]

Sorry George, I added a "not" into that sentence somewhere when I read it and gave it a totally different meaning! I got it now, quite funny!

I think Coolermaster recommended that the patch of thermal grease be 0.1mm thick. No idea how you are meant to get it this thin, but I usually apply just enough so it's not quite see-through.

I use Coolermaster Premium thermal compound - it's very good.

Cobra

[rallynavvie]

any other suggestions for monitor software? it looks like my motherboard isn't supported by the linked software, and there doesn't seem to be any from Biostar's support center either. I can do it the old school method, just reboot every 20 minutes and check the temp in the BIOS....

I'll trade you my DigitalDoc5 external hardware monitor for a pair of M0 stepping Xeons

Actually if you can't find software you may just want to get an external hardware monitor like mine. Especially nice is the advantage that you don't have to have it open in the OS to view temps, it's on the front of your PC case. I can monitor CPU and AGP temps on it while playing games and the like. Mine was only $35, there are a lot of others to choose from. Just another option.