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I have a problem with one of my old PC's. It's an Intel Celeron @2.4GHz on socket 478. When i enter the BIOS and go to Hardware Monitor, the temperature raises gradually to 65°C and sits like that,meanwhile the CPU fan is not at full speed (with the case opened). If i boot in Windows XP, it runs fine (no BSOD or errors).

I tried to boot cold straight to the BIOS, but it still raises from about 50°C to 65°C.

What can be wrong ?

   PC specs:

Intel Celeron @2.4GHz

PCchips M950 motherboard

640 MB RAM

Ati RADEON 9250

   Other stuff:

40 GB Seagate Barracuda (with Windows XP)

SONY DVD-RW drive

Floppy drive

I'm sorry if i mispelled some words

UPDATE: I tested the motherboard alone on my desk and it does the same. I monitorized the temperature : It sits mostly at 65, but sometimes has a hickup and jumps on 69 for a second. Multiple "hickups" occurred during testing

Here are some pictures (links):

The motherboard

Hardware Monitor

snaks20
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    My Aunt had a system this old, the heatsink fell off was the problem for her. If the CPU fan isn't running a decent RPM maybe it is starting to go out? I am assuming the system has been blasted with air to clear it of dust? – El Turner Jul 31 '15 at 13:57
  • How old is the PC? Which cpu cooler are you using? Changing the thermal compound/paste might help. – bluelDe Jul 31 '15 at 14:00
  • Yes, it was blasted carefully with air when i bought it from a repository a year ago. I even changed the thermal paste with a brand new one (applied the correct amount of paste).And the fan seems to be running smooth.I know that because i have a good spare one that runs at the same speed (above 2000 RPM).It has a stock intel cooler. – snaks20 Jul 31 '15 at 14:04
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    Your CPU won't shutdown until it reaches 135 °C. 65 °C is not a problem. – DavidPostill Jul 31 '15 at 14:07
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    Unfortunately for me, it shutdowned after a while (playing GTA SA) in another tiny case with no room for airflow.Also, those old celerons have a max temp of 75°. – snaks20 Jul 31 '15 at 14:10
  • Actually, according to Intel, the max temp is 71°C. See http://ark.intel.com/products/27178/Intel-Celeron-Processor-2_40-GHz-128K-Cache-400-MHz-FSB Given that it's not getting to that temperature, what makes you think your CPU is overheating? – ChrisInEdmonton Jul 31 '15 at 14:24
  • If the max temp is 71°C (i have seen that, but i rounded it to 75), and my boot temperature is 65°C and above, plus that it went down suddenly once,that makes me worrying. – snaks20 Jul 31 '15 at 14:31
  • @snaks20 - If you have reapplied the thermal paste, verified the fan is in working order, there isn't a great deal more that you can do. – Ramhound Jul 31 '15 at 14:49
  • I will diagnose further the motherboard to see if I can give some extra data that may help solve the problem – snaks20 Jul 31 '15 at 16:50

3 Answers3

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Realistically, although 65 degrees is hot, it isn't an indication of something going wrong.

The best thing you can do is check the CPU fan to ensure that it's functioning, that there isn't an excessive amount of dust on it and that it's seated in the socket properly.

If you want to go one step further, you can remove the heatsink and reapply the thermal paste.

If you Still want a lower temperature, you can purchase an aftermarket CPU cooler that will perform better then the stock one that you have.

There is risk associated with the last two options if you do not know what you are doing.

Edit: I just saw the comment that it was shutting down while you are playing video games - that is an indication of something wrong. The above advice applies regardless.

Arthur
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  • The thermal paste I applied on CPU when I bought the pc was very cheap (about 0.5$).And the heatsink is clean as the fan is. – snaks20 Jul 31 '15 at 14:46
  • I only bought the mb , the CPU and the video card for 10 $ , so the risk of being junk is high . – snaks20 Jul 31 '15 at 14:50
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You should really monitor the temperature in Windows when it's doing something that matters, using something like CoreTemp (watch out for bundled crapware) or SpeedFan. The latter also allows you to control fan speeds on some machines.

65'c on it's own is not "wrong". It could well be designed to constantly run at 65'c. The Lenovo Yoga for example, does exactly that. NVidia graphics chips are also typically run at 65-85'c target temperatures and some AMD cards have normal operating temperatures of 95'c. If it only shut down suddenly once then I would hardly consider it a concern.

I partially agree with Arthur's suggestion, if it were a more modern PC then fitting an aftermarket CPU cooler would be sensible. However with a machine that old, an aftermarket CPU cooler will probably cost as much as a new machine twice as fast.

qasdfdsaq
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I have solved the problem.If you look in the motherboard picture you may see that one latch is opened, creating a huge crack between the heatsink and the cpu, and I didn't noticed because it looked like closed. After the fix, the CPU temperature sits nicely at 40°C. Thank you everyone for sugestions and answers.They all helped me :)

snaks20
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