Monitoring CPU temperature: mbmon shows 201 degrees C

[Scott Bennett]

     On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:56:10 +0300 Achilleas Mantzios
<achill at matrix.gatewaynet.com> wrote:
>Στις Monday 21 July 2008 15:41:01 ο/η DA Forsyth έγραψε:
>> From: Achilleas Mantzios <achill at matrix.gatewaynet.com>
>> 
>> > Hi, i have had various crashes and segfaults in the last hot days
>> > (room temp about 30 deg C). I tried to monitor CPU temp with mbmon,
>> > which shows a very big value in COU temperature:
>> 
>> > I also opened the case in order to get ventilated with fresh air from
>> > the room. 
>> 
>> Actually, that doesn't work, your components will get hotter.  This 
>> is because the case provides a through flow environment where air is 
>> forced to flow over most of the components most of the time.  By 
>> opening the case you remove the force, and now have to rely on 
>> convection.
>> 
>> What you want to do is make sure all the fans are running freely.
>> Especially the processor fan.  It may have stopped silently an dthat 
>> would definitely cause crashes.
>> 
>> A fan at the front of the case blowing IN is more effective than one 
>> on the back blowing out, so if there isn't one on the front, add one.
>> The 80 to 120mm ones can be very quiet and some can control their own 
>> speed if your motherboard cannot do it.  If one can blow in the front 
>> and directly on the harddrives then that is a bonus, cool harddrives 
>> last longer.
>> 
>> The basic idea of a case is to have air coming in the front and 
>> exiting at the rear.  So make sure all your fans are blowing in the 
>> right direction.
>> 
>> My office goes to 38C in summer, and all 5 computers just keep on 
>> going, using the principles above.  I fitted a fan to the UPS as well 
>> (-:
>> 
>> 
>My box has 3 fans, one on the case blowing from outside=>inside,
>one in the power supply and one on the CPU.
>
>In the evening, i will have the case/board inside blown/cleaned with air,
>i am gonna close the case, and i am gonna tune BIOS to fail-safe settings.

     When blowing the dust out, be sure to put the nozzle up against the
edges of the cooling vanes on any coolers, especially the one for the CPU(s).
Often such vanes are very close together and trap dust easily that will not
be blown out when just cleaning the case and the motherboard.  My portable,
a Dell Inpsiron XPS, was running in a reduced-speed mode with COU temperatures
in the high 70s C to low 80s C, but was also doing frequent emergency shutdowns
at 89.5 C.  After replacing two of the three fans and blowing out visible
dust, the temperatures were reduced by about 15-18 C.  Replacing the third
fan brought the temperatures down another 2-3 C.  Blowing the dust out of
the cooling vanes brought them down another 6-8 C.
>
>Apart from that, i would like to have a reliable tool to monitor temperature.
>Is there anything in mind?

     As was suggested earlier, you should first post your CPU make and model.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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