Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler - Temp problem for you computer wizards

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support | Temp problem for you computer wizards

DVA4215
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Posted onPost created on February 26 2011 02:55 ET by Kyle Hatch

Hi,

So I have been having the blue screen pop up every once in a while during a flight. I did some research and found a lot of responses about CPU temp. It got me scratching my head and wondering if that could be my problem. I looked into it and wow! My cpu idles at almost 70C! eek

I took off the side panel and put a fan I use to keep the room cool going right next to it hoping it would solve the issue... not really. I got it to drop down to 44C at idle but once I load FS up on the ground, offline, it goes up to 65C (which is in the "yellow" zone). I do notice my CPU fan doesn't look to be spinning very fast at only about 1100rpm. What do I need to do? I am running one heck of a fan next to it and still getting close to the upper limits. I am completely stumped on this one.. confused

Computer specs:
Motherboard: Intel DG965RY
CPU: Pentium D 3.4GHZ Dual Core
RAM: 3GB DDR2 (soon to be 4GB running dual channel)
GPU: PNY geForce 9800GT 1024MB PCI-E
Rocketfish 500-Watt ATX CPU Power Supply

Thanks for the help!

Kyle Hatch (DVA4215)

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Posted onPost created on February 26 2011 03:20 ET by Alan Barber

Kyle - See if you can manually adjust your fan speed in the bios or find some software that does it for you. Also check all fan connections on your Motherboard. Also do you have a lot of USB devices plugged in to your PC - if so they could be draining some of the PSU supply meant for cooling. If that is the case look at a powered USB hub. Finally if none of the above work a new upgraded CPU heatsink and fan could be in order.

Alan Barber

Senior Captain, B767-300

Posted onPost created on February 26 2011 03:26 ET by Kyle Hatch

Thanks for the reply! The only settings the bios gives me are Low Normal and Aggressive, I have aggressive active. When I check the fan connections, what exactly am I looking for? And I only have one thing plugged into a USB (Saitek Yoke) I have thought about upgrading the fan and heat sink and getting some thermal paste, but since this is all new to me, I am unsure what to be looking for in the fan and heat sink.
Thanks again!

Kyle Hatch (DVA4215)

DVA7729
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Posted onPost created on February 26 2011 03:28 ET by Shahzeb Bhutto

Make sure that the CPU fan is clean. Also, often times after lots of heavy CPU use, you eventually have to re-apply the thermal compound to your heatsink in order for it to transfer the heat from CPU to the heatsink efficiently. +1 for Alan's suggestions.

Shahzeb Bhutto (DVA7729)

Posted onPost created on February 26 2011 07:18 ET by Alan Barber

Kyle, what I would do is take fan off of the heatsink (should be attached by 4? small screws and a two wire lead that connects to your board), vacuum the fan out. and then vacuum the fins on the heatsink. See if that helps. If not as Shahzeb says replace the thermal compound on the processor die with something like Arctic Silver. Use alcohol and q-tips (I think that is what they are called in the USA) to CAREFULLY clean all the old compound away (make sure you get all of it off)and then put a thin, even, coat of the new stuff on. The biggest mistake people make here is putting too much on, it only needs to be a thin coat, the compund should come with an applicator to help with this, if not use an old (or new if you have money to burn!!!!) credit card. Any problems come back here. Just remember that you are working on the 'heart' of your pc so slow and steady is the idea.

Alan Barber

Senior Captain, B767-300

Posted onPost created on February 26 2011 23:43 ET by Kyle Hatch

Thanks guys! I did all the maintenance that was recommended and nothing worked. So off to Best Buy I went, and picked me up a Rocketfish CPU cooling fan with a monster heat sink and installed it today, and it is keeping me around 35C at idle and 46C with FS running. I am going to test fly tonight and see what temp results I get! Crossing my fingers! ...but as we all know, once one problem is fixed another arises. I'm now struggling to keep CPU0 and CPU1 to stay running the same... any suggestions there?
Thanks a ton! cool

Posted onPost created on February 27 2011 04:24 ET by Alan Barber

Kyle, do you mean that each core is running at a different temp? If you are using FS9 bear in mind that it only utilizes one core so Core 0 will be doing a lot of work. I've just put a link into the web resources for an app called Taskassign which lets you control what uses what core. I put FS on core 1 and all else on Core 0. You could also try AlacrityPC (google it) which lets you set up your FS runtime environment so that you only have the essentials running, and also autoruns programs that you choose and also assign them to different cores. Have a try at spreading the workload accross your CPU's and see if that helps. I did think that this could all be a sign of your CPU going on to better things but I couldn't really tie in your symptoms to CPU failure when I googled it.

Come back if you need any more help.

Alan Barber

Senior Captain, B767-300

Posted onPost created on February 27 2011 04:32 ET by Alan Barber

Okay, for comparrison my CPU idles at 39c and maxes out at 65c with fs9 running at JFK with full AI running, I do have it overclocked though. A quick google shows that 70c under load can be considered normal. So you have a benchmark.

Alan Barber

Senior Captain, B767-300

Posted onPost created on February 27 2011 14:45 ET by Kyle Hatch

Alan, I wrote that confusingly, sorry. I set FS9 to run on both CPU's via affinity in the task manager. I looked at the performance tab (not sure if thats what its really called) and it showed CPU 1 running high and CPU 0 running low. I think I have solved that issue though, and had them both running fairly similar. After I flew SLC - LAS online with ATC, traffic, and heavy clouds, my max temp was 53C. Im really happy that installing the new cooler has solved it. I have the option to set a temp for desired temperature and one for warning temperature. I set the desired to 48C and warning to 60C. The fan will speed up to almost max when it gets above 50C. Is that too low of a temp for max fan or is that ok? The program I run says 100% max fan speed is 3200 RPM but the box it came in says 2800RPM is max, so I have it set to not go over 2700 RPM. That, I think, would give it some leeway to actually not run max a lot.
Thanks for continuing to help out!

Kyle Hatch (DVA4215)

Posted onPost created on February 27 2011 16:28 ET by Alan Barber

Kyle, that seems fine to me. you could even leave the fan speed until you get closer to warning point. Just keep an eye on it and spend some time monitoring and adjusting until you get your sweet spot.

Alan Barber

Senior Captain, B767-300

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