Geil RAM burnt my finger!

UnusualSuspect

UnusualSuspect

UnusualSuspect

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21 Jan 2007
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I've been wondering about the high system temp I've been getting for a while now, but couldn't find the source. Well, by accident, I found out whats been causing it. I was moving my hand around trying to find the source of the heat and it came to the memory. Put my finger on it and winced!

Its the Geil 2GB PC2-6400 DDR2 memory. Is it normal for it to be running so hot? Its really driving my system temperatures up. I have it set with the +0.3v in the BIOS, so its running at its recommended 2.1v, so I imagine that pushes the temperatures up a bit.

But I mean, it went from a nice cool 28-32c when I had 2GB in there, to the crazy 48c its at now with 4GB. Do those heatsinks become unseated? Is it possible to open them up and do something about it?
 
Burnt my finger too on my balistixs. Thats just how hot they get if your not removing heat with decent air flow. Got a new case now and that has 3 120mm fans blowing over the ram and rest of motherboard. Its cool to the touch now.
 
If it's hot why would you want to remove the heatsinks?

If you're not getting instability, then I'd just leave it to be honest.
 
What I mean is, can the heatsinks become unseated, like you sometimes see happen with CPU coolers? That could be causing the higher temperatures if so. Also, can they be opened to have some thermal paste added and then be put back on again?
 
As Snowdog says, if you've got a problem with the temperature of the heatspreaders then you need to look at improving airflow, not the interface between the chips and the heatspreader.

I still maintain that there's no point if your system is stable. Adding a fan will needlessly increase noise and complexity.:)
 
some balistix suffers from the spreaders disattaching, but even badly loose ram will still get very hot without any airflow - its just even hotter underneath.

if you have sticks with the longer clip, that extends 3/4 the way down the spreader you shouldnt have an issue. if its just the tip/top 1/5th covered with a clip it might come apart at the bottom, closer to the gold fingers. or it might not. if you have no clips there should be no issue.


if its stable, you should be ok. if its worrying you get a fan on them. if your taking your "case" temp from a "system temp" reading, its probably in your northbridge, or close to it and the extra load of controling 4 sticks will have cause the extra temps.
 
just so you can compare i have 4 x 1 gb sticks of this in my pc with a q6600 (air cooled)and a 8800gtx.

My temp is 24 - 28 degrees idling and goes up to around 38 when under load i.e whilst playing a game. Everythings running at stock speeds and the ram set to 2.1v also. My case is a antec p182 so the airflow is quite good as standard with the 3 fan setup
 
UnusualSuspect said:
What I mean is, can the heatsinks become unseated, like you sometimes see happen with CPU coolers? That could be causing the higher temperatures if so.
Click to expand...

No, since CPU temperature is usually read from a digital sensor inside the chip, not from near the heatsink, so it's not a good comparison.
 
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