Sudden rise in CPU temp

Soldato
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Right,

In the last couple of days my CPU idle temp has shot up by about 17°c and I don't know why. Ambient temp is roughly the same as before, a degree or two fluctuation but nothing in my mind to cause such a big change.

I have recently changed my case fans for Corsair AF120s, these are higher rated fans than they replaced though. Now in fitting the rear exhaust in and managing the cable I did scrape a knuckle or two on my heatsink.

The heatsink looks undamaged but is it possible I've disturbed the thermal paste in some way?

I've got 2 SP120 Performance fans on the heatsink and I've disable PWM to run them at full and there's little or no temp drop from them spinning from 1000 rpm to 2200rpm.

Spec (it's not great but it's all I need for now):

M/B : Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2P
CPU : AMD Athlon II X3 460 @3.42Ghz
RAM : 4GB Corsair VS (2x2)
HDD : 500GB Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid
GFX : AMD Radeon 6570 HD
Case: Ezcool HA-900b - Top vent sealed.

Cooling:

CPU: Alphenfohn Matterhorn PURE with 2 SP120 Performance in Push/Pull (PWM controlled)

Front Intake: Zaward Golf3
Side Intake: AF120 Quiet
Chipset Cooler: 80mm Antec Spot
Rear Exhaust: AF120 Quiet

Case fans controlled by NZXT LXE

My first thought it is to go get some new thermal paste and strip down and rebuild
 
For peace of mind, replace the thermal paste as it is too much of a coincidence that it has happened after your little accident.

CPU idle temperatures would not be affected that much by case air flow.
 
What Cat says.

The most obvious possibilities are fans and TIM seat.

That's why I asked about fans. It might be something to do with your placement of them. Like maybe facing one the wrong way? I know. Who's dumb enough to do that. Well it happens even with the best of us. A mate who's a tech building all kinds of systems did it on a CLC system and spent 3 days trying to figure out why it ran so dang hot.. Had "checked" the fans several times... but the last time the quadruple checked the back fan was pushing in no pulling out. :D

We all do it. Change engine oil and start filling before installing oil plug (
Same with coolant :( Install cooler mounts wrong way and have to R&R cursing the whole time. :(

And you have a nice system. And could easily upgrade it to an Athlon II X4 or Phenom II X4. ;) Can be found quite cheap. Wife loves her Athlon II X4 620 @ 3.6GHz.
 
What Cat says.

The most obvious possibilities are fans and TIM seat.

That's why I asked about fans. It might be something to do with your placement of them. Like maybe facing one the wrong way? I know. Who's dumb enough to do that. Well it happens even with the best of us. A mate who's a tech building all kinds of systems did it on a CLC system and spent 3 days trying to figure out why it ran so dang hot.. Had "checked" the fans several times... but the last time the quadruple checked the back fan was pushing in no pulling out. :D

We all do it. Change engine oil and start filling before installing oil plug (
Same with coolant :( Install cooler mounts wrong way and have to R&R cursing the whole time. :(

And you have a nice system. And could easily upgrade it to an Athlon II X4 or Phenom II X4. ;) Can be found quite cheap. Wife loves her Athlon II X4 620 @ 3.6GHz.

Right, well I've stripped the CPU cooler off, replaced the paste (some cheap Antec that was available locally whilst I order some proper stuff) and before the issue I was looking at 31/32°c at idle (Aida reading). Now with Firefox & OE open, idle temp is 28/29°c.

Seem the paste that Alpehfohn supplied with the cooler is worse than cheap lol.

The fans are fine, you'd have to be monumentally stupid to put a Corsair fan backwards because of the coloured ring which denotes the front of the fan.

Doyll - I can and have previously unlocked the 4th core on my processor giving my a Phenom II X4 B60 and for the most part it was stable, even passed an hour under Prime. However after about 2 weeks it started to lock up on startup occasionally so I re-locked it back to Athlon II X3
 
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