AMD athlon II X3 overheating

[frostyste]

hi, found out the problem on my system, the processor is overheating rapidly at full load causing my pc to crash and blue screen,

specs -

AMD athlon x3 tricore @ 3.10ghz
gigabyte MA74GMT-S2 AM3
OCZ gold 4gb dual channel 1333mhz
500gb weston digital hard drive
gts450 1gb
corsair cx500 psu
artic cooling frezzer pro 7

i even underclocked the processor and it still overheated and failed tests in OCCT.

anybody have any ideas to any other issues this could be, im pretty sure the cooler is working ok. and the case has plently of air flow.

 

[Uriel]

Check thermal interface material between the CPU and the cooler.

What temperature is your CPU reaching?

 

[azazin]

mines fine, overclocked to 3.5ghz, make sure the thermal paste is ok and if anything try get a better CPU cooler?

I use the stock cooler on my athlon ii x3 445.

 

[Uriel]

Unless you've got a hefty overvolt / overclock on an Athlon II X3, or rubbish case airflow, I would have thought that the stock cooler will do the job.

Well - it might be a little noisy I suppose but they're not exactly toasty chips generally.

 

[frostyste]

this is really worrying, the processor is reaching way off the chart, 100 celsius. i'll double check the cooler is fitted ok, im sure it is though then i'll try the stock cooler.

 

[Uriel]

A couple of things spring to mind. 1 is check the thermal paste. 2 is check the heatpipes aren't damaged.

The third happened to me when I was using a Freezer 64 pro, which clamped onto the existing AM2 mounting bracket. One of the lugs had broken on the motherboard's mounting bracket so the cooler wasn't held down with any force.

You can get replacement ones for about a fiver. I got a thermalright one, which had 3 lugs per side (like 939) rather than the normal 1 per side on AM2 / AM2+. (Edit: the customised AM2 RM (Rev B) shown here: http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_p...t_accessories_retention module.html#acc_am2_b)

I wouldn't run any more stress tests until you've physically examined it all. 100°C is potentially permanent CPU damage territory.