High idle temp on Pentium D

[schwags]

I have a machine in the shpp right now that is acting a little strange. It's an HP media center m7260n with a Pentium D processor. (830 I think) The customer called with complaints that it will spin the fan really high and shut down after a few minutes. Immediately I thought of overheating as the cause. When I opened it up, I saw that it was fairly clean inside, but I blew it out, removed the heatsink, applied new paste and generally checked things out. When I put it back together, it booted fine, but the fan was still running VERY high. So, I downloaded and installed a temp monitoring program that reported 70C at idle (everest)! Just for a test, I hit the benchmark button and it almost immediately shot up. I stopped the benchmark after about 2 seconds and the temp slowly went back down to 70. The computer didn't shut down, but it never got any cooler than 70C.

So, i figured I might have botched up the thermal paste and I took the heat sink back off. The previous paste spread looked perfect. The chip was barely even hot 30 seconds after it was turned off. I cleaned everything with rubbing alcohol and inspected for broken heat sink pipes etc...Nothing looked out of place so I put it back together again with a rice sized piece of arctic silver ceramique. This time I turned it on and went into the BIOS. It had a temp monitoring function that still reported 70C. I shut it down, cleared the CMOS and tried to start it back up. Now the fans run, but there is no HDD activity and the screen stays off?!? Then, after about a minute it shuts off.

What happened? Did I fry the motherboard somehow? Was this a motherboard problem all along? The CPU fan spins, but the processor is not getting cooler, is the motherboard falsely reporting the temp? Speedfan reported the temp as -119, so obviously it wasn't working right. I figured it was the program not being compatible with the board, but maybe it was a symptom? I ended up using the trial version of everest to get what seemed to be the accurate temp. Anyone have any ideas? I hate to go to the customer with a diagnosis of a bad motherboard unless I am certain.

EDIT: I have been testing the power supply for the last 5 min and everything is within spec..
Also, I put in my PCI post tester and it is displaying '40' or '0h' depending on how you look at it. I believe it is '40' I can't find anything about codes for this board on the web. BTW, it is an ASUS P5LP-LE.

 

[schwags]

Does no one have any ideas or is this so obviously a motherboard that people aren't even giving me the time of day?

 

[purple_minion]

How hot is the heatsink when it says it's near boiling? Most heatsinks I've dealt with are sized according to the load and won't dissapate more power then that so they get hot. If you can touch it and hold your hand it's not too hot. A better way would be with an IR thermometer. If you have an small electronic probe type temp sensors you can stick them under the heatsink near as you can to the chip and see what it reads (by under I don't mean between the HS and CPU, but the HS's usually overlap a bit). Some you can get for a DMM that are pretty small.

Prehaps you unseated the chip or it loosened itself, try reseating it. Personally if it was mine and it used to work just fine I'd find a way to disable the shutdown option in bios (some have it) as I highly doubt that all of a sudden the die seperated from the packaging so there is less thermal contact. Is the HS one that needs to go in a certain way? Was it rotated? Is it locked down properly to maintain good contact? Perhaps a BIOS update? Perhaps there is a dead system fan or poor airflow so it circulates hot air through the HS over and over? What does the MB report for the other temps? Some of them report ambient temps, or just other sensors that should be a lot lower. Do they seem resonable? Try running with the side off and a desk fan blowing in that sucker. Has it been overclocked? Check the voltages in BIOS anyway as people like to monkey with things they shouldn't. If you leave it off for a while to cool down and then immediately go into bios and jot the temp down, then run something like cpu burn-in to get that sucker going, then reboot as quick as you can to the bios and see what that reads. I've had bad luck with software reporting temps, it's just a crappy interface between the bios and windows usually. My new computer reports it running at some horrible temps at idle in bios but the board has a history or crappy sensors.

None of this really would explain why all of a sudden it started doing this, is the HS fan healthy? Did they do anything? Any new equipment (maybe hooked up wrong or sent a power spike)? Is everything connected to this computer on a working surge protector? I suppose if it used to work and nothing has changed after a BIOS update I'd RMA one of the two things.

 

[atlanticjim]

I suspect that the temp sensor was defective or the circuitry with the temp reading was defective. I get this from the temp being nailed at 70C to start and from your finding that the CPU was cool after shutdown.
Therefore I think you have a MB that was on the way out before you put your hands on it. You lost HDD control and video as well.

If it were me at this point, I would end up doing the time/cost calculation. I would say it is time for a new MB. Of course I would hope that the CPU and the RAM are still in working condition.

Did the client tell you about their grandson feeding dimes into the little slots in the pretty computer before it started having problems?

 

[purple_minion]

Did the client tell you about their grandson feeding dimes into the little slots in the pretty computer before it started having problems?

Now I really hope that is a true story cause I LOVE a good story!!!! LOL!

EDIT: On a related note according to my dad when I was little back in the 80's my dad got a new VCR worth over $1000. I of course decided it either needed a good cleaning or I wanted to see what would happen, but I got a hold of some cleaning chemicals and squirtted it right in the front flap!!! Apparently it had issues after that but worked, I never knew it as I always used that VCR and it played my teenage mutant ninja turtles so I was happy. It was good chemicals too, took the shine right off the TV plastic!

 

[robrich22]

Did you ever get the board to boot? If you can get it to boot--check and make sure the voltage is the correct voltage. Update to the latest BIOS. I had a problem with a Pentium D, where the bios was applying the wrong default voltages and causing it to overheat within minutes. This was using an Asus board as well.

 

[schwags]

Sorry for not responding for a while, family things came up. Anyway, I do not have a temp probe small enough to put between the heat sink and the CPU, but I did think of that. I though that taking the heat sink off really fast and feeling the chip was kind of the ghetto way of finding out how hot is really is, but it seemed to work since the chip was not hot at all.

I took a look in the BIOS, and there were very little options for changing any voltage or settings. Kind of a moot point any way because now I can't even get into the BIOS. I think the whole thing finally fried. I ended up calling the customer and letting him know. He went out and got a new machine already. He didn't seem too disappointed. The whole thing was pretty much a bust. It's frustrating because I hate giving up, but sometimes you just have to chock it up to a bad motherboard. Thanks for the ideas guys....