Ok, I just bought the Sunbeam Cr-CCTF heatsink that has been given a lot of good reviews on. I wanted to lower my average temperature which has been hanging around 55C, and that this heatsink was suppose to help lower it. However, when I installed it (TWICE), the temps. jumped all the way to 95-100C (which it is not suppose to with this big of a heatsink!). When I applied the thermal paste the first time, I was lazy to take out the mobo (which it was a micro-ATX) and just wanted to get the lower temps right away. That was the first indicator that there was not enough compound (which is Arctic Silver 5) on the CPU. The second time I took out the mobo and applied a thin layer of the compound using a razor blade to spread all over the CPU (instead of letting the heatsink spread it) and I even put a small layer on the heatsink bottom just for kicks. I reinstalled the mobo and hoped that did the trick... it did not, unfortunately. So heres my question, is there something that I am doing wrong or that I am using the wrong hardware for my PC? Any answers would be a big help. P.S. My stock CPU cooler kept the temps at around 55C, half the amount of the Sunbeam. Setup: AMD Phenom X3 8750 Black Edition 2.4 GHz AM2+ 95W G.Skill 2GB 240 DDR2 1066 ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD mobo CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready Power Supply Part being added: Sunbeam Cr-CCTF 120mm Heatsink
Woah that doesn't sound right at all, something's very wrong. Are you sure you installed the mounting bracket correctly? Can you look at the motherboard sideways to see if the heatsink is getting good contact with the cpu? Is the fan spinning?
+1 to moussekateer's advice, both very important things to check first thing. After that, many BIOS have an auto-shutdown at 90-100C, it shouldn't even be possible to see such temps being recorded. I had one that was set to 77C once. Check for any settings like that and make sure they're enabled, it'll protect you from damaging anything while still letting you know that you are having heat issues.
I always went to the BIOS no matter what except one time when I wanted to make sure I was seeing 95C (was the first time it happened). I rotated the heatsink the other way and it was still rising without stopping and I made sure that the heatsink was touching (when I put it in the final time I saw some compound coming off the sides, knowing that there was a little more than usual). I just gave up on trying to make it work and just scavenge it for parts now because I already altered part of it due to space. This might have been a defected one or something was wrong with my setup but I do not know. For now, I just put the stocked aluminium heatsink back in because it works (55C).
Hold on, if the heatsink is compatibale with AM2 sockets, does it matter what version of the AMD CPU should be (Athlon, Sepron, Phenom, etc.)? Because my CPU is a Phenom but it is not listed with the Athlons and Semprons (I do not have the box with me at the moment, its at home).
