Topic: Can running a spyware scan push the CPU to overheat? (Read 2388 times)

NJAntman · « **on:** August 12, 2008, 08:46:31 am »

Last night my system crashed out of XP during a scan using the new version of Spybot, tried to immediately reboot but it next shut down before it fully reloaded XP, then again while displaying the Safeboot screen. Oddly I could not use the keyboard to select among the safeboot options so immediately rebooted and went into BIOS setup to confirm that, yes, the keyboard was working. Whilst there I happened to look at the System Health screen and saw that the CPU was at 107 Celsius, seems pretty freaking hot (Athlon64 X2 3600+ Dual-Core on a GigaByte GA-M55SLI-S4 board, can't find a listing of failure temps from the manufacturers).

All the fans were working (including the replacement video card installed last week), so could running Spybot have maxed the CPU to a point were it overheated and shutdown to protect the system? BIOS System Temp warning is set at 60C.

Nemesis · « **Reply #1 on:** August 12, 2008, 01:21:35 pm »

Sounds like a good time to clean all your heat sinks and fans.

Javora · « **Reply #2 on:** August 12, 2008, 01:53:56 pm »

Any program that pushes the CPU could under the right conditions overheat your system. It sounds to me that the CPU heat sink and fan are not doing its job. A 107 temp is way too hot for a CPU, even an Althlon64. Since you said all of the fans are working, it sounds like the system has good airflow.

Try what Nemesis suggested first. If that doesn't work check and see if the you have thermal paste or a thermal pad setting in between the heat sink and the CPU. Thermal paste, I've been told, can dry out causing the CPU to build up heat faster than the heat sink can dissipate it. So it may be a case of cleaning the CPU and replacing the thermal paste. If however you are using a thermal pad, then more than likely the heat sink itself is not doing its job. I would see about a replacement heat sink/fan combo for your system. If you do need a new heat sink/ fan combo try not to run the computer until you have a new heat sink in place as letting a CPU stay that hot can damage the CPU. Hope this helps.

Dracho · « **Reply #3 on:** August 12, 2008, 10:42:51 pm »

Might also regrease the connection between the cpu and the fan with a high quality heat gel

Pestalence_XC · « **Reply #4 on:** August 12, 2008, 11:28:31 pm »

Agreed.. I recommend Arctic Silver 5 which you can get at Radio Shack for $10. It will lower CPU temps by itself by about 5 to 8 Degrees C.

You also have to prep your CPU and Heat sync properly .. the way the Manufacturer does, it is crappy and actually builds heat.

First you want to clean all the cooling crap off your CPU and Heat Sync using Goo Gone and a soft cotton cloth..

Then you want to refinish your CPU and Heat Sync with an extremely fine emery cloth to knock out the small frooves in the surfaces.. those grooves can cause heat pockets. Clean with Goo Gone again to remove residue, then wipe surfaces completely clean with high quality alcohol.. hot the drinking type, but like the 92% rubbing alcohol.. this will remove any chemical build up from the Goo Gone.

Then you want to put a thin strip of the Arctic Silver 5 down the center of the heat sync.. Do not use in excess.. it takes very little of the compound to accomplish a lot of heat transfer to the heat sync.. the amount you want to use is about the size of a pea if you spread the pea out into a line.. maybe just a tad bit less than that.. On Dual Core CPUs, make sure your line is in the same direction that your Processors.. you want the compound to go across both Processors on the CPU..

When you have that applied, then put your Heat Sync on the CPU squarely and firmly.. give a 10 to 12 degree turn left and right to spread the compound properly, and then center the heat sync and mount to CPU, then mount CPU to motherboard and then attach cooling fan..

Doing this you will reduce the CPU temp by 5 to 8 degrees C .. If you do it well and perfectly, you can get up to a 10 degree C decrease in temp..

on my system.. Stock temp with the CPU brand new ran approx 37 to 38 degrees C.. after doing my CPU up correctly like above.. my temps at Stock speeds went down to 28 to 29 Degrees C with stock cooling fan..

After Overclocking my system.. my core temp is around 39 Degrees C under load.. but normal running temp is usually 34 to 35 degrees C..

This is on a Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66 Ghz @ 1333 Mhz FSB CPU that has been overclocked to 3.86 Ghz @ 1975 Mhz FSB with a Core Voltage of 1.43 volts..

How you do a heat sync is extremely important when building a good system..

Now with the system getting to 107 Degrees C.. that sounds like a fan failure or the Heat Sync is not mounted properly..

Intel CPU's are rated for normal operation on temps up to 50 degrees C, but warranty protects up to 60 Degrees C.. Normal systems never run over 42 Degrees C under heavy load with Stock cooling Compound from Intel..

Most systems usually stay around 36 Degrees C under normal operation (stock)..

Now another problem might be the fan itself with the mother board.. if you are using NTune's control panel for setting Fan Speeds, You may have to adjust this with every system start.. the best way to go is to let the Motherboard adjust CPU fan speed, or get a software called SpeedFan and manually set your CPU fan speed to about 95%.. this will be adequate for almost every application on the market.. If you are doing High Def video editing, then set the CPU fan speed to max.

Also make sure the system has adequate air flow.. it is recommended to have an Intake fan for the front, Exhaust fan on the back.. usually 120 MM fans work great.. make sure that the HDD enclosure is not blocking the intake vents in front.. and if you have a good graphics card.. you may want to have another 120 MM cooling fan in the side of the system to cool the Vid Card..

Also Micro Fans for the Northbridge and Southbridge is recommended as well as doing the heat syncs on them up like the CPU as well.. also getting a Memory Heat Sync with cooling fan is recommended..

Preferably your PSU has a cooling fan as well.. My Ultra has a 140 MM cooling fan built in.. so this rig has fantastic air flow.. You may want to rig yous system up as well.. internal case temp on my rig is 27 Degrees C with my system overclocked with a CPU temp of 34 Degrees normal use and 38 to 39 degrees C under heavy load.. I never even get into the yellow with this thing converting Blue Ray or HD-DVD quality videos on here..

As for the software.. I use the latest Spybot S & D .. the one that just came out of Beta.. It never uses more than 25% of my CPU power on 1 core ...

Either it is locking up with your other software running and causing an endless loop that caused your CPU to overheat.. or your fan is not running at proper speed, or your Heat sync Compound gave out and the heat sync is loose enough to not transfer heat properly..

Either way.. at 107 Degrees C.. I'm surprised the system rebooted at all.. that temp usually kills the processors.. Don't be surprised if your system performance has degraded..

NJAntman · « **Reply #5 on:** August 13, 2008, 07:05:41 am »

Ouch, after reading that I'm hoping that I was just hallucinating or maybe mistook F for C. Comp seems to be working OK now but I haven't left it on for more than a few hours. I wonder if the Video card I pulled last week (fan failure) maybe cooked the CPU/heat sink combo, screwing the thermal paste; the back of the Vid card was only a few inches directly below the CPU.

Either way EVGA completed the RMA on the first card and it will be in Friday so when I go to install it (next to its replacement for a SLI connection) I'll make sure to inspect the CPU/fan combo.

IS there any way to spot cooked thermal paste, perhaps discoloration or bubbling?

Dracho · « **Reply #6 on:** August 13, 2008, 08:29:26 am »

You might add an extra fan or a larger one, and be sure your fans are blowing in the right direction. Only the fan in the front of the case should suck air into the case (through a filter), the fans in the back of the case, the cpu fan, and any optional blow hole fans (fan in the side of the case) should suck air out of the case.

Nemesis · « **Reply #7 on:** August 13, 2008, 09:40:54 am »

Quote from: NJAntman on August 13, 2008, 07:05:41 am

Ouch, after reading that I'm hoping that I was just hallucinating or maybe mistook F for C.

A friend of mine once did exactly that when calling me about a problem with a computer I had "loaned" him, it wouldn't run for more than 15 minutes without crashing. He brought it back to me and it turned out to need only one thing - defragging. It took over 4 hours (in safe mode on windows 98SE) to defrag the 2GB C: drive. Then it ran flawlessly (except the sound card and booting into Linux then back to Windows fixed that).

NJAntman · « **Reply #8 on:** August 13, 2008, 06:41:42 pm »

Unfortunately not a hallucination. It crashed again this evening and when I rebooted the BIOS showed 70C ten minutes after crash. The weird thing is my wife booted and logged in under her XP account this afternoon and left it running and it still was when I got home after 5pm. I switched to my logon and about ten minutes later it crashes. Coincidence?

Let it cool down for 30 minutes and rebooted and logged to my wife's account, temp was around 40C for core #0 & 36 for core #1. Started up SUPERAntiSpyware Free Edition for a full system scan and within 5 minutes those temps were spiking up to 73C & 85C respectively before I cancelled out. Even more worrisome is that the temp program I use (CPUID Hardware Monitor) has three temperature readings (TMPIN0 thru 2) besides the categories for CPU, Graphics and HD, and one of those (TMPIN2) spiked at 109C!

I've been logged in now for about 45minutes with just CPUID Hardware Monitor, IE and this forum going and the temp has pretty much settled at 36C for core#0 and 32C for core#1, with TMP IN2 showing 48C.

I'm now on my XP account and for five minutes now all three of the temps are more jumpy and about 1-2C higher. The first minute all three spiked: core #0 at 44C, core #1 at 43C, and TMPIN2 at 63C. Going to switch again and see if they spike on the other account.

OK changed back to the other account and the same spike in temperatures in the first minute, about 1C higher for each. Core temps just as jumpy on this account but right about 37C & 34C, now TMPIN2 is down to 51C. Five minutes later it 36C/32C/48C. Going to switch to my account and run Spybot now.

Jumped above 40C for all three doing the update, same during immunize. Now the scan, above 40C for core#0 & #1 within 30 seconds, a minute in and their above 50C, less than two minutes and their above 60C and climbing with TMPIN2 showing a spike up to 127C! A minute after using TaskManager to dump out of Spybot the temps are just going below 50C for core#0 & #1 and TMPIN2 just above 60C. Don't think I'll be using Spybot for a while, or maybe i should revert to the old version and see what happens? Just noticed that in my account everytime I start a program a Spybot pop-up shows above the right side process icons, "Spybot - Search & Destroy New processes have been scanned". Doesn't happen on my wife's account.

Pestalence_XC · « **Reply #9 on:** August 13, 2008, 09:07:07 pm »

When you got Spybot S & D, did you download it from their servers?

Here is the direct DL Link.. it is possible that you may have gotten a Beta version which did have CPU problems.. though I have never seen reports from anyone about temp spikes that high.

http://www.spybotupdates.com/files/spybotsd160.exe

Pestalence_XC · « **Reply #10 on:** August 13, 2008, 09:18:08 pm »

I'm using Spybot S & D 1.6 full release

Running scan on my system now..

CPU 1 running 25 % with periodic spikes to 75% .. core temp 36 degrees C

CPU 2, running idle only 3% usage for task manager peiodic.. core temp 34 degrees C

Nothing out of the ordinary.. I do have it set up under advanced controls.. No logging, manually went through all the files that it is suppose to scan (making sure CDilla was checked for 3D Studio Max so that it is skipped), I disabled Tea Timer and SD Helper.. always do that.. and I just run manual scans periodically, nothing automatic or starting with the computer.

everything works just great..

NJAntman · « **Reply #11 on:** August 14, 2008, 07:19:10 am »

I "assume" the update to 1.6 came from their sight as it started to load after I hit update from within the old version. Tea-timer is active on mine. I thought tea-timer was needed for detecting unwanted registry changes? SD helper I'm not sure about. Either way it was able to handle the old version of Spybot and SUPERSpyware one after the other day after day.

Semi-related thought: how do I go about cleaning the heatsink? Can I run a q-tip thru the vanes to remove any dust/dirt?

Pestalence_XC · « **Reply #12 on:** August 14, 2008, 05:21:33 pm »

Get a can of compressed air and use a thin soft cotton cloth between the grills.. blow off as much as you can, then gently run the cotton cloth through the grills, use a toothpick if necessary, and then blow the lint off.

Tea Timer is a browser plug in to help prevent spyware ridden pages from infecting your system.

SD Helper is the utility helper dll file used for start up system scans and helps for Spybot to load at system start into explorer and your browsers.. both are not necessary, however I have not seen any ill effects of them in the past.

NJAntman · « **Reply #13 on:** August 22, 2008, 07:04:39 am »

Well its been running OK again since last weekend, roughly 12 hours on straight thru each day.

The last two things I tried seemed to have been the fix. First I moved the tower just a few inches out from under the table so a more direct airflow could reach the top intake. I also removed the Spybot 1.6 install program which seemed to loading in the background at every boot-up and whenever the regular Spybot ran the CPU went hot. Not sure which one was the fix or maybe it was a combination.

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