Overheating issues?

[Gutter Ball]

Hello, I'm a newbie here but have used Macs for over 10 at my job. I have a G4 dual 1gig system that has never really run right. I get random hangs, the system just freezes no mouse movement nothing. Today I reinstalled OS X to try and fix the issue to no avial. The room its in is a bit warm but not uncomfortable to work in. The system is in a good spot for air circulation. I guess my question is: Is it normal for the processor heatsink to be so hot that you cant hold your hand to it very long? This one is HOT, this was my first G4 system so I don't have anything to compare it to.

Thanks for any feedback you can provide.

 

[virividox]

hmmm

theres an app called Temperature Monitor you can get it of version tracker that should allow you to check the temp of your machine

i know that temp can cause some of those problems, but it could be caused by other factors.

 

[Makosuke]

Well, I have the exact same machine sitting under my desk right now, and it's been on in a cool (cold, really) room, running at near idle for about an hour. The heatsink is definitely hot to the touch, and although I could probably keep my hand on it, it wouldn't be comfortable near the middle. I expect it would be hotter if the room was warmer, or I'd been running the computer harder (I think; not sure if the G4 uses more power when it's doing something).

I doubt your heatsink temperature is abnormal--they do tend to get VERY hot these days--you should feel how much heat comes out of the back of a G5, and I've seen videos of AMD Althlon chips literally burning themselves when the heatsink is removed. Downloading a temperature check app will tell you what the processor is actually registering, though, if you're suspicious.

The freezing problems you're having aren't normal (unless you're on OS9, in which case one bad app can easily cause crashes like that). They could indeed be due to heat, but bad RAM is the most likely cause, and other types of hardware failure (motherboard glitch, flaky hard drive) are also a whole lot more likely than overheating, unless your computer has very restricted airflow or is in a very hot room.

If you added any extra RAM when you got the computer, I'd try pulling that out and seeing if it works better. Good luck.

 

[blue&whiteman]

try some silver based thermal paste. many people use it to cool an overclocked cpu without a fan. I use it on my sonnet upgrade cpu just for the hell of it. it can't hurt and will help. just be sure and get silver based and not regualar as the silver works much better. it will cost you 3-10$ depending on the tube size.

 

[iFranky]

Hrm

It would definately be a good idea to get a programme for checking the temperature of the CPU, I use a good one called "G4 Strip"...

modulehttp://www.kezer.net/csm.html

... its a control strip module and lets your graph and log the temperature over time. A word of warning, however: If its really too hot to touch then the heatsink is probably at 60C or more in which case the CPU core will be hotter than that. Even if the CPU monitor registers that the temperature is within the top end of 'safe' parameters, this may not be the case all over the die and it may still be the cause of the problem. I have experienced AMD based systems crashing while the cpu monitor was registering temperatures hardly in excess of 50C. Sometimes blue-screening with memory-error messages. An overheating CPU can cause a wide variety of errors.

If the core temperature registers below 50C (or 30C if its relative to 'room temperature' as I believe it is with G4Strip) you can probably feel quite sure its not a CPU heat issue though.

... Sorry to throw a further spanner in the works ...