Symptoms of poorly cooled processor

[bigbadbarry]

I noticed my pc performance getting a little sluggish
when it has been tweaked to be lean...

no processes to account for the sluggishness...

I downloaded mobmeter.exe from my site...
it's just a universal dashboard temp guage for the processor
(a few other things)

http://barryparrish.com/mobmeter.exe

monitoring the temperature, i noticed it would gain 20deg over
nothing...
like starting a web browser...

i knew something was wrong

i looked in the case, I seen the problem, one of the metal straps that
hold the fan and heat sink tight against the processor was broken loose
from it's clip, the clip was broke, i found the broken pieces laying on
the video card

only one side was broken loose, which made the heat sink cocked to the
other side
this was making for poor heat dissipation

since the clip is broken at the mobo, i just laid the cpu on it's side
and took the other strap off so the heat sink would settle level
against the processor, i added a tad more of thermal gel and now.. it's
cooling very level, it came down a whole 20 deg.. it heats up slowly
not quickly now.

Later

 

[Larry Roberts]

I noticed my pc performance getting a little sluggish
when it has been tweaked to be lean...

no processes to account for the sluggishness...

I downloaded mobmeter.exe from my site...
it's just a universal dashboard temp guage for the processor
(a few other things)

http://barryparrish.com/mobmeter.exe

monitoring the temperature, i noticed it would gain 20deg over
nothing...
like starting a web browser...

i knew something was wrong

i looked in the case, I seen the problem, one of the metal straps that
hold the fan and heat sink tight against the processor was broken loose
from it's clip, the clip was broke, i found the broken pieces laying on
the video card

only one side was broken loose, which made the heat sink cocked to the
other side
this was making for poor heat dissipation

since the clip is broken at the mobo, i just laid the cpu on it's side
and took the other strap off so the heat sink would settle level
against the processor, i added a tad more of thermal gel and now.. it's
cooling very level, it came down a whole 20 deg.. it heats up slowly
not quickly now.

Later

Does the socket have 3 tabs, and only the middle broke? You
can get a HSF that has a 3 hole tab bracket. I have a Super Socket 7
system that I use for DOS, and Win98SE programs that don't like my
newer hardware. One of the middle tabs broke off the socket, so I
bought a Socket A HSF with the 3 hole tab bracket, and it works fine.
I just had to make sure the HSF wasn't too big to where it wouldn't
clear the CAPs around the socket.