Defective Motherboard or CPU?

[eots]

I recently purchased custom built system with a Prescott 3.6GHz LGA 775 processor and the CPU temperature at idle is 68.5C and according to Intel the maxiumum temp for this CPU under load is 72.8C. I also had a problem with the onboard NIC's on this motherboard simultaneously failing when the motherboard temperature was at 44C and then returned to normal after the temperature decreased.

I took the system into the shop and all they did was put a more expensive heatsink on the CPU instead of the one supplied by Intel, but that still didn't significantly decrease the CPU temperature and at idle it was still running close to 60C, also while it was in the shop one of the pieces of RAM suddenly burnt out.

I suspect the RAM was burnt out by a bad memory socket on the motherboard but the store isn't sending my motherboard back to the manufacturer, instead they're just replacing the RAM and sending the CPU back to Intel. If it's the motherboard that's causing all these problems then replacing the CPU won't resolve anything. Which is the most likely cause of the overheating, a defective CPU or defective motherboard?

[rcdraft]

what kind of case? fans? whats the mobo temp? what are you using to measure temps?

[Ken_ver_1_5]

could be anything causing the parts to fail heat is one of them.
also check the voltage from the power supply anything over or
under 10% is not good.

[rcdraft]

My prescott also jumped to high 60's, found heat sink was not installed properly. I replaced hsf with thermalight xp90c and paste with arctic silver 5, and temps now are 38c idle to load 49c. also found this, helped me, from intel, http://cache-www.intel.com/cd/00/00/06/20/62086_62086.pdf

[AMD]

Your system is having problems because it is overheating - 44c (case temp) is too high. If there's an intermittent problem which only occurs at a certain temperature or higher, there is no need to look further. Intel states that the chassis must not exceed 38C during load. (for 3.4Ghz+ chips)

60C is the best you can do with that processor without spending a lot of money ($50+) on a high quality hsf.

The Intel prescotts above 3Ghz run ridiculously hot (They require at least two fans blowing out, and sufficient intake to bring in cooler air) - to the point that I would refuse to install one if someone asked me to do so. Unless you are doing heavy video encoding or content creation, the Athlon 64 is a far better choice when it comes to high end systems. I guess it's too late for that.

[eots]

what kind of case? fans? whats the mobo temp? what are you using to measure temps?

The case is an Antec certified by Intel for TAC 1.1 and I'm using the Antec supplied fans. Motherboard temp gets up to 44C when the system is idle. I'm getting the temperature readings from the BIOS and the Asus PC Probe utility in Windows. Installing a more expensive copper HSF only reduced the temperature by 10C, which is still in the mid to high 50's at idle. I've seen other people getting much lower temperatures with the Prescott 560.

[rcdraft]

When I was overheating, I took my side cover off and probed around to see/feel what exactly was heating up. Be carfull don't touch anything! I then bought better fans with higher cfm output. Bought thermaltake 120mm, 90mm, 80mm, and Vantec 90mm.

[eots]

I resolved the over heating. I bought a bigger case and a Thermaltake Silent 775 HSF and used Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound. The CPU is now running 24C cooler.