Motherboard Temperature Cooling Tips

The motherboard temperature tends to get the hottest around the processor which is the main heat producing component.

There are a number of steps we can take to make sure our processor temperature does not become excessive, basically a computer that is running too hot will actually run slower, and can lead to system failures such as crashes or even permanent damage, plus a laptop running hot will suffer shorter battery life as the processor fan will used more.
In a nutshell any pc component that frequently overheats will have a shorter lifespan.

What is the optimum temperature for a motherboard? This really depends on a few factors such as which components it has, but as the processor generates so much heat, cool the processor and this will help the rest of your computer to stay cooler, as a rule of thumb the ideal temperature is around 5 degrees higher than your ambient room temperature.

The first thing we need to do is to actually monitor the processor or motherboard temperature, there are a couple of free utilities we can use for this, firstly check to see if your computer has this built in though, you can check this in the BIOS.

If not then checkout an application called Motherboard Monitor, it’s free and gives you lots of info in terms of the temperature of various components.

The chances are unless you’ve been clocking your system to run faster, in which case you should employ extra cooling to make the most of the extra speed, you’re pc should be running within safe temperature limits.

Generally pc’s overheat for a few reasons, the first being the room temperature is too warm.

There is inadequate ventilation, this can happen if the pc’s cooling vents are against a wall or the pc is in an enclosed space.

The pc’s ventilation is obscured by dust or dirt. The processor is not transferring heat sufficiently to the heatsink, this can happen if the thermal paste or pad has become too dry, and needs replacing.

Extra cards such as Video, USB etc can generate heat, if possible space the cards out leaving a free port in between if possible.

Never leave USB devices such as Memory stick or external hard drives connected when not in use as any UDB device puts a small load on the processor.

To lower your motherboard temperature read our pc cooling page here

computer adviser Motherboard temperature article