Heat sink below the CPU on motherboard getting hot + CPU spiking at idle

[exelite]

Hi, had my System some time now about 2yrs old, been running great up to about 3 or 4 weeks ago and now.

I have been seeing the cpu spiking at idle even when i have minimum processes running just small ongoing spikes, and feel the system is not running as well now being what i have and at times games do lockup and also web browsers not responding +  programs.

To me I think something on the motherboard may be on its way out as the heat sink below the CPU has never been this hot below but the System in running?

Info
Heat sink below the CPU on motherboard getting hot, and I feel this is why i get CPU spiking at idle.

Any tips / Help as to why this may be, I did take it to a PC Tech and he thinks its ok, but as we all know our own pcs as we use them all the time I think something it up.

System Specs:

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E8400  @ 3.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
System Model: G31M-ES2L
2x GB 4gig DDR2-800 RAM
nVidia GeForce GTS 450 -1gig
Realtek HD Audio Drivers
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
500GB HardDrive
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Thanks

[jafo]

Greetings Exelite: and welcome.
I had a similar problem with my EP43-UD3L board about 6 months after I bought it.
I removed the board from the case and replaced the thermal paste on both the north and south bridge heatsinks, and my video card, I used Noctua NT-H1 paste, but any quality paste should work. Since I have done that, my temps have dropped across the board and remained stable.
You should also check the all voltages in the bios to make sure that they are within spec.
If the North bridge voltage (MCH) is too low for the amount of ram installed that can cause random lockups and non responsiveness (don't ask how I know ), after I installed ram in all 4 slots I had to bump my Northbridge voltage up by .1v at a time to make the system stable, end result was a .2v increase in Northbridge voltage to make stable. Most NB voltages are set to play nice with only 2 slots of ram in use. Also, check your timings and voltages for the ram itself, as that can cause similar symptoms. If you still have issues with the board, after this, come on back and we will see if we can help you resolve this,
Hope this helps.

[exelite]

Hi jafo

good info, thanks ... I will try the thermal paste 1st , and as for the ram, i have had  2gig RAM for yrs and just updated them new to 4x they also didn't like a pci card i had so i can use 2 dvds so i had to take it out, and it runs now, had the blue boot up message from it. :/

I will ask my pc tech about the voltage also but it has be doing it before the new ram so may just be needing new thermal paste.
I will let ya know how it goes.

thanks for the reply.

[Lsdmeasap]

If you redo the paste be sure you use good brand non-conductive paste such as TX-2 or MX-2

For 4GB of memory you may need to increase MCH (Northbridge) voltage, I'm not sure if your BIOS has this option.

[jafo]

Excelite;
Just in case you don't have your manual for your mother board, here is a link to the
download page.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3598#manual
hope this helps.

[Dark Mantis]

If it is spiking when it is supposed to be idle and getting hot as well I would make sure that you have no programs running that shouldn't be especially malware or viruses. Sounds like it's not as idle as it should be.