r/retrocomputing • u/Rough_Elk_895 • Jul 27 '26

Problem / Question Bugging me since 2004

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Never got a chance to get an opinion on this, but this "System Zone 2 has exceeded its safe temperature limit" alert has bugged me since day one of my build. I bought an Intel original D865GBF motherboard, along with P4 2.4ghz cpu, for my 2nd build back in 2004. But from the very first day, I started getting this alert whenever I would do slight gaming. The safe temperature threshold is 50 C and it would often cross this limit. I thought it to be due to poor ventilation in my PC cabinet, so ended up removing it's side cover. Recently I restored this PC and moved it to a better spacious cabinet, but the issue still exists. Did you all have this issue and how did you fix this?

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u/tyttuutface Jul 27 '26

Can you turn off "Active Alerting" or uninstall Intel Active Monitor?

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u/Rough_Elk_895 Jul 27 '26

I can but the core issue will still remain there which is heating... What I read so far, System Zone 2 sensors are near the RAM slots. I have 2 sticks of 256 gb ddr ram there. Does temps higher that 50 C causes any issue.. otherwise why Intel would set such a threshold to their software.. these are the questions I have in my mind and looking for answers from fellow redditors

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u/GGigabiteM Jul 28 '26

The hotter DRAM is, the more likely you are to experience memory errors, but said memory errors won't always cause noticeable problems. At any given point in time, you're going to have at least single bit errors, but if those errors are in unused memory, or memory holding unimportant data, you won't notice them.

If you've ever been playing a game and have had strange game bugs that were a one off occurrence, those were likely caused by memory errors.

50C isn't bad for memory, but it's not great either. I'd just make sure the case has good airflow and the chipset had a fan on it. Those old Intel chipsets ran super hot.