The BIOSTAR TA890FXE features Socket AM3, which are used to connect AMD Phenom II and Athlon II processors and supports multi-core central processing units that function at x6, x4 and x2 speeds. The CPU -- particularly if it's x4 or greater -- is the main cause of overheating in motherboard. The component can cause the TA890FXE to overheat if the PC is not equipped to adequately dissipate heat.
CPU
The CPU -- also referred to as the processor or microprocessor -- is responsible for performing basic calculations and extracting and executing instructions in the random access memory. Because the CPU consumes so much power -- as it's the one component that carries out all of the programming tasks -- it generates a significant amount of heat. A CPU needs a heat sink and a fan to keep itself, and the components around it, cool. If the TA890FXE is overheating, the heat sink and fan might not be dissipating heat well enough to keep the processor at a moderate temperature.
Heat Sink and Fan
Between the heat sink and the CPU should be thermal adhesive -- also known as thermal paste, thermal compound or thermal grease -- which helps the heat sink to draw heat away from the CPU. If the CPU and heat sink lack thermal adhesive, heat will gather around the processor, causing the BIOSTAR TA890FXE to overheat. Atop the heat sink sits the CPU fan. The fan is responsible for circulating air; it ensures that hot air is drawn away from the processor. Low-end or even mid-grade heat sinks and fans are sometimes not enough to keep a processor cool -- particularly if that processor is using four or more cores simultaneously, or if the clock rate and voltage of the CPU have been manually increased. Upgrading the heat sink and fan, and applying a small amount of thermal grease to the top of the CPU, will help to keep the BIOSTAR from overheating.
BIOS
The basic input/output system is a program that controls how the hardware connected to the BIOSTAR behaves. The BIOS Setup Utility, accessed by pressing "Del" at startup, provides a graphical user interface that users can navigate to change how the hardware is configured in the system. In the Smart Fan Configuration menu, found on the Advanced tab, is an option to change the behavior of the CPU fan. Setting Control Mode to Quiet reduces the performance of the fan, which can prevent it from sufficiently heating the computer when running CPU-intensive applications. Setting Control Mode to Performance, however, increases the speed of the fan, enabling it to better cool the system.
Temperature Monitors
Programs such as Real Temp, Core Temp and HWMonitor keep track of the CPU temperature in real time. While HWMonitor simply displays the current temperature of the PC, Core Temp and Real Temp display the temperature readings for each CPU core and also provide information on the system's Tjunction Max -- the highest temperature that the BIOSTAR TA890FXE can reach before it automatically shuts down. You can use one of these applications to find out how hot the computer gets when idle and when running high-performance applications.
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