I think that something is wrong with my system, and I need advice. I have AMD 1800+ XP, ASUS A7V333, 2x256mb DDR333, MSI GF4 MX 440t, etc..., system. Now I have Master Cooler for AMD XP up to 1800+, and normal temperature is about 62, and sometimes it goes to 75 when you run some games. I think it’s too much because with the same cooler and CPU AMD XP 1500+ I had 45 and 50 maximum. I’m not sure it could be so different. Also, before this cooler I had two more with even higher temperatures, 85 with “Arctic Cooling Super Silent 2000” and 80 with some “Spire” cooler. So, what can I do, it’s too much to buy another cooler. The problems are not only heating, on some games the system crashes, even when the temperature is only 62. I have the MSI GeForce 4 MX 440T card and Win XP Pro. I tested the same games on another computer, AMD 1500+ with same Win XP, and the temperature is 50 max. with no crashes.

Go to the AMD web site and look under troubleshooting. The maximum die temperature for an XP-1800+ is 90ºC. If the heat is bothering you then work on cooling down the inside case temperature. Your CPU fan can't use hot air from inside the case to cool the CPU. You will know that you have the air cooling right when your CPU temperature is 7ºC to 15ºC above your motherboard temperature.

I too am having problems with heating. I also run an AMD Athlon 1800+ cpu but am getting even higher heating temperatures. it usually ranges around 100 F. But twice have gotten alarm for cpu overheat. cpu runs on a KK266PLUS IWill motherboard that supports cpu's up to 1900Mhz and it also supports overclocking but I don't overclock. It has the heatsink and fan from factory that ranges around 4600rpm's and my case is a midtower with an 80mm intake fan and a 120mm exaust fan. I only have 384mb of regular pc 133 memory (no DDR), My H.D. is only 20gig, My graphics is only Gforce 2 mx200. Sound is soundBlaster Audigy Gamer and I also run 400 watt Altec Lansing Speaker system but amp is built into speaker system and runs off of separate A.C. outlet. My power supply is 300 watt ATX smart power supply. I don't have a lot in hardware but I do run partitionmagic with 3 operating systems (2 of windows me and 1 of windows 98. What is going to affect my cpu more, hardware or programs? Should I Buy a bigger cooling fan for my cpu? Is the one that came with it not big enouph? Also when I ran the tests at p.c.pitstop on my system it reflected my cpu load at 58% which they considered to be too high (meaning that the cpu is working to hard). What causes this problem?

Is the heatsink on facing the right direction? AN EASY MISTAKE.Is the thermo grease on don't use a pad. Are wire's blocking the air flow .Are the fans blowing in the right direction? one sucking in ,on blowing out the rear of the case and the cpu fan blowing down on thw cpu.. MA

Yes heatsink is on facing right direction (thermo is directly over processor chip) but thermo is not grease. it is the pad that was installed on heatsink in factory. Wires are not blocking airflow, fans are blowing in right direction (80mm intake on front of case is sucking in, 120mm exaust on rear of case is blowing out, cpu fan is blowing directly on cpu). cpu temp range in my previos message is calculated in fahrenheit whereas 100 Fahrenheit = approx. 44 celcius. cpu alarm is set for 50 celcius, but if the die temp is 90 celcius I must be o.k. Maybe I should set alarm for approx. 60 or 70 celcius so it does'nt become a nuisence and I will Still be safe, but the cpu workload (58%) still concerns me. What causes this and how can I reduce it?

100f=37.7c thats not overheating set your alarm for 60c and if it reches that get back to us

My heating problem is solved. I'm good to go after all. Thank you everyone for your help. I greatly appreciate it. What causes high cpu load though. should I worry about this?