im running a P4 3GHZ Prescott with 768mb of ram , but im idling at about 50 celsius and everytime i try to play a game it will run for a few mins then shut off , i have 2 case fans in the front pulling air to the back and 2 fans in the rear pulling air out , plus powersupply fan and heatsink fan , do i need a new heatsink and fan ? if so is this a good one
http://www.coolerguys.com/840556041566.html

is there any way to lower the temp ?

Hi,

For prescott you will need a casing with side intake fan (directly to the cpu HSF), and also fan on top to pull the hot air out. 2 front and 2 rear fans are ok.

Prescott normally idles at around 50C and when playing games can go upto 70C, so, in the bios you might want to change the shutdown temp to 75C. Normally higher temp will cause shorter cpu lifespan, but at 70C it should be able to last for 2-3 yrs.

If you want to change the casing, you might want to consider changing the CPU hsf to the zalman Cu hsf (7700), read that it could lower the full load temp down to about 45C....but it's heavy, 1kg....

You're NOT overheating & do NOT need a new HSF. If anything, your PSU is inadequate & keeps shutting down under heavy load. What brand is it? What's the wattage? How many amps are on the +12v rail? If you have a high end video card, is it connected to the PSU? This isn't related to your problem, but if your board supports dual channel mode, take advantage of it...you can't run dual channel with 768MB RAM

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

i have a side intake fan , , right now i have it pulling air in , is that ok or should it be pulling out ?

i have a 400 watt power supply , the video card isnt hooked up , its not even high end just enough to run games . all it says on it is switching power supply , the guy i bout it from at the store said it was a intel power supply , yeah i know it will support dual channel but this comp isnt for me , im building it for my dad and he just wants to be able to run some games , but since it keeps overheating or whatever its no good

Dude, it's NOT overheating!

Look at the label on the side of the PSU. What is the brand name & how many amps are listed for the +12v rail? If it's less than 18A, I suspect it's too weak to power your system. Amperage is key ingredient....

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

alright , if you say its not overheating then i believe you. there is no brand name on the side it just says switching power supply , and on the +12v rail its 17 amps , would a 500 watt power supply have enough amps ? and what about the temp, now im idling around 57-60 , thats normal ?

"now im idling around 57-60 , thats normal ?"

For a 3.0GHz Prescott (aka "hot potatao") it's not abnormal.

You could try reseating the HSF. Are you sure you installed it properly? Did you use a pad or paste? If paste, did you just use a very small amount (dab the size of a grain of rice) & spread it thinly & evenly over the core? plus rub a very small amount into the bottom of the heatsink?

You don't have to use Arctic Silver paste, but their instructions are excellent & should be followed regardless of the brand you use:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions_big2.htm

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

ok , ill try to reseat the HSF and see if it helps , i ordered a 550 watt power supply and it had 30 amps , hopefully it will fix my problems so he can play his games , if i reseat it right how much sould the temp go down ?

When I first installed my heat-pipe tower a couple of nights ago I was getting terrible results, my idle and load temps both increased over my previous sink set up. So I took off the tower to investigate and form some kind of hypothesis as to what the problem maybe.

Well, it turns out that the base of my new heat-pipe tower was not perfectly flat, it had this minor concave to it (think of a spoon), so a huge gap of air was between the heat-sink and my CPU (which is why I was getting the temps I was). One could not tell just by looking at it, I had to use the end side of credit card and lined it up from the bottom of the base to the top of the base, then I held the heat-sink up to a light source, and sure enough there it was, a gap of light in the middle!! The base is very malleable, so I just used some rubber clamps to bend it back into proper alignment. Now my temp are great at 52*c-55*c @ max load, and not to mention thats for a CPU overclocked 1.2ghz over stock speeds!

So my point is to consider all the possibilities, think logicly, buying new parts in not a good way to troubleshot a problem. I could have easily returned that problematic heat-sink back to newegg, but I did not, instead I took my time to evaluate the problem.

CHIPSET---i865pe
CPU--------Prescott 2.8ghz @ 4004Mhz 286x14
FSB--------@ 1144Mhz
RAM-------(1Gb) 512x2 in dual config @ 430mhz
GPU--------PNY 6800 16x1,5vp
OS----------WinXP SP2
HDD--------36Gb WD Raptor

i reseated the hsf and now my temps are 52-54 for the cpu and about 35 on the case , is that average for a prescott ? im still going to try to lower the temp more cause even with the throttle back temp at 75 my games are still turning off

"im still going to try to lower the temp more cause even with the throttle back temp at 75 my games are still turning off"

Weak power supply

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

"is that average for a prescott ?"

Take the time to read thru these threads & check out some of the included links:

http://www.computing.net/cpus/wwwboard/forum/11083.html

http://www.computing.net/cpus/wwwboard/forum/11734.html

http://www.computing.net/cpus/wwwboard/forum/10418.html

http://www.computing.net/cpus/wwwboard/forum/11668.html

http://www.computing.net/cpus/wwwboard/forum/11412.html

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

thanks for those postings,i read through them,ill just wait on my power supply to get here and hope that fixes it,how high is it ok to raise the throttle back temp ?

I have a P4 Prescott at 3GHz. I have two rear 6cm exhaust fans and one front 9cm inlet fan. I have a 3.4Ghz rated copper heatsink and cooler fan and a well ventilated room...oh and also I used proper thermal paste not tape.

Mine runs idly at around 42-46 degrees hich is very good for a Prescott but due to my cooling setup. On load it can go as high as nearly 60 but that is still nowhere near overheating.

If I were you i'd check the temp straight after load and see what it is. Run a game, then quit it and go straight to the bios and the hardware monitor. If it's over 70 i'd perhaps start to worry. if it's still in the 60's, it aint your processor that's causing the lockups or shut downs.

Have you cleaned the heatsink fins lately from dust? That can help.

It is impossible to overheat/fry a P4. It has built in thermal protection circuitry...it works in 2 steps: 1st, it will throttle back in an effort to lower the temp. 2nd, if the temp continues to climb & reaches the "trigger temp", it will shutdown completely.

You can actually run a P4 with no HSF at all & it will NOT burnout! (don't try this at home). I don't think your gaming problems are heat related at all...it's not even getting hot enough to reach the throttle back temp.

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

yes i have cleaned the heatsink fan , it did have alot of dust in it before i cleaned it. the temp still rises to about 72 73 while the cpu is at 100 percent , i ran prime 95 just to see how hot the cpu would get. i changed the throttle back temp to 75 so now it wont hit it but even last night while i was trying another game it played for about 20 mins then it went to a black screen and i had to restart

Damn, are you stubborn! It's a classic case of a weak PSU! If you wanna keep struggling with it thinking it's heat related, knock yourself out. I'm done...

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

i dont know what the problem is , you say its a weak PSU so i ordered a new PSU but im just trying to get the temp down as much as i can , thank you for your help

bud jam is right.....the 5 and 12 rails need to be adequate no matter how many watts the PSU is..... secondly if you want the best thermal protection then there is nothing better then thermalright and the xp 90 or xp 120 with mounting racks for the pressy CPU....my 540j with retail HSF ran at 60c and 75c load.....now with the xp 90 and mounting racks it runs 38c and 47c load

intel 540j 3.2 @3.8
2048 MB OCZ DDR RAM
2 x 250 GB WD HD
X800XL Radeon GPU
ASUS p5p800
SB Audigy 2zs